Helping Children
We work with a range of childhood issues from mild to severe. Our child counseling includes work with attachment deficits, depression, anxiety, neurological issues, emotional regulation and behavioral problems.
These problems often fall beyond the scope of traditional parenting approaches. In such cases, we work with parents and children to restructure relationships and fine solutions for behavioral issues. 
If parents are dissatisfied with the results of their parenting efforts, we provide help tailored to their family situation.
We are able to help most of the children who come to us. Even better, we are able to help parents pick up where we leave off after therapy is completed. We like to involve parents as co-therapists and provide them with the tools they need to help their child go forward.
Besides bringing our therapeutic experience to bear on behalf of our clients, we have six years experience working in the Albuquerque Public School system. We understand the system and can work with it.
In fact, if children are having problems at school, it is usually critical to work with both parents and the school to help children manage there.
How We Help Children
We help parents establish healthy structure at home. We help school staff establish effective approaches at school. We work directly with children on their misbehavior. But we also do more.
A child's emotions often drive misbehavior. Because children do not have the verbal abilities or abstract reasoning to express complex feelings, they naturally tend to act them out. If their feelings are negative, the behavior is negative as well.
Many professionals deal solely with the misbehaviors and leave the cause untreated. We believe that it make sense to deal with the root cause of the misbehavior as well as the misbehavior itself.
While adults are able to process painful emotions by talking, children do it in play. When we see a child grieving, afraid or angry, we engage them in play therapy or sand tray therapy. Both are well respected and powerful modalities to help children with emotional problems.
Besides, making therapy fun for children makes it much easier to get them to come to therapy, relieving parents of one more struggle. I once asked a child about his former therapist—a behavioral psychologist. "He makes me talk about stuff I don't like to talk about. I hate going there." We don't work that way with children.
The Boy Racer
A mother brought her nine-year-old son to my office. Michael (not his real name) had a large red bump on his forehead where he had been beating his head on the floor repeatedly. She told me that he would had tantrums that lasted up to two hours.
Michael had been placed in Special Education classes at school, not because of learning problems, but because of his behavior. His Special Ed teacher told me he was the most disliked child in the school. He got in at least one fight per day.
He had been diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar Disorder and was on a potent psychotropic drug cocktail, prescribed by a psychiatrist.
In talking to Michael's mother I learned that she had lived with two men, one of which was Michael's father. Both men had abused her. He had witnessed it on several occasions. In addition, she had an alcohol problem, though she was an elementary school teacher.
It didn't take much imagination to understand the anxiety this child must have felt.
The next week began our work together in the sand tray. Each week Michael would take a number of hot wheels cars and violently race them around and around in the sand.
His life was indeed a frantic and circular race, the same day-after-day, around and around, the landscape littered with violent and unexpected collisions.
As the weeks passed, he began to use water in the tray to make roads and tunnels. His world was becoming more structured. On week six he build a "time out place" where weary or angry drivers could find respite.
On week eight he announced that his car had four wheel steering. "You can really avoid those wrecks with that," I responded, my tone reflecting his enthusiasm.
On week ten his mother told me she was going to move out of state -- back home where she could get more support.
Week twelve was Michael's last session. "How was it for you in here," I asked? "Fun," he said.
Michael's mother reported that all his tantruming had stopped at home and that the week previous she learned that the school was thinking of putting him back in regular ed classes. He hadn't been in a fight for some time.
The angry red bump had healed completely. He was such a handsome little guy.
A Word About Kids and Medication
We have seen some children benefit incredibly from carefully prescribed medications. However, we see more children come to us over medicated.
Consequently, we take a conservative and, we feel, conscientious approach to medication for children.
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