Counsellor's questions a bit odd?

[GoldenRed]

My daughter has been suffering from anxiety for a while, and we decided to get her some private counseling. It's not crippling anxiety and many people would have no idea that she frets about stuff – but I was an anxious child and I wish now that I had been given some tools for building self-confidence.

Anyway, my daughter has had several sessions and seems to really like the therapist. After the last session, she told me the therapist thought she might have felt 'abandoned' as a child – as a result of my daughter saying she used to cry at nursery (in response to some probing questions about her early memories).

Now, I'm self-employed and was lucky enough to be able to bring my daughter up at home – so she only went to nursery from the age of 3 or so, and for just a couple of half-days a week. I guess she may have felt upset at nursery, and she can remember this, but surely that's part of growing up and separating from your parents. (And I know for a fact that although she cried at drop-off time, she also enjoyed the sessions!)

I suppose the counsellor was pointing out that children can feel a sense of abandonment and that's fine. But I also feel like she was sort of putting ideas in my daughter's head – probably without appreciating that she was never a full-time nursery child.

To top it off, she also asked my daughter if she was breastfed, and this has really put my hackles up. She was as it happens, but if she'd said 'no', what then? It feels like the counsellor was trying to make this a possible cause for her anxiety – and it could have led to my daughter feeling that I'd failed her in some way. Surely that's an inappropriate question? Or am I over-thinking it?

I would stop the counselling.
IME therapy like this can create far more problems than it fixes.

@GoldenRed She’s very young. I’m not really a fan of kids engaging in talking therapy tbh - I appreciate this may not be a popular view. I really support creative therapy for kids, such as sandtray, dance and equine therapy though. I believe the Freudian approach to therapy is really outdated, so much research has been done around ‘here and now’ based therapies like humanistic and Gestalt. It doesn’t mean the past doesn’t come up but it’s more concerned with working with current sensations and expression as opposed to going over ‘old’ ground just for the sake of it. I’m not suggesting your daughter ends therapy prematurely, especially if she’s built a rapport, but there are other options that may work more proactively with anxiety, without being too suggestive.

Thanks for your reply.
I appreciate you want an overall picture but do you not think the feeding question is intrusive? Would you assume a bottle fed child might have more psychological difficulties? I know ‘breast is best’ but when so many mums bottle feed for all sorts of reasons, is it a helpful question?

My daughter was breast fed but if she hadn’t been, I think that question would have made her feel she’d missed out on something important - and can a 15-year old process that with the same maturity that an adult would? I doubt it.

It sounds like the counsellor may be looking at your DDs attachment style as this often helps when looking at where her anxiety stems from.
These kind of questions about her early years are quite normal and are not usually intended to be critical of your parenting.

Counselling is a type of psychotherapy, as are CBT and psychodynamic psychotherapy.

I feel there's a lot of mixing up here of counselling, therapy, private counselling, mention of CAMHS where the threshold is high. If you aren't happy OP then I would bring it to an end and find something you are happy with . Your daughter liking the individual is neither here or there really. She is vulnerable and open to suggestion and will like someone who is likeable regardless.

@GoldenRed I would keep going and try not to be sensitive about these questions,they are really not aimed in the way that you are taking them , the counsellor at this point is exploring how your dd is perceiving things, often teens can have a real problem in finding words to express themselves. It totally turned my dd’s MH around ,she is now healthy and happy and it’s really important that your daughter does form a therapeutic bond. You are not in the sessions so you are never going to know exactly what the therapist says so have to let go of some control of the process. It is helpful to book parent sessions in for yourself if you have questions about their approach . Any time we have filled psych forms ( we have had psychiatrist, camhs, psychologist and psychotherapist input over the course of my DD’s MH journey) and they ALWAYS ask about birth and post birth experiences!

Here’s an example re the feeling.

i planned to breast feed DS. By three days he had lost a lot of weight. We combi fed till the weight came back (day 10) then a midwife told us to go back to breast feeding. He lost a lot of weight and had to go back to combi feeding. I was then given antibiotics a few weeks later and he had to go to fully bottle feeding. This has impacted his attachment to food. He spent a lot of time hungry and out attachement was impacted.

Most kids won’t have a story like that, so for many people how they were fed isn’t an issue. For others they will have had early experiences of having milk they couldn’t tolerate and the parent not knowing yet. SOME theories like object relations, attachment theory and some psychodynamic work will put a lot of importance on all the experiences a tiny baby has, and the impact of that later in life. Other types of therapy which focus in other theories won’t. Some teens or adults will have a family story of them being hard to feed, not settling, crying a lot. Others won’t. Therapy is a lot of exploring what the issues are and where they come, but it takes exploring to do that.

No OP, no one thinks children have more psychological difficulties if they're not breast feed

ALL of the questions are intrusive because they need to be

All the questions build an overall picture, none are to be taken in isolation

Hi OP, I think you’re taking the observation as a criticism of you: it wasn’t. It was a question to enable the therapist to explore your DD’s feelings. If she felt abandoned then that is a possible way into explore her anxiety. Ultimately she will be able to see that though she felt abandoned, she hadn’t been abandoned and that how she felt then isn’t how she has to feel now. But if you’re reacting to perfectly reasonable discussions as though it’s all about you, your daughter is going to find the whole experience unnecessarily stressful.

If she tells you anything again about her therapy, all you need say is “That’s interesting”.

In the gentlest way possible, please try not to question your daughter on her experience of, and feelings towards, her therapy. You may reinforce possible feelings of not being heard/accepted unconditionally etc.

It is entirely possible she remembers and intense feeling of abandonment whilst you recall the loving reasons you sent her to nursery. Your reality doesn’t make her felt experience any less valid. She may like her therapist because she is feeling deeply understood.

These 2 questions would really piss me off and I would be contacting counsellor to gently ask. Because I consider them inappropriate. And I too think it seems she's encouraging dd and putting ideas in her head.

Honestly you need to have your wits about you before engaging with some counsellors! Sounds inexperienced in Counselling as well as life

I wonder what the counsellor's qualifications are and how experienced they are in dealing with young people.

I agree with PP that this could be a case of looking at attachment issues and you naturally feel a bit sensitive about the feeding question. But it also feels slightly leading to me, so I would want to reassure myself about this counsellor.

This is not correct. Counsellors spend a lot of time helping people make sense of their past if it is affecting how they are in the here and now.

Attachment issues are a very common cause of anxiety. If your dd remembered the anxiety of being at nursery it is of course only right she should bring it up.

The dd liking the counsellor is really important!

And counselling, therapy and private counselling are all the same thing.

I’m not an expert on therapy, so may be way off on this…but Think a lot depends on context.

people who’ve had happy stable upbringings still have anxiety. As you say, you were a nervous child. Perhaps, an early feeling of being abandoned stuck with her? Even if it was something that a less anxious personality would’ve shrugged off.

i still remember being lost in a department store at 3 and thinking I’d never see my parents again- I was devastated. My mum is - and was- a lovely mum.

maybe the counsellor was looking for this kind of thing because it could be something that triggers an anxious response years later? I’ve noticed I can be very anxious about things I have no reason to be, and it’s possibly related to some now forgotten childhood event.

my friend became terrified of driving about a year after a crash. She didn’t think the two were related, but under hypnosis, she kept reliving the crash, so obviously had affected her at some level

To be fair, I don’t think any of these questions are leading the OPs DD to blame her mum. It may be to show that the fear stems from something that is not a worry now she’s older.

I think OP is feeling defensive because it feels like her parenting has come under criticism, but I don’t think these questions are aimed at criticising her parenting- more about understanding where DD’s anxiety comes from

I'd ask: What qualifications has the counsellor got?

And ask myself: Is it helping my child?

If she's a member of an approved body and your child is benefitting that fine.

I imagine you are getting upset as you did your best at the time,and heres this jumped up little nobody planting ideas in your child's head that she's right to feel abandoned and unloved or whatever as she didn't get breastfed when you did your best and now you feel judged.

It's not about you.
You did your best.
You love your child very much.
Don't feel like she is criticising you.
She just wants to get to the bottom of unexplained half baked things children think.

If it's helping your child then it's worth it.

And there will be a chance for you to explain why you made the choices you did and that you understand that she felt abandoned but she also cried when you left her with gran while you went out fir six whole minutes to the foot of the street to post a letter etc, kids do feel abandoned as they don't understand that letter has to be posted so mum will be out quickly or mum has to work four hours a day etc.

Your daughters feelings were real. You're just acknowledging that. Your feelings are real too.

But after you explain that she was barely in nursery compared to some kids and fortunate to have more time with you, and that now as she gets older she understands that we all have to work, then that should make a full picture.

It's ok to not breastfeed. But you can explain why too.

She just seems to have feelings and doesn't understand why or where they came from and what they mean. Once she gets the full picture tire she will have a more rounded viewpoint.

Explained myself badly, I meant lots of people are talking about different experiences of different approaches ,yes the person needs to like their counsellor but the fact you like an individual doesn't mean their approach is the right one for you and the likelability of the person might not make this obvious or might set you down a route you didn't intend.

I'm always surprised at parents who have enough emotional intelligence to seek support for thier children but not enough to accept that their children's issues will likely stem from them in some way simply due to the fact that children's live are dominated by thier parents decisions. If your DD felt abandoned then she felt abandoned. Children feel big feelings. The questions seem totally fine to me. Your dd shouldn't feel any obligation to share her sessions with you.

To the poster who responded by forcing her child to do everything with her, shame on you. What a vile response to a child being open with you.

If she is a psychotherapist, then ime, none of her questions or comments are surprising.

However, as an adult, I found those questions sometimes unsettling. Esp when it pushed me to review my relationship with my parents from a new angle. It’s not always easy to digest new information, look at how your parents were as humans (with their faults!) and reconcile that with how you see them.

I dint feel this is appropriate for a teenager though. Not when they are still patented and need that input!

When you booked with her, did you have a chat on what she was going to do? Psychotherapy, CBT, something else?
I feel your expectations of the sessions and how it would help your dd and what the therapist is trying to do are at odds with each other. I think you need a chat with the therapist.

@Oblomov24
I agree, these are questions which are suggestive to the DD, rather than discussing why she is anxious they are attempting to blame the parent.

To the poster who responded by forcing her child to do everything with her, shame on you. What a vile response to a child being open with you.
utter codswallop!!
The counsellor said by that pp not taking her child out with her she was abandoning her so resolved to take her with her.
Nothing forced or vile.