what to do with the unmotivated kid?--long post

[Guest guest]

For those of you who have seen my earlier posts, our daughter Lynn has made a

lot of progress. She is using bathrooms at school and in public restrooms (not

every day, but multiple times a week). She is happy in her new school and

making friends. Her mood is so much improved that I realize she really was

depressed over the summer. Her wash times (arm washing after using the

bathroom) have decreased from an hour each time (in June) to 12-14 minutes each

time although she is still washing up to her shoulders and insists on having two

kinds of soap (bar and liquid). She has even attempted to explain her OCD to

some of her new friends (braver than I was on that). Her tantrums/rages have

decreased significantly.

At this point, we are not sure if her arm-washing ritual still reflects

primarily anxiety (I'm germy), primarily habit/self-soothing (this feels good or

I'm used to it), or both, but she is very unwilling to change and very unwilling

to do any exposures to germs that involve more than very minimal anxiety. Her

ERP therapist basically said that despite her progress (much due to Zoloft), she

is stuck. Her therapist feels there is nothing more she can do with Lynn at

this point although Lynn may agree to do some smaller exposures with us. The

therapist is concerned that Lynn's OCD will worsen with stress (especially

when/if she gets sick or stresses at school increase). Lynn has also been

seeing a psychodynamic play therapist for several years due to a preoccupation

with death that started around age 5 or 6 (prior to her OCD diagnosis) and other

ongoing anxiety and behavior issues. The psychodynamic therapist thinks Lynn

should continue to see her, but

the other (ERP) therapist feels Lynn too easily " talks around the issues " , ie,

strays off topic and does not address what she needs to. So, we are getting

conflicting advice from the two therapists, and our daughter is unwilling to

continue working hard. She does have a psychiatrist for med mgmt.

I am afraid that Lynn may have to see what happens when she doesn't work on her

OCD before she is really willing to own that it is still her problem and she

needs to work further on it. Right now, she mostly seems comfortable with the

improvements she has made and feels like we are pestering her. Her father and I

have told her that if she will not do any more therapy, we will stop as many as

possible of the accommodations that we had still been making during therapy, so

that she will have to take responsibility for getting any supplies (extra soap

for school or outings, etc) that she thinks she needs.

Anyhow, just wanted to vent and to ask for advice from those with older children

or those whose kids have been fighting this battle longer than we have. I keep

remembering the quote from the conference this summer, " you can't want them to

get better more than they do, " ie, you can't make it happen without cooperation.

(mom with OCD), daughter Lynn with OCD (age 9)

[Guest guest]

We did some hypnotherapy around motivation to fight OCD ( not the OCD itself per

se) with our 12 year old and found it really helped him have the stgrength and

courage to fight it.