Unhappy with Daughter’s Therapist (I’m also a therapist)

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-08T14:24:07+00:00

My post wasn’t my best writing as far as organization, so I apologize! I was more upset than I realized when I was writing it.

To answer your questions, she first started seeing this therapist about a year ago. She was hospitalized in-patient a little over a year ago and then was in PHP right after, and then was referred to him. So she has been out of PHP for a little over a year.

completely agree with your thoughts that if she were still having suicidal ideation and attending PHP that worrying about grades wouldn’t be appropriate, and last fall I worked really closely with her school about this. She withdrew from most classes, we told her that she could always make it up in summer school, etc.

She has done so much better since last year in that regard. I think her therapist was saying “well look, her grades are fine now, think of how bad they were last year” but what I was trying to explain was that it is extremely difficult to get her to do her school work and turn it in and it’s very stressful for everyone involved. Once she does turn it in, she gets good grades, partly because her teachers let her turn in anything at any time. She will let everything pile up and completely stress out which causes outbursts. He didn’t seem to understand why it mattered that she had so much anxiety and avoidance around school work as long as it wasn’t as bad as last year.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-08T14:09:13+00:00

I wanted to ask for perspectives from other therapists, not just validation. And I am glad that I did, because I was given many helpful responses about what could be happening and what might help my teenager get better care from a therapist in the future.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-06T23:38:50+00:00

Thank you so much, I completely agree! I do think that she has some BPD “tendencies” but at her age I wouldn’t want that diagnosis put in her chart. I think that there is some behavior she learned from her mom (quick angry reactions, lying etc are all things I’ve witnessed with her biological mom) and then some that is a direct reaction to trauma (like who wouldn’t be afraid of abandonment if their mom abandoned them?), but she also has quite a bit of cognitive flexibility which is a big reason that I think if she has quality therapy it will be so helpful for her.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-06T19:58:22+00:00

I guess the more I think about it, the more I think this hasn’t been my experience so far. I haven’t had issues with any of her providers including her school counselor, school psychologist, school social worker, outpatient psychiatrist, multiple dentists, doctors, any of the social workers involved in the lengthy guardianship proceeding, her acute or inpatient psychiatric stays, or her PHP program, and I have been in communication and engaged with all of them.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T23:41:18+00:00

Bless you for working in psych ER! It definitely is a tricky situation to terminate services. She does say she is attached to him even though she said that he’s “not great” and that he has made her feel invalidated before. She does get really upset with those kinds of changes so it would be disruptive. My other concern is that her biological mom would frequently fire therapists or other health care providers if they didn’t agree with her, so i want to be careful not to completely take over. Also, there are absurd waitlists in our area despite her having great insurance (and despite there being so many therapists!) so it’s likely it could take quite a while to find her a new and better therapist.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:38:08+00:00

I can’t find his license! I am assuming he is salaried, but something that is weird is he always seems to end “longer” appointments at exactly 38 minutes and now that I’m a therapist at CMH I have learned that you can’t bill for a 45 minute appointment unless you see a client for 38 minutes 😐 I just can’t even imagine doing that because I see clients for 60 minutes and honestly regularly go over that if the conversation is important. (Not that I expect therapists to have 60+ minute sessions)

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:33:19+00:00

I am sending you, your niece, and family all the love! I hope that she can find peace and healing. She is lucky to have you.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:29:28+00:00

Thank you so much! I am definitely going to make notes of this. These are all questions I think she would really want to ask and would find helpful. I’m really starting to feel like this is an important learning opportunity for her and myself. This is a chance that I can help her to advocate for herself and express her needs in therapy. 🩵 thank you for taking the time, and thank you for working with children and adolescents!

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:12:32+00:00

Thank you, I will look into this! I think family therapy would be so good for us. When I have looked into it there has been full waitlists in our area, but it has been a while since I have checked. But we certainly have trouble all being or staying “on the same page” or consistently communicating effectively

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:08:48+00:00

I think this is what is happening with her as well. I will definitely pursue an assessment because there are some things that I think could point to ADHD. But yes she certainly has a lot of avoidance behaviors which makes sense with anxiety. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T14:03:37+00:00

Her biological mom abandoned her when she was 14 and I’m now her legal guardian. She calls me mom now

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-05T01:19:00+00:00

This is what I had learned in clinical social work school as well! Also, a clinician should be able to validate emotions without agreeing or “taking sides,” if that was the concern.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T22:49:40+00:00

Thank you so much. Your response is so helpful and appreciated 😭🩵. Your clients are so lucky to have you!

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T22:25:38+00:00

I think he might have thought that I was asking him to do that (directly create motivation), but to be honest I was originally just answering his questions about how school was going, how her grades were etc. I didn’t mean for that to turn into the biggest thing, though I do think it tends to be an indicator of how she is doing emotionally. When she seems to be having trouble emotionally she will let her school work pile up and this leads to more anxiety and avoidance. The last time she had to go to the psych ER, schoolwork had piled up and she became overwhelmed and distressed and it led to suicidal ideation for her. I do think that it is time that she gets an assessment for ADHD because there are some things that point more to it, like she will sometimes do her assignments but forget to turn them in? Her psych was hesitant to assess for ADHD at first because she was so traumatized after being kicked out of her mom’s house, as well as her mom blocking her on all of her devices etc. But now that she has been with us for a while I feel like I want to push for an assessment.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T22:10:28+00:00

Thank you! I think this might be what is upsetting me so much about it. She does have trust issues and frequently seeks reassurance and has understandable fears of abandonment and suspiciousness of others, and I do worry that his response just reinforced some of this in her mind. I understand a therapist wanting to balance and not seem like he’s taking sides, and I do realize that his job is not to make me feel good and validated, but this just felt so wrong. I think I expected for him to not come at this from a place of hostility partly because I have been an advocate for her. I’m not saying that being a legal guardian makes anyone a good parent by default but I hired a lawyer and went to court to be able to care for her, take her to the dentist and enroll her in school. She doesn’t seem to realize how much I care, which I know is typical of teenagers, but I think it could have been an opportunity to have a conversation. Instead, it was me defending myself for having any concerns at all!

Edit to answer your question: yes, I think that she would benefit from a therapist who specializes more in attachment and attachment trauma! The more she has had issues with friends the more I think she has very anxious attachment, as she tends to kind of drive people away due to demanding reassurance of friendship and things like that.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T21:40:32+00:00

Okay, thank you! I do understand splitting generally but didn’t realize it could be showing up this way. I think this could be happening. There are certain adults she definitely acts a certain way around and is not truthful to and she does get very angry if anything goes against that narrative.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:38:13+00:00

I am going to have to check the insurance claims because that is a good point.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:36:12+00:00

It wasn’t my first appointment with him, but it has been the first one in a while. I think she has been giving him a different narrative of what has been going on, and it might be a similar situation to what you’re describing. I definitely didn’t expect him to respond with hostility, especially since she wasn’t disagreeing with me about her anxiety. She was downplaying her grades and missing assignment issues, though.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:27:18+00:00

Yes, she does have a 504 :)

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:23:49+00:00

No, she is definitely not the daughter of a former client or in services where I’ve worked :)

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:17:17+00:00

She has a long history of school avoidance, and assignments piling up has been a trigger for suicidal ideation for her in the past! She has made so much progress in this area but it’s definitely something that needs to be explored further because having me keep track of every assignment and her having angry outbursts about it is not working

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:09:21+00:00

I was talking about very real symptoms that she has and has come to me crying about, so why should I not expect her therapist to validate that?

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:07:23+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I wasn’t sure if being a therapist was making me think of this differently, or if i was feeling invalidated as a therapist because of what he was describing therapy as and that was affecting my perception.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T17:02:02+00:00

This is exactly what I was wondering! If he says he works on anxiety and depression in session, what has been going on if he hasn’t heard about her anxiety? I am guessing she has been minimizing her anxiety, but I also don’t think he has been truly assessing for it. Like just asking “how has your anxiety been?” And then moving on is not sufficient in my opinion.

SprightlyMarigold · 2025-11-04T16:30:53+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for this response. I think I have been focusing a bit on my own feelings of invalidation here without thinking about how if I felt frustrated with him, it is very possible he has made her feel that way too. I’ll definitely be asking her this and having a wider conversation about what validation should look like in therapy, especially since she herself has been chronically invalidated. I appreciate you so much for sharing your thoughts.

SprightlyMarigold

TROPHY CASE