Child and Adolescents

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What to expect?

Sessions...

• We usual process start with an intake phone call so I can get some background before meeting the young person, and determine if I’m the best person to start trying to engage them. You often have only a few shots at getting the young to engage with a professional, it’s best to make sure we use those chances wisely.

• In the initial consultation we spend a little longer getting a fuller background, including understanding the family genogram and the child’s timeline.

• Session formats usually reflect meeting your child and me together for a short time at the beginning to set up what we are looking to do in the session, see if anything came up that the young person maybe wouldn’t disclose themselves that would be helpful for me to know. Then the predominant part of the session with the young person alone (For children younger than 7 years of age, sometimes this isn’t needed / appropriate). And at the end of the session we will have a time to bring it back for everyone to summarise how it all went, look at goals and maybe a short question and answer with just the parent(s).

• Strengths based, interactions based to develop rapport build on interests is a primary focus, particularly for the first couple of sessions. If the child has a favourite toy, plays a musical instrument or wants to show their favourite YouTube sensation; well that’s where we start and I encourage you to bring those things.

• Frequent goals that we work towards are:

  • emotional intelligence,

  • emotional and behavioural regulation,

  • structure and routine,

  • managing anxiety and depressive symptoms,

  • exploring sensory diets and soothing techniques,

  • exploration of grading or adapting the environments if school or home to work towards goals.

  • Frequently while dealing with the above whether through conversation or through projection style play we work through particular events or themes that may be distressing for the child.

• I have been trained in Family Based Therapy for Eating Disorders, in particular for teenagers with Anorexia Nervosa. If this is the focus of the engagement, the intervention pathway, goals and intended outcomes are distinctly different to the format described above and will be walked through in the initial session / phone calls. Additionally, it is essential that we have a Multi-Disciplinary Team (Medical, dietician and myself) involved from the start.

Have any questions?

If you have any questions about the therapies, feel free to contact us.