Kathy - the things that keep us from our sleep...

[Guest guest]

> I also very much agree with 's assessment of the perspective of

some helping professionals. There are still lots who will blame the

parents in some way for their child having OCD, and I ran into many

early on when trying to find help for my suddenly very ill four year

old.

Kathy, I so appreciate your seconding this. I've run into this a lot.

In fact, I've run into it so much that now when I see a new therapist, I

say very little. I ALWAYS take my boyfriend in with me and he does all

the talking because he's unrelated and they can't say he caused this

problem, however the last psychologist tried to pull him into it! When

my son was just starting out with these problems at age two, some

neighbors in my apartment started complaining that he was yelling too

loudly and called social services to have me investigated for child

abuse because they thought I had to be doing something to cause this.

This was a total nightmare for me. I loved my son and there I was being

accused of something so horrible...something I would never do to any

child. There was a lengthy investigation that never went anywhere, but

it was a nightmare for me. I've never forgotten it and I think it's

fully capable of going much further on some of us with disturbed

children. I'm always cautious now because of that experience. That's

not something anyone needs to go through on top of everything else! I'm

like Kathy. I wish I was responsible for this and then I could do

something about it. That would be easy. What we have is not easy.

Apparently there are enough therapists still out there that don't

understand this and we really do need to run from these. When the last

one we were using starting falsely accusing my boyfriend of cussing at

my son, I ran. We haven't gone back. I canceled the next appointment

and have had no more communication with this psychologist. I'm just

glad I saw her true colors early on! So, I just want to say, be

careful.

> My advice is, if you run into one of these, walk. This older,

psychoanalytical approach to treating OCD did not and still does not

work.

Take care,

Kathy R. in Indiana