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As our adoption nears finalization we are having to find a new therapist to treat our dd who will take our insurance and this is presenting itself as more of a problem than I thought. My daughter is 5 years old and has been diagnosed with PTSD, but we are also working on attachment therapy.
First finding a therapist who specializes in attachment therapy for young children seems to be like looking for a needle in the haystack! They almost all claim they do attachment therapy, but I am not looking for a generalist! At any rate, I have found a couple of people that my dh and I are going to meet with and have been working on a list a questions to ask. Below is a list of what I have come up with so far. Mostly I want someone we are all comfortable with, but they have to be competent in their field too. Does anyone have any suggestions or see anything I am missing?
My list of questions:
How were you trained? Were you trained to work with children?
What areas do you specialize in?
How many years in practice? Years working with children? Years working with attachment issues and PTSD?
What is your treatment philosophy and what are your treatment methods?
Will you meet with the child alone, with the parents or both?
What will we be allowed to know about the child's sessions we are not present for?
How will the parent be involved in treatment?
How long does treatment generally take? What does success look like?
How many children have you successfully treated for attachment issues?
What is your attitude/philosophy on medication for children?
Any feedback is appreciated. I want to get off to a running start and having to change a therapists is going to be taking a few steps back, so we really hope we can find the right therapist the first time!
This is a great list! I'm a licensed counselor (no longer practicing) and how I wish parents would have asked me questions like this before leaving their children with me!
I think it might be helpful for you to ask the therapist to tell you about two clients. One that has improved, and one that didn't. Obviously, they wouldn't share identifying information. What you could then listen for would be: do you hear empathy for everyone in the family system? Does the therapist have an authenticity and flexibility that you believe would allow him or her to figure YOUR family out and do what's best for you? Is the therapist dogmatic or rigid? Can the therapist admit that there was a client they couldn't help, are they humble? Do you sense respect for the previous clients and optimism? ...and anything else that matters to you.
good luck! finding someone with whom you have rapport and trust is so challenging.
Susan
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This is the link to an article I wrote a few years back about finding an attachment therapist, [URL="http://www.therapeuticfamilyconsultant.com/findattachtherapist/"]Finding an Attachment Therapist[/URL]. Your questions are nice and specific whereas some of the topics in my article are more global but maybe you'll find something that you can add to your already excellent list.
Susan W.
Thank you both for your feedback. I made a couple of modifications and I think I am ready to do some interviewing!