Stevenstwin - I completely disagree with the advice your counselor gave. Work with the attorneys - tell them everything - and if the therapist thinks that some things should be left out - tell that to the attorney as well. If you need to, request a team meeting with the attorney and the therapist to discuss. Don't take legal advice from a therapist - or theraputic advice from an attorney.
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But see, here's the problem....the attorney is only interested in winning the case. If I ask him to keep something private, but he thinks it is important to the case, you know he'll bring it up. But at what cost to the child? The risk I was facing was then having TPR go through on a child that would no longer trust me. I asked if he could be removed from the court room during my testimony, and was told that no, he has a legal right to be there. So I think revealing private things he told me would have been MUCH more damaging in the end, because he would have been left with no one that he could trust and to help him deal with the TPR. The therapist was putting the mental health and well being of the child much higher than the attorney would... I also knew that TPR at that point was pretty much a slam dunk, so that weighed into my decision as well. But I would do it the same way if I had to do it all over again. I will NOT abuse the trust of my son by taking every negative thought and emotion he ever had and putting it out their for the bios to see and hear, and hold against him (if it was revelations of abuse unknown to the authorities, or knowledge of a crimina act, that would be different. I am a mandated reporter. But we're talking here about his thoughts and feelings - things like feeling unloved and worthless because of the way he was treated, and that sort of thing).