This morning I had the joy of meeting my internship supervisor for therapy. She and a colleague have created an amazing group of holistic healers to help with the mind/body issues we all face. There is massage, acupuncture, holistic MD, all types of therapists, all under the same roof.
Getting a tour of the office we walked into the office of a woman who works with anxiety, kids (tons of cute toys in her office!) and adults. I immediately thought wow, this is one cool office, and that woman must know a lot of amazingly useful things to help kids.
Here’s the deal. My son has some anxiety issues, but not enough to “seek a therapist.” We’re managing OK and frankly he’s not diagnosable for anything. (One of my many critiques of the medical model… most people do NOT fit a diagnosis even if they struggle with a low level of a DSM code.)
So here I am, sitting with a kid who could probably be greatly helped by this woman. But since he doesn’t meet criteria, and he’s mostly just fine, we deal. What if, however, she had a package for us. It may be a 3 session package to work on anxiety, nightmares, whatever is a fairly common set of fears for kids at various ages. OR maybe it’s not even involving the kid but it’s specially designed for PARENTS of said kids. I’m extremely fortunate to have therapists out the wazoo in my life (at any given moment on Facebook alone I have probably at LEAST 5 therapist friends, live, I could reach out to, plus married to a therapist and my father in one.) But none of them happen to be like this woman who specializes in exactly what we’re dealing with.
All the sudden my husband and I could look at each other and go, “oooh! Wow, let’s talk about this!” If it were a three package deal, say the total was $350, we could then have the conversation about having our son do this three part series and see if it helped. We would learn a lot along the way as parents, and ideally everyone is better off.
The spirit underneath the package is thus:
- We do not have to meet criteria to “do real therapy”
- We have a finite length of TIME (rare commodity) and MONEY (always a concern for most people)
- We can reframe this as special meetings for him, or coaching, or something that sets the narrative up as his anxiety is normal, okay, and worthy of extra care by a therapist who can help him with tools (vs us parents who he can try to manipulate and play mind games with)
Attend Elizabeth Doherty Thomas' Full Day Workshop at the Networker Symposium Thursday, March 22, 2012!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Even though it is short term it can still be “real therapy.” Therapy without the presence of a DSM-IV diagnosis still operates the same way, and will ideally be individually tailored to each client and their unique needs.
Thank you for your comment and I could not agree more. I put quotes around it because of the cultural baggage, stereotypes, and myths we have around what therapy is, and how “real therapy” to some is this heavy, intense work, takes forever, and is super drawn out. I strongly believe that therapy can be dramatically impactful in even one session and my professional aspiration is to continue to rebrand therapy so more people realize what it is, how it can help, and in the process lead healthier, happier lives.
That said, I live inside our culture and could not assume, as a prospective client, how a therapist operates unless they express it on their website. It is in the expression of ones professional services that more people may ‘see themselves’, or myth bust, or feel “permission” to go to therapy even for “small problems”, small being of course in their own view, not necessarily actually small to anyone else!