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Advice regarding counselling

fireloop

Hi, I was wondering whether I might be able to get some advice regarding our son's counselling progress please?

He's 13 and autistic, and suffers from extreme anxiety.

In November last year, he had to go to A&E, which was enough of an experience that he hasn't been able to leave the house for anything other than occasional short walks: he can't go out in a car or on public transport, and is broadly terrified of leaving the village we live in (on the edge of a city).

He's been having one on one counselling since the start of the year with a very experienced counsellor and psychotherapist with experience of neurdiversity.

However, we (his parents) feel little progress is being made in moving him forward and out of the state he is in.

He can't/won't commit to anything talked about in his sessions, and the counsellor's approach is 'everything in his own time'.

We fully get this, but along with our lives broadly at the minute (!), the sessions feel a bit like Groundhog's Day - just him and his counsellor talking about the same things week on week and nothing much changing.

We're paying for these sessions privately (along with MindJam sessions and various other things that are racking up), so I'm starting to question the effectiveness of the counsellors approach.

Am I just being impatient? Or am I right in questioning whether our son's issues might be outside of the counsellor's skillset?

Any thoughts or advice would be most welcomed!

Thanks.

Parents

  • I think it would be worth asking for a meeting with the therapist. What progress does she feel has been made and what does she see as the next steps. It's perfectly reasonable to explain that it is a big financial commitment and although you understand there are no guarantees with therapy you do need an idea of whether it's worth continuing.

    I do understand the in his own time statement though. With my own experience of therapy (and no it did not work) it took me so long to get to a point where I felt comfortable enough to tell the therapist anything of meaning and I have now been referred for long term therapy in the hope that over a longer period of time and without time constraints I might get more joy out of therapy (fingers crossed). But anyway my point is that although you may not be seeing progress at home yet, the therapist may have seen big progress in his engagement in sessions. Those of us with autism are often very rigid thinkers so I can imagine it could take a long time to change his way of thinking.

    I think you are right to question but not necessarily right in your answer. I think it's very difficult to know but definitely worth talking to the therapist before making any decisions. If she doesn't give you anything more than in his own time then I'd be questioning whether it's worth your money.

    Anxiety can be a very difficult thing to overcome. There is the logic that you need to push through that anxiety and do the thing in order for the anxiety to come down but often with autism the anxiety just goes up more.

Reply

  • I think it would be worth asking for a meeting with the therapist. What progress does she feel has been made and what does she see as the next steps. It's perfectly reasonable to explain that it is a big financial commitment and although you understand there are no guarantees with therapy you do need an idea of whether it's worth continuing.

    I do understand the in his own time statement though. With my own experience of therapy (and no it did not work) it took me so long to get to a point where I felt comfortable enough to tell the therapist anything of meaning and I have now been referred for long term therapy in the hope that over a longer period of time and without time constraints I might get more joy out of therapy (fingers crossed). But anyway my point is that although you may not be seeing progress at home yet, the therapist may have seen big progress in his engagement in sessions. Those of us with autism are often very rigid thinkers so I can imagine it could take a long time to change his way of thinking.

    I think you are right to question but not necessarily right in your answer. I think it's very difficult to know but definitely worth talking to the therapist before making any decisions. If she doesn't give you anything more than in his own time then I'd be questioning whether it's worth your money.

    Anxiety can be a very difficult thing to overcome. There is the logic that you need to push through that anxiety and do the thing in order for the anxiety to come down but often with autism the anxiety just goes up more.

Children
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