First time visit at inpatient facility

[neednewtechnique]

Well, I don't expect her to come home "cured". Basically, her therapist and I agreed that she has kinda reached a halt in counseling, and when I contacted her to let her know that difficult child had been admitted, she was hoping to have a conversation with them about what she would like to see them focusing on, and she was hoping that they would be able to get her over the "hump" so that she would be able to continue progress. Her three main goals right now are to be able to gain realistic perceptions and feelings about her bio mom, to realize that not all negative emotion has to be displayed as agressive anger, and in addition, to work on better ways of coping with her emotions.

My biggest fear with the group therapy is that I know it can be affective, but the problem with my difficult child is that she is looking for verification, and affirmation in EVERYTHING she does, and I am afraid that with HER DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS, she will take all these other kids' experiences and think that the fact that she is among others with these same problems is reasurrance that she is not the only one, and will think it is okay since she isn't the only one, and that she will forget that their behaviors landed them in the same place that hers landed her....in the hospital. This fear of mine is realized even more when she tells me how much she LIKES it there, because she is around people who have a lot of the same feelings as she does, and that she doesn't WANT to leave! I know it must be nice to be around people that have the same feelings and issues, but is it NORMAL that she doesn't want to leave and that she is enjoying her stay THAT much?????

 

[Sara PA]

Maybe she just feels safe there. She's removed from the outside world and for a time, that may be just what [she thinks] she needs. If she's around people who are more like her, she doesn't have the stress of living in the world with people who aren't like her.

 

[totoro]

K still talks about wanting to go back to the psychiatric hospital and being with her friends. She was in over a year ago for 5 weeks! She felt for the first time in her life, even though she didn't quite understand this at the time, understood by other kids her own age. She felt like there were other's like her in the world. Very comforting to a kid. Only group therapy also, once or twice a week with psychiatrist. They could ask to talk to the therapist's if they wanted.