Why Did We Switch Psychologists?

Yes, you are reading the title correctly. We did switch psychologists. We personally liked Dr. Callies, his demeanor, caring personality, and knowledge of children was all wonderful, but when it came to OCD, he lacked something. We didn’t understand it ourselves at first, but we also knew that this just wasn’t the fit for our family we were looking for.  After receiving numerous recommendations, trying to search out their qualifications on the Internet, and seeing everything that Dr. Callies was asking us to do that seemed to making our home a complete war zone, and leaving Sunshine spinning from one panic attack to the next, I finally just picked up the phone and made one simple phone call. A call that I am so glad I made.

We met with Ms Hicks on Wednesday. While we were not suppose to bring Sunshine to this appointment I had no choice but to take her. Ms Hicks at first offered to set her up with some toys in the waiting room, but I felt that would not be quite a fit for her and assured Ms Hicks it would be fine to have her in the office. With Sunshine sat up with a tub of sand and a bin of dinosaurs we set out to discuss why we were there. I have to first of say that for the first time in a while I was observing the Sunshine that I am use to taking places. She engrossed herself into the toys before her and never once moved nor interrupted us.

It was explained to me that one of the reason we were having problems with the things Dr. Callies wanted us to do was due to 2 factors, the first being that he specializes in behavior therapy, and the second, to take that approach is actually working backwards in the OCD cycle. She then asked that we read Talking Back To OCD by John S. March, MD. The book starts out by giving a complete but very understandable look at what OCD is and breaks it down so that even the child has more of an understanding. My favorite part was how the book pointed out that OCD is truly a brain illness, it went on to talk about how it does make a child feel like they are so different from their peers, creating the idea of shutting themselves off from social events. Did you know that 1 in 200 children suffer from OCD, this means that your child isn’t the only one in their school, or probably in their classroom dealing with OCD. While OCD takes on many forms, sometimes two people with OCD will be so opposite that they actually clash, and their seems like there is no way to get these two people to get along, no matter how much they tend to like each other.

What was Sunshine’s favorite part about the book so far? She thought it was quite funny when the book explained OCD as a hiccup of the brain. She felt her head and said it wasn’t jumping up and down like a hiccup. Pretty soon though she did tell me her brain hiccupped. Great for some laughs to lighten the evening up from all the tension we had been feeling in our home.

Stay tuned I will be sharing more of the book as we read on, as well as what and how we are using this book in therapy.

 

Just a cute little picture of Sunshine and her very first corsage, given to her from the neighbors. She wore this corsage all afternoon out playing while Papa mowed the grass. After hours of playing she came running in crying as her corsage had began to fall apart, I couldn’t believe it had lasted as long as it did. With a little reassurance and then showing her that the neighbor, bless her heart had given Sunshine two of these, so yes, we kept the other and pressed it. She will always have her first corsage to remember all the fun she had, and how pretty she felt wearing it though it was worn on a sweat shirt, out playing in the dirt and hay, feeding the horse, riding her bike, and so much more. Now wouldn’t it had been hilarious if the horse would have reached over the fence in an attempt to eat this corsage?