But I also believe that sometimes if you show someone a path and convince them to give it a try, they might find that it helps -- even if they weren't willing to consider it without persuasion or pressure. And if the path you've led them to doesn't help, maybe they'll at least decide to try other paths.
In my book, that is called "Parenting".
People who do that are doing fine already and don't need any help.
"Convince" does not equal "force" or "coerce."
"Convince" is a synonym of and carries the assumption of non-coercive persuasion.
Showing someone a path and non-coercively persuading them to try it can be a good idea.
Coerced therapy, which inherently violates therapist/patient confidentiality, is always a bad idea. Obviously, child abuse reporting and duty to warn issues are ethical exceptions to confidentiality.
My daughter, who (like me) has bipolar disorder, has therapy as part of her treatment. Two of my requirements in therapist selection are that she likes her therapist and that the therapist have principles that other than those two exceptions she will not violate confidentiality to me or anyone else.
I would never trust a therapist who would be willingly complicit in violating their child's confidentiality rights.
This is not because I believe children have adult decision making capabilities---they clearly don't.
This is because I believe, with good reason, that therapeutic confidentiality is essential to healthy progress in therapy as opposed to making the problems worse.
While I would probably insist that my child go to therapy with someone, I don't care if she changes her therapist as often as she changes her dress as long as the therapist is ethical and covered by insurance. I don't care if she sits in therapy and refuses to say a word to the therapist. I don't care if she avoids care by making only small talk with the therapist or otherwise refuses to participate.
Go is one thing. Participate is another.
She's eleven. At thirteen, I wouldn't even insist that she go. I'd recommend it. I'd nag to any extent I'd think would not be counter-productive. I'd marshall the best arguments I could.
I've found a kid doesn't mind going to therapy if: the parent is also seeing a therapist--a different one; the kid gets to choose the therapist; and the kid and therapist are clear that the parent is 100% behind confidentiality just as if the kid were adult.
Most screwed up kids have boundary issues. Most screwed up kids got their boundary issues from their parents. In most--probably all--screwed up families, their boundary issues are a huge chunk of what's screwing them up.
You don't fix boundary issues by catering to
any family member's, parent or child, desire to violate another family member's healthy boundaries.
Intimate self-revelation is within any other person's own healthy psychological boundaries--regardless of age.
Catering to a screwed up parent's desire to violate their child's psychological boundary makes parent, child, the whole family worse, not better. A therapist has an ethical obligation to "first, do no harm."
Any parent who even contemplates sticking their kid in a Program has demonstrated, right there, their control and boundary issues. You don't heal parent or child by catering to that issue. You don't heal parent or child by "working on" that issue. You begin healing by, once you've identified a behavior where one individual is violating the healthy boundaries of another, stopping that particular behavior
cold. Cold turkey, it stops right then. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever that justifies continuing it.
The
first thing a parent contemplating a Program needs to do is acknowledge they have boundary and control issues. The second thing that parent needs to do is treat their own boundary violations of other family members and their own examples of unhealthy control like a bottle of alcohol to an alcoholic--cold turkey. You don't "work on" your "issue" of stopping drinking. You stop drinking,
then continue the work that helps you stay stopped.
The third thing a parent with boundary and control issues, and a screwed up kid, needs to do is acknowledge to the kid that the parent has boundary issues and exercised unhealthy control violative of the kid's boundaries in the past, but that stopping those boundary violations does not mean the parent will abdicate
healthy, age-appropriate control.
The fourth thing said parent needs to do is apologize to the child for the way the parent's boundary issues have created boundary issues in the child, state that the child needs to learn healthy boundaries too--not knowing where they are because the parents didn't know and have not raised him knowing. The fifth thing the parent needs to do is offer therapy, telling the child that--within the limits of insurance--the kid gets to choose his own therapist, the parent recommends the kid choose one who has a firm policy of not violating patient confidentiality to the parents or anyone else, that the kid gets to change therapist any time he wants to, and that the kid will have no repercussions for any results or lack of results in therapy because the parent will be relating to the therapist on a don't ask, don't tell basis unless the
kid gives explicit permission for a particular conversation because the
kid thinks it will help him or the family relationships. The parents needs to give examples, such as, "If there's something you're uncomfortable discussing with me, just us, and you'd like to have your therapist there for support, for example, you can do that. The point is you get to choose--if you're willing to go." The parent needs to make sure the kid understands that it's an open offer, with no time limit.
Program parents will, of course, be appalled at that path and absolutely sure that it will not "work" in any way whatsoever---and they will be appalled precisely because they, themselves, have control and boundary issues. Which is why their kids are screwed up in the first place.
Program parents fail to see that while the kid
has the problem, the parents
are the problem.
It's convenient to blame the kid, in the form of saying that whatever the parent did, the kid is the problem now. And then they say that they know they have issues and are "working" on them.
Garbage.
They're catering to their own issues and staying in their issues. They're like an alcoholic "working" on his issues by downing a bottle of vodka outside the door of an AA meeting.
The parents' own primary "issue" is unhealthy boundaries. There may possibly be an exception, but I've never met one. You don't "work" your own major issue by wallowing in it.
The parents' issues cause the child's issues. You want to successfully treat the child? Fix his home environment first.
I don't know any kid with problems who, knowing that his parent is going to therapy and said parent is quietly not making a big deal of it, and offered therapy under the healthy-boundaries conditions above, won't take the therapy.
Most troubled kids love to have an opportunity to bitch to another adult, in complete confidentiality and safety, about how awful their parents are. From such a start, successful therapy proceeds.
Developing a healthy sense of responsibility and healthy life skills in someone only comes after you let them get their gripes and complaints--the justified ones and the unjustified ones--off their chest, in confidence and safety.
The Catholic Church has known this for centuries, which is why it's never been their policy to violate the seal of the confessional for a child's parents. It's also why it's never been their policy to force anyone to accept a specific priest as their confessor--although there is often significant pressure. The
theology has always been that a confession to
any ordained priest, plus an act of contrition, grants anyone--adult or child--absolution.
Hrms---now that I think of it, I can't name a single Program run by the Catholic Church or by devout Catholics. "I took those things up with father so-and-so, and ensured with him that my heart is now right with the Church and God." neatly takes the wind out of the sails of someone who would force therapy.
Hrms. That might be a great tactic for a kid who thinks he's at risk of being shipped off. Convert to Catholic, go to confession, and then respond to any demands for self-revelation with "I'd like to go to mass." or "I'd like to go to confession." It neatly protects a kid against charges of "manipulation" on a phone call to tell your parents, "Well, I'd like to go to mass and confession. Could you put these folks in touch with the local priest? If I can't leave, perhaps he could visit?"
"Why do you have so much problem with me seeing an ordained Catholic priest? The Church has more than one billion adherents. Islam? Communism? Well, last I heard the Church had quit killing people for heresy."
The Program would still be its own abusive self---but it would make it a lot harder to justify to parents with even the tiniest bit of conscience.
Priests expect to answer to the Church and God if they violate the seal of the confessional.
Julie