What to expect from the therapy process with Laura:

• I work from an attachment-based, trauma-informed, perspective. When working with children I work “dyadically” meaning that I work with parents and children together in therapy sessions. I rarely see children alone. I do see parents alone frequently and more often.

• My belief is that the best approach to encouraging children to change their behavior, is to invite the adult/s in their life (parents, childcare providers, teachers etc.) to be the torchbearer of this change. Thus, allowing the adult/s to remain in a leadership role as they structure for the child what change will look like. Also, since part of the focus of therapy is to help your child feel safe, seen, and soothed by you and me, the therapy modality requires that parents discontinue spanking. Spanking does not make a child feel safe and it does not teach the child how we want them to behave. If you have questions about this, feel free to ask about it.

• Some of the specific clinical models I use are Theraplay®, Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and I videotape nearly all Theraplay® sessions. (This is done so that I can review certain portions of sessions with you in our parent-only sessions if deemed beneficial).

• Developmental psychology research has shown that the strongest predictor of how a person will parent children is how they themselves were parented. Therefore, I will spend the first two sessions just with you, the parent(s). In the first session, we talk about your child, their issues and problems and your relationship with them. In the second session, I will be asking you about your own childhood relationship with your parents and how you grew up.

• In therapy sessions your job as a parent is to first be present and understand your child. Our goal is to make your child feel deeply heard and understood first. I am not a behavioral based therapist which means that my approach to behavior issues is to improve the relationship between you and your child. Research shows that children who feel safe, seen, and soothed by their parents feel connected and their behavior changes.

• Before each parent-child session: I will ask you to email me the day before our session with several good and some difficult things that happened in the past week or since last we met. Please keep the email short (less than half a page). Please note that while I will read the email, I will not respond to the content by email but I want to be aware of what is happening and we will discuss this information in our parent-only sessions. If you have specific questions in the email that you want help with, please schedule a separate phone session with me to go over them.

(For example, you could write: Good things: Michael played goalie in a soccer game and was super proud that he helped his team win, Michael overcame the disappointment of not being able to go to the pool due to rain without a big tantrum and I (the parent) gave him a back rub and read him a story several nights and Michael went to sleep more cooperatively without calling me and stalling. Some hard things: Twice Michael had a big screaming tantrum and hit me one time because I told him he couldn’t have a snack before dinner. After he calmed down, he tried to reconnect with me by asking if I would play legos with him but I was really upset, and I couldn’t really talk to him for several hours.)

• If you end up seeing me for Theraplay®, please be aware that Theraplay® is physically active so please wear comfortable clothes that you can easily move about in. Because we give children a snack in Theraplay® sessions I need to know if your child has any food allergies or dietary restrictions. My goal is to make the therapy as effective as possible for you and your family so that you can get some relief from the suffering that is happening in each of your lives. I look forward to the possibility of working together.

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