i found this dr.....cbt thoughts?

[Jena]

he sounds great. i met him 9 mos. ago before our first hospitalization, yet things were so climactic at that point i couldnt' bring her in she had to be admitted.

than i called him and we spoke again after the last hospitilization. we've been playing phone tag all day long. he just called me at 8 my time. not many doctor's i know do this.

the guy does cbt therapy, i've never had a therapist truly do this with her before. he isnt' in network ofcourse yet my gut's telling me he can truly help her.

sooo i'm thinking about trying to see how we can swing $150.00 a week for sessions at this point. i dont know how we'll do that.

yet my gut's screaming at me about this guy. cant' explain it, the way he talks, he knows his stuff. he heard bipolar and said to me i really want to meet her, work with-her, and really get this anxiety under control and see what's really there. he said my gut's telling me this anxiety is alot more prevalent in her than anyone could imagine and she needs help.

he than said ok i'll lower it to 110 a week. so anyone out there know of cbt therapy what have you thought and was it beneficial??

i want to bring her to him. he wouldnt' be her regular talk therapist this would be different.

thoughts??

 

[JJJ]

CBT can really work. Lots of Eeyore's therapy is CBT and he is doing so well now. Anxiety is/was a huge issue for him too.

 

[svengandhi]

CBT can work. I had a friend who developed agoraphobia as an adult after a trauma and she did a CBT program. It helped, she was able to go to law school at age 40 and later on became an elected official in her town.

Does husband have a flexible spending plan at work? The co-pays could be somewhat covered under that. Otherwise, keep good track because your medical expenses might qualify to be tax deductible depending on your income.

 

[slsh]

Personally, I'm a huge fan of CBT. The key is, though, difficult child is going to have to cooperate and be willing to be an active participant in her treatment.

I found a great guy probably 12 years ago when I was interviewing therapists for thank you. It was a gut reaction, that this therapist knew his stuff. thank you ended up in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) so didn't see him then. I ended up seeing him when I started falling apart. He really helped me out, but I totally bought/buy into CBT. When thank you came home briefly after Residential Treatment Center (RTC) #2, I took him to see therapist. It was a disaster. thank you was totally uninvested, literally spent sessions sitting face-first in the chair. To therapist's credit, after about 4 weeks of this, he told me that it was a waste of time to bring thank you in since thank you had zero interest in participating.

It really is going to depend on difficult child. CBT requires, in my humble opinion, a good bit of insight and the willingness to recognize the thought processes that get us into trouble, as well as the determination to change those thought processes. I absolutely think it can be tremendously beneficial.

 

[Jena]

ok this was great feedback thanks i do appreciate it. it reminds me of when the guy in portland tried to hypmotize difficult child and he said it isnt' happening. than tried to work with-her subconcious mind and that didnt' work either. she's too thick for that. has zero interest. i tried to tell him that on the phone how we tried biofeedback, etc. and he was like let me get a shot at her like she was a puzzle yet you know what i applaud that attitude after all the jerkie's i've met in the field.

ok it didnt take much to convince me i'm going to give it a try and go broke again lol. honestly my credits sooo bad from all her past doctors the best of the best i brought her to, that old Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) doctor i was going to bring her back to paid him cash also.

slsh i can totally get what you mean about that, the whole kid has to be willing thing. yet i didnt' know how cbt worked. i looked it up yet didnt' get a whole lotta info.

flexible spending at work?? the insurance is under my infamous ex h, not husband. we dont' have insurance. yup i know insane. hopefully once the parnter buys into bus. that's slowly sinking he'll offer something if not we gotta keep on fighting the state.

 

[DammitJanet]

My new therapist says he does basic cbt which his basically talk therapy and we discuss how my issues are impacting my life and how I can make changes to work around those issues.

 

[BusynMember]

I love CBT but I like Dialectal Behavioral Therapy even more. I've been to a good fifty therapists or more in my life and for me talk therapy didn't do a whole lot other than make me cry and feel a little better in the moment. CBT and DBT are both focused on how to handle stress and depression, NOT how to feel sad about the past. I find it more hopeful and more helpful in the longrun.
No therapist can help anybody who doesn't want to be helped though. Good luck with your difficult decision.

 

[janebrain]

My dtr had a sort of combination of dialectical behavioral therapy and CBT at her first Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and it was way more helpful than any "talk" therapy she had. She has a lot of insight now as to her thinking processes and she says she thinks about things her therapist said--she uses what she learned then though it took about 5 yrs for her to do that!

 

[Josie]

My daughter has done a type of CBT called Exposure and Response Prevention. It is the only therapy we have ever done that has made a real difference.

 

[Jena]

hope thats exactly part of what he wants to do. i told husband i'll find the cash she's gotta go. so i'm calling today and making appointment.

 

[Josie]

It sounds like a good plan, then. Hopefully, he will do exposures with her and not just give her homework. She should have exposures as homework to do in between visits, though.

I could never get B to do the homework so we had to have the therapist come to our house several times every week. Since her issues were at home, he came to our house.

Sometimes she was so overcome with anxiety at the thought of him coming over to do the exposures that it would have been hard to get her to his office. Be prepared for some resistance from difficult child after she knows what will be involved. It isn't easy.

After her therapist got there, he had a way of calming B to the point that she could do her exposures. She actually had more anxiety about the idea of the exposures, than the actual exposures.

Good luck. I hope he is the right one for you.