CHILD THERAPY

Every therapist has a unique way of working with children, therefore you may have quite different experiences with different therapists. For me, play therapy is the most effective way of helping young children. Sometimes parents worry that children choose not to talk about their problems in therapy. They think that talking might help a therapist to understand a child better. Although this might be true for adults, children are different. Play is a special symbolic language through which young children express themselves. I am trained to decode it to understand and address children’s worries and needs. In therapeutic play children work through their feelings and learn how to deal with their problems. Even some preadolescent children prefer play to talking. With adolescents, talk therapy, sometimes combined with art therapy, yields success.

I would be happy to talk to you about your child’s struggles and what may help him or her. However, I cannot give you the details about what’s happening in a therapy room because privacy is very important for therapy’s success. Often children refuse to talk about what’s going on in therapy, even otherwise they are very open with their parents. As a result, some parents may feel excluded and hurt. Let me explain why you should not feel this way and why children may become so secretive. Therapy room is a safe place to experiment and learn how to deal with difficult thoughts and feelings. Children may work through anger, greed, envy, etc., but they know that adults usually do not consider these feelings desirable. Since parental approval is very important for children, they do not want to disappoint you by acknowledging that they have these “bad” thoughts and feelings. Therefore, when your child is not particularly open about what happens in therapy, it might be a hint for you that he or she was doing a difficult and important work.

It depends on the issue your child is dealing with and may take anywhere from several weeks to a couple of years. Therapy is usually once a week, but in some cases more intensive work may be required.

Every child is a part of the family unit, and his or her wellbeing is related to the family’s functioning. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense when the entire family comes to a session from time to time. In other situations, individual work with child is preferable. In any case, I regularly talk to parents to provide and ask feedback and to coordinate our efforts to help.