Skip to main content

Therapist Search: Phase One

 We had a therapist for nine months of the year the girls were in foster care. She was useless. The girls, literally, did the exact same activities with the exact same toys without any more input from her on the last day of therapy as on their first. I never did understand what the purpose of any of it was. And I did ask! Her answers were fluffy and vague and almost as if she had to hide her intentions from even me. 

We took about a year off but I know we need help. I've been searching for awhile. It started with asking friends for references. That was a dead end. Then I did a big search with an online tool for finding the right therapist for you! Every single one offered to help me transition from one gender to another...not so much expertise with adoption. I did find seven therapists to contact, though. Every single one responded saying they weren't taking new patients. 

A few days ago I did another big search. This time I just did a Google search for "adoption therapists" anywhere in the state we live in, figuring it's all telehealth now anyway so who cares if they're nearby?

I found five therapy group practices that looked good. The next day one responded with typos and weird punctuation. The second day one responded saying they weren't taking new patients. The third day I got three responses. 

Two of the three agencies told me the only available therapists are men. I guess I don't have a problem with that. Wasn't what I pictured but, heck, I've met some empathetic guys who are good to talk to. Sure!

I responded by sending the following questions to all 3 of them. The first 4 questions are legit. The last 3 questions are tests not so much of their view but how they communicate. I want to know if a therapist can be straight with me. I will only respect a therapist who knows their stuff well enough to look me in the eye and say, no, that's a bad idea and here's why.

I think recovered memories are total bullshit and I want to know if a therapist can pretty much say so. I also think teaching a child to intentionally regress is stupid. And, yes, we do use corporal punishment though I do NOT expect any modern day therapist to endorse that. But, it's all in how they word their refusal that is what I'm curious about. Do they refuse but leave room for differences? Or, do they baldly state they won't work with us if we spank? 

Here's what I'm sending each therapist. 

  1. What are your qualifications (education, training, certificates, experiences, etc.)

  2. How many years have you been doing therapy and in what settings?

  3. What techniques/strategies/methods have you used in the past with foster-adoptive children and families? 

  4. How do you work with the whole family? Is there a schedule or frequency rate at which you’d like to see each family member?

  5. What is your opinion on corporal punishment?

  6. What is your opinion on regression therapy (encouraging a child to go back and act out an infantile stage if it was “missed” in development). 

  7. What is your opinion on recovered memories?

Now we wait and see how they respond!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching "ouch"

I taught the girls to say ouch. When they first came to me their hair was a mess. Snarls, mismatched lengths where sections had been hacked off, thin and coarse hair that tangled in every hair clip I tried, etc. Due to a healthy diet and daily vitamins, as well as good hair products and regular brushing, their hair is now sleek and glossy. Jane has a cute haircut. Kate's hair is growing longer every day and curling into ringlets that bounce. I was so afraid of hurting them when they first came! I have naturally curly hair and my mother's is stick straight. She never understood how much it hurt when she pulled the brush straight through. I haven't let her touch my head since I could do my first clumsy pony tail. (At first, I held their hair so loosely while trying to do it that every single pony tail fell out minutes after going in. Looking back I feel like those people who don't know how to put a diaper on and it falls off when they lift the baby up!)  But eve...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flash Fiction - Guilt Free

And this one I wrote for the fun of it. It was delicious to wallow in such a world of self-indulgence I'll never know. This is flash fiction (less than 1,000 words). Guilt Free It was fudge sauce, thick and cold from the back of the fridge, dipped in gourmet raspberry jam—the kind from France with the understated label—straight onto a spoon and then suckled in my mouth, a frosty mug of milk tremoring faintly in my left hand, to be gulped in indelicate swaths allowing a dribble or two down my front, the first time I hit her. Not really hit. Shoved. A forceful push. A push that began with contact. The contact of my hand wedging so neatly between her small sharp shoulder blades, wedging in so that I almost could not retract myself from the catapulting force launching her into the tub. Not a hit—there was no smacking, cracking, sharp stinging rebound. No bruise. She’d laughed. She’d thought it was a game. Like when I clapped my hands together as she went up the stairs, cla...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Chronic Lying Does to a Relationship

 We got through Christmas. It was fine. Jane held it together better than I thought she would. We went to an AirBnB for four days between Christmas and New Year. That was my gift to the rest of the family instead of presents. I gave Theo a break from everything--he did no meals or childcare. It was good. He got to rest and I took the kids to have fun experiences.  Now we're back to normal. The normal that is now our family. Everyone seems happy; content.  But then, two days ago, there was this tiny interaction between Jane and I that illustrates, for me, how broken our relationship is.  She's been complaining that her room is too hot. First, we closed the heat vent to her room. Then, I gave her several blankets so she has options for how warm she wants her bed to be. She has many types of pajamas and she can choose whatever she wants to wear. Her room is frigid compared to the rest of the house. Still, she complains. I think at this point it's just a thing with her--...
Post a Comment
Read more