Lack of trust, mind control, and other dark things

Ok, my 9-year old son has some behavioral issues, nothing serious...yet, maybe never will. Anyway, we have been looking for a therapist for him. We (well, he and my wife) saw one last week and and it seemed like a good fit. After one session we saw some improvement. They had another appointment today and after a few minutes of talking he dismissed my wife from the room. She refused to leave and asked that she be involved in the sessions. He is not willing to do that.
She is unwilling to leave a 9-year old in the hands (or mind) of a stranger, degreed or not. I'm sure, from his perspective he doesn't want mom around so the boy will open up. I understand that. Let's say my wife is knocking him around and mentally abusing him. The therapist won't get to the bottom of issues with the abuser right there controlling the situation. I get that. He called her "controlling and untrusting".
My wife, on the other hand, is afraid of the unknown influences this man can have over our son. For instance, my wife and I were seeing someone years ago after our oldest died. The therapist was counseling my wife in ways that were contrary to her moral beliefs. The therapist just wouldn't let it go.
So, anyway. If it were up to me, I'd let my son go to see this guy and I'd just keep abreast of developments, but my wife is 100% stuck on not leaving him alone with the therapist.

What would you do? Is my wife being unreasonable? Are there therapists that would be willing to see the son with a parent in the room? This is all foreign to me. When I was growing up if you had a problem you either weren't being beat enough, or you needed to beat someone else, you sure as heck didn't talk to someone about it

Buy him a Miata.

What about wife "out of the room" via one way mirror?
Similar could be done with skype, FaceTime with camera in the room with kid and mom elsewhere.

IMO she needs to let him talk alone. There are a lot of issues that I sure as hell wouldn't discuss in front of my mother.

I understand its scary to think of someone being able to influence your kid wihtout your knowledge of whats going on, but isn't that kinda what you went to the therapist for? Outside advice/influence.

On another note I grew up feeling like my mom was a control freak. I still have a 'tense' relationship with her, she just can't let go, has to give me her opinion on EVERYTHING. I moved out as soon as I graduated HS....

I have learned to distrust the modern group of child psychologists. Nearly all of them have a socio-political agenda nowadays (which I will not bring up). I can promise you that there is about a 90% likelyhood that this counselor is going to come back to you guys after a couple of "alone" sessions with the boy, and vehemently insist that he be "medicated" immediately. He has "severe ADHD", and will possibly hint that if you don't drug the kid up, he "might have to get DHS involved for the wellbeing of the child." I have seen this happen to more than one set of perfectly good parents.

Let him talk alone.

If she doesn't trust the therapist without her being there, she should find another therapist. If she will not trust any semi-stranger alone with her son, she should find a therapist for herself.

If she's slightly nervous to find out what methods might employed, she could potentially split the difference and find a third party everyone can trust and who has no skin in the game to potentially influence the kids behavior (scout master, family friend, pastor, etc.).

I think it is reasonable to review with the therapist what sort of topics he plans to ask your son about and what psychological methods he plans to use to help your son. That is no different from discussing with a doctor what methods and tools he plans to use before performing a medical procedure on your son. You'd do that with a physician, but you wouldn't stand in the corner of the room and ask questions while they perform surgery.

When we've seen a therapist for my oldest son (off an on from age 7-12 for ADHD, behavior, anxiety, etc), its been a combination of family and individual sessions.

Typically it would start as all of us in the room, then time where it was just my son and therapist, and finish with everyone at the end of the appointment.

The therapist would review what was discussed during the one on one session and provide his thoughts and suggestions. Later that day, once we were at home we'd have casual discussions with my son to get his perspective on the individual sessions and also get his take on what went on during the his meetings with the therapist.

My suggestion would be to have your wife put together a list of specific concerns about the individual sessions between your son and the therapist. Once the specific concerns are identified then you and your wife can meet with the therapist to discuss her concerns. He may have a different reaction if he understands whats behind the concern, rather than just seeing it as a trust issue.

If you like the therapist, or he comes highly recommended, then maybe a gradual transition could be a compromise. Start with your wife in the room for a few sessions (maybe sitting off in a corner of the room just observing rather than participating), and then gradually include individual sessions of increasing length as your wife's comfort level increases.

If the therapist isn't willing to work with you and your wife on finding a solution that works, then it may be best to look at other therapists and address these issues up front.

+1 to Beer Baron's point.

Not to say that mistakes don't happen, they are human after all, but they do have quite a bit more experience and training than most of us do. I'd trust them and make sure to communicate clearly what the expectations are on both sides of the door.

It also seems that your wife could use someone to speak with, especially as you indicated you've lost a child already, which could explain the controlling nature that the therapist is picking up on.

I understand it's going to be tough on your wife (given your previous tragedy), but she needs to give your son some one-on-one time with a therapist. Whether it is THIS therapist or not, it should be someone professional. The fact that this therapist went straight to calling her names doesn't impress me and undoubtedly shut your wife down like an emergency stop button. If someone else is available, it might be a good idea to pursue a different therapist, with your wife's understanding that sooner or later the boy needs time to discuss things on his own outside the family.

Good luck to all of you.

Having been to a therapist some as a kid and knowing several good (and bad) terapists as an adult, I agree with both Beer Baron and Duke.

Unsupervised, private conversation between the child and the therapist is absolutely vital. So is trusting the therapist. Name calling is not a good way to build trust and tells me the therapist isn't so great at propagating healthy relationships.

OTOH, just to play devil's advocate, were you part of the conversation between your betrothed and the therapist? Not implying deceit, just that it's easy to mis-hear things in emotional situations.

That borders on insulting.

WildScotsRacing wrote: I have learned to distrust the modern group of child psychologists. Nearly all of them have a socio-political agenda nowadays (which I will not bring up). I can promise you that there is about a 90% likelyhood that this counselor is going to come back to you guys after a couple of "alone" sessions with the boy, and vehemently insist that he be "medicated" immediately. He has "severe ADHD", and will possibly hint that if you don't drug the kid up, he "might have to get DHS involved for the wellbeing of the child." I have seen this happen to more than one set of perfectly good parents.

Lots of very good advice so far. It all matches up with my personal experience as a parent with our oldest son (9).

One of our initial goals was to find a therapist that our son was comfortable with and liked. Mrs. Android and I talked about it after the meeting and decided we trusted the therapist (very important step!). Once we found him we met as a group to talk about how the sessions would work. A few were one on one with our boy, a few with the whole family, etc. All in all it was a good experience. And despite some of the meetings being private between the therapist and our son, the therapist would tell us at the end of the session what they had talked about and what he recommended. Nothing was kept secret. And Mrs. Android did surprisingly well being a bit controlling of the kids herself.

Of note, in our initial meeting with the therapist we made it very clear that medication was to be considered ONLY as a last resort, and he honored that.

You can do it as a family, just don't forget that!

joey48442 wrote: That borders on insulting.

WildScotsRacing wrote: I have learned to distrust the modern group of child psychologists. Nearly all of them have a socio-political agenda nowadays (which I will not bring up). I can promise you that there is about a 90% likelyhood that this counselor is going to come back to you guys after a couple of "alone" sessions with the boy, and vehemently insist that he be "medicated" immediately. He has "severe ADHD", and will possibly hint that if you don't drug the kid up, he "might have to get DHS involved for the wellbeing of the child." I have seen this happen to more than one set of perfectly good parents.

Can't help that. I have personally seen this scenario played out twice. One which involved a young nephew of mine.

My oldest grandson is seeing a therapist. He loved the first two ladies that he saw and he bonded well with them. His sperm donor father though objected just as he was on the verge of "talking" and he was moved to a another group. These people have having good results with him and they have been a Godsend. The sessions are alone once the ice is broken. A child isn't likely going to talk in front of the parents.

WildScotsRacing wrote:

joey48442 wrote: That borders on insulting.

WildScotsRacing wrote: I have learned to distrust the modern group of child psychologists. Nearly all of them have a socio-political agenda nowadays (which I will not bring up). I can promise you that there is about a 90% likelyhood that this counselor is going to come back to you guys after a couple of "alone" sessions with the boy, and vehemently insist that he be "medicated" immediately. He has "severe ADHD", and will possibly hint that if you don't drug the kid up, he "might have to get DHS involved for the wellbeing of the child." I have seen this happen to more than one set of perfectly good parents.

Can't help that. I have personally seen this scenario played out twice. One which involved a young nephew of mine.

So from 2 instances, you can promise a 90% likelihood of something happening? Does that mean that you have seen 2.22222222222222 kids go to a therapist?

To me the first question to your wife would be is there a situation where she would leave him alone with "a" (not necessarily this one) therapist? A yes or no to this will lead you down different paths. If it's therapists as a whole then this might be tough because my non-expert opinion is that it would be hard for a person of any age to open up with someone of such influence and close-contact (Mom) sitting right there.

In reply to mtn:

OK, I exagerate, and maybe I was merely exposed to a freak of the odds. I guess my point was, it has left me with a healthy mistrust of the intentions and motivations of those who are able prescribe mind-altering drugs to children. It's the child behavioral and therapeutic "Easy Button" (and easy money for the providers) in this day, when it should instead be a life-or-death last resort. With the two cases I have personal knowledge of, there was for damned sure more going on than just the "well-being" of the kids involved. Neither my nephew nor the other child needed brain-altering chemicals.

As a certified school counselor, I will say that there is a lot of good advice here.

Thanks all. My wife and I will indeed have a long discussion about this. I want what's best for my son and I respect her stance. But we need to see if it's possible to work within those constraints.
And in response to glueguy, I don't think my wife would allow him to sit down with any counselor solo. I understand her position, but I think it's counter-productive.

Darn, I thought this thread was going to be about how to do mind control. I'm so disappointed...

Your wife is right to be cautious. Shrinks are Berkeleying crazy.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/why-shrinks-have-problems

Where did you find this statistic? What constitutes an unhealthy way? Are we only taking about child therapists, or therapists in general?

iadr wrote:

joey48442 wrote: That borders on insulting.

WildScotsRacing wrote: I have learned to distrust the modern group of child psychologists. Nearly all of them have a socio-political agenda nowadays (which I will not bring up). I can promise you that there is about a 90% likelyhood that this counselor is going to come back to you guys after a couple of "alone" sessions with the boy, and vehemently insist that he be "medicated" immediately. He has "severe ADHD", and will possibly hint that if you don't drug the kid up, he "might have to get DHS involved for the wellbeing of the child." I have seen this happen to more than one set of perfectly good parents.

That borders on dead accurate, actually. Since we're giving our experiences. That and there's an almost one in 7 chance (14% statistically )counselor will bring up sexual topics in an extremely unhealthy way. Psychologists are creepy berkeleys. Period.

Speaking as someone who had a fairly controling mother, I can say that as a kid I interpreted that as not trusting me.

We did go to therapy and she did allow for "private" sessions, but the psycologist introduced this idea at the opening meeting. I think his tactfulness and up front nature about his style helped her because she had the option to choose another and was not belittled for her concerns. It was more a matter of "this is how I work through family issues, if you are not OK with that then we are not a good match and I can recommend another counselor". No shame involved.
Sounds like things got off on the wrong foot, so maybe this one's not a good match.

Advice from my wife who is currently earning her Counseling Degree: The views of SWMBO are as follows...

It is counterproductive for your wife to refuse to leave the room. That being said, it is understandable why she does not want to. Her previous experience sounds unethical and never should have happened. One way to work on trusting the therapist to not go against your morals as parents is to ask the therapist. Explain to the therapist your previous experience and what your moral belief system is. Ask them if they will have any issues respecting this and counseling your son in that manner. If they cannot respect your beliefs, then you should find someone else. It is not atypical to have a parent in the room, but that tends to only be for the beginning or end of the session for 5-10 minutes to discuss any issues/progress/etc. Maybe working with the therapist to ensure that time period is available for her to voice her concerns, etc. throughout the week would help her to feel like she is an active part of the process. If she is willing to be open and honest with the therapist and they are willing to work around her concerns, then hopefully she will allow your son to be alone with the therapist, which is necessary for him to get the most out of the experience. Lastly, while this does not seem to be an issue for you at the moment, just a reminder, the therapist can recommend you speak to your son's primary care physician or a psychiatrist regarding medications, but they cannot force you to choose that for your child. Medication is not a replacement for therapy; it is merely an aid during difficult times that are not manageable without this extra support.

I went through some family counseling as a child, and the therapist saw me separate from my parents for a portion of the session. The therapy is for the child, and there are a lot of issues a child will not discuss around their parent. A 9 year old is old enough to have a lot of filters built up, believe it or not. Especially one that's had a loss in the family as major as a sibling. They will not discuss things freely with the mother in the room.

Now whether that therapist is the right choice is a separate question. He should have brought up the alone time and made sure it was okay before just asking your wife to leave the room. I doubt he called her controlling, he probably used a more medical term that your wife interpreted that way. That's easy for her to do given the emotional charge of the situation.

There's no way for me to tell you how to handle the situation with your wife. That is tough. But know it's unlikely that you will make real progress with your son's behavior without him seeing a therapist alone, somehow. Parenting is never simple, is it? Mine just turned one a month ago, so I have so many complicated and difficult decisions ahead of me!!

WildScotsRacing wrote: In reply to mtn: OK, I exagerate, and maybe I was merely exposed to a freak of the odds. I guess my point was, it has left me with a healthy mistrust of the intentions and motivations of those who are able prescribe mind-altering drugs to children. It's the child behavioral and therapeutic "Easy Button" (and easy money for the providers) in this day, when it should instead be a life-or-death last resort. With the two cases I have personal knowledge of, there was for damned sure more going on than just the "well-being" of the kids involved. Neither my nephew nor the other child needed brain-altering chemicals.

Psychologists can not prescribe medications except in three states: New Mexico, Illinois, and Lousiana, and even there only after completing specific certification work that is extensive. So it's unlikely that a psychologist ever claimed that your nephew "had" to be medicated. Even just to become a Psychologist anywhere in the US requires a doctorate and thousands of hours of supervised clinical work. Yet somehow from completely outside the therapist/patient relationship you are able to divine exactly what this kid supposedly doesn't need. Sorry but that's absurd. I suppose you can also tell by the status of your family relationship whether someone needs surgery for brain cancer.

"No niece of mine ever had a brain tumor and they ain't gonna start now!"

Mental health is a serious issue and there are so many armchair quarterbacks on it that have no idea what they're talking about. Case in point here. You wouldn't try to out-expert people in other fields so why do it here? Find someone you trust and actually trust them. An anecdote about some idiot psychologist that did what idiots do is not enough to discredit an entire field of study.