Therapy has been a confusing in-and-out situation for us from the start.

What kind of therapy? How do you know if it is helping or not? How often should your kid go?

I tried a lot of therapy in my rough years. I saw a psychiatrist, counselors, and even a hypnotherapist. During my first marriage I was a mess, married to an alcoholic who regularly abandoned me, I was dependent on marijuana and raising a child on my own (well, I had grandmas helping a lot) but it was pretty bad. I did not know I had Asperger’s at the time and instead, all of it put together: drug use, stress, bad diet, abuse, abandonment, and Asperger’s (complete with regular over-stimulation and melt-downs I did not understand) came across as a kind of weird mental illness that no one could really narrow down or give a name that stuck for very long.

Medications came and went but nothing really seemed to make me better, only worse. The only thing that kept me from going completely over the edge at the time was the marijuana, because I was a sick person and I needed some sort of medicinal help. This was the most natural and most stabilizing of my options.

But therapy… it never helped me one lick. (I learned as I aged that this is because only some personalities benefit from talking out their problems with others, and mine is one that does not). Anyway, I eventually quit everything and started over. The marriage ended. I quit all medications and all drugs. I quit seeing doctors and listening to the latest opinion on what kinds of names people thought they should call whatever it was I was going through. I quit therapy. I cleansed myself of it all and focused on only two main things:

1: Building healthy quality relationships: mainly with my son, my new husband, and with God.

2: Cleansing my life of things that were toxic or were having a toxic effect on me. This was focused mainly on eating a simple organic diet, and creating a calm peaceful environment in which to live. As an Aspy, these things had miraculous effects. I had removed triggers and stopped over-stressing myself.

The healing came.

As our son entered our lives, we were faced with a big decision. What do we do about therapy for him?

I knew that typical American therapeutic intervention had not brought healing to me, personally. But I did not know what my boy needed. So we took him to counselors. But it seemed to make him worse in some ways and we never saw any real benefit from it. He hated going, he fought us, and then it almost seemed to reinforce to him: you are different, you are flawed, you are set apart. He knew his friends weren’t in therapy. So this meant, of course, that he was somehow different from them. Broken. Repeatedly forced by “the system” to do things other kids didn’t have to do.

Then there would be times when he would play us against the therapist. For one example: My therapist says you shouldn’t take my phone away because my music is one of my coping mechanisms…

Even though the therapist was never actually undermining us, it was being misperceived, something still just felt off about the whole thing. Like, is this really doing enough good to be worth it right now? I needed to step back and reevaluate for awhile. Because deep down, I knew, both from wisdom’s standpoint, and also from my own experience, that therapy can be good for some people at the right time for specific reasons. But not just for the sake of ticking it off of on a list of things to do.

And in this case, I knew, we were his therapy.

We were the ones that were bonding deeply with him, walking him through the everyday difficulties, soothing him when he was hurting, talking about nightmares and hard memories and past traumas.

We were the ones he trusted and knew, who helped him navigate his reemerging relationship with his birth-mom who is doing really great at this point in her life. And with his siblings that he can’t live with and misses terribly.

We were the ones helping him get physically and, in the process, mentally healthy with everyday lifestyle, including whole food, plenty of water, vitamins, good sleep, love and affection.

We were his therapists.

How was this one guy he saw for one hour every two weeks ever going to do anything better than that? If he was, then we would be all for it. But in this case, it just seemed to fall flat.

We took him out of therapy and just resumed normal life, trying to make him feel as normal as possible. He went to school, had a large group of friends, a very active social life, and a very loving home life. We went to church, and went out as a family, had game nights, and family dinners and spent hours talking and laughing. This was his therapy. And he thrived.

But we didn’t want to be closed-minded. And of course he was still struggling with anger and trauma. So after some time had passed we tried again. We went back. He was not particularly fond of his previous therapist so we found another one that came highly recommended to us as a great personality for bonding with teen boys.

After one visit, he regressed instantly. Slumped over in the seat beside me the whole way there and back. Slumped in the chair in the office, looking like he was being called back to his old way of life, court and therapists and meetings and appointments, the life of a foster kid. It was as if he was a redeemed person having to go back and face the old self he had left behind. I knew, in taking him back there, we had reminded him of the old Jack, the past, and it felt like going there was harmful to him, not helpful. He had a new name now, a new life. He was developing a new identity, and the reality was quickly catching up. It was time to move forward and, for now, not look at the old. Not look back. Let him resume the act of forging ahead, a brand new person. Not a foster kid in therapy anymore. A regular kid who had a regular family and a regular life.

Around this time I started reading the book The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog. Incredible book. I recommend anyone who is raising a child with trauma to read this book.

I just about fell off my chair when I got to this part…

Dr Bruce Perry, child psychiatrist writes, “For people whose memories don’t negatively affect them in their present, pressuring them to focus on them may actually do harm… In one study we conducted in the mid-1990s, we found that children with supportive families who were assigned to therapy to discuss trauma were more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder than those whose parents were told to bring them in only if they observed specific symptoms. The hour per week that the children assigned to therapy spent focusing on their symptoms exacerbated them, rather than exorcised them. Each week, in the days prior to their therapy session, these children would begin thinking about their trauma; each week the children would have to leave school or extracurricular activities to travel to the clinic for therapy. In some cases children became hyperaware of their normal stress reactions, keeping tabs of every blip so they’d have something to say to the therapist. This disrupted their lives and increased, rather than decreased their stress…”

He goes on to say, “… no one should be pushed to discuss trauma if they do not wish to do so. If a child is surrounded by sensitive, caring adults, the timing, duration, and intensity of small therapeutic moments can be titrated by the child…. the same principals hold for all children dealing with loss and trauma living in a healthy social support system.”

I could not believe it. This doctor who has more than forty years of experience with children and trauma, was putting into words the exact questions and feelings and conclusions I was putting together watching my son through his own therapeutic experiences.

I want to be very careful here, to say that I am not giving personal advice about whether or not a child should or should not be in therapy. Rather, I am sharing my own experience and how my child personally thrived.

If he ever came to me and said, I want to go to therapy, then this would be exactly what we would help him do. But as it was, and as it had been with him, it was clear to me that his therapy was taking place already, within our home, within our love, within relationship with us that was deepening every day. And then a very experienced and educated Doctor was able to confirm my decision and intuition, giving me even more resolve and peace in the matter.

Dr. Perry shares later in the book about a young boy who was being ostracized at school by his peers for being different because he was developmentally delayed and so he acted much younger than his classmates. Dr. Perry was able to give a talk to this boy’s class and explained what a delay meant and that Peter needed help catching up, and would they help him? Immediately Peter became popular and loved and understood, he made many friends.

Dr. Perry writes, “The results were rapid: almost immediately he stopped having tantrums and outbursts, probably because what had prompted them was frustration, a sense of rejection and feeling misunderstood… His peers and his family healed him by creating a rich social world, a nurturing community… The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love… My experience, as well as the research suggests that the most important healing experiences in the lives of traumatized children do not occur in therapy itself… Of course, medications can help relieve symptoms and talking to a therapist can be incredibly useful. But healing and recovery are impossible- even with the best medications and therapy in the world- without lasting, caring connections to others. Indeed, at heart it is the relationship with the therapist, not primarily his or her methods or words of wisdom, that allows therapy to work.”

I recently began seeing a therapist myself. I am doing EMDR therapy every two weeks. It is the exact right time for me, the exact right therapist, and the exact right type of therapy. It is important that we do not simply go through the motions of what we think we should do, rather than truly stepping back to evaluate if it fits into the perfect social support system that is needed right now, in this time of one’s life to bring the right connections for healing.

As long as the goal and the result is that relationships are being built and deepened, that the child is being nurtured in the right ways, and that the child is being supported by an excellent group of people, peers and mentors, and that the child is not ever forced to focus on trauma when they are not ready, then that child will be receiving the therapeutic benefits of healing as a result. Trauma will naturally come up and the child will seek support from someone he or she trusts once they feel safe enough to do so.

For my Jack, it was clear what he personally needed. He needed to feel normal, to be affirmed as normal, to fit in and to develop the trust and safety of many deep relationships. In these he can, in his own way and in his own time, talk through the past. But largely, he can simply leave it behind.

And now, as we have finally moved into the season of seeing the fruit of this healing and transformation… Oh the reward! We are seeing a more healthy boy every day, capable of managing his emotions, developing and growing rapidly, feeling safe and secure and loved, feeling like an amazing person who fits into society and loves life.

This is therapy. Find it in whatever way your family needs it.

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