What Is The Goal of Therapy for Abused, Adopted Children?

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

One of the first goals of therapy when working with abused, adopted children is to establish a sense of safety and security. Maltreated children learned that they parent / caregivers are to be feared. Ironically, they appear to fear very little else. Certainly, their impulsive actions place them into some scary situations for adoptive parents and they don’t respond to normal discipline. This may be due to the fact that after a child lives in terror in their own home, what else could anyone do that would be as terrible or fearful?

 In therapy, we want to help children re-learn that their caregiver is safe and to learn appropriate dangers of strangers. This is quite a reversal from the parent is dangerous and the world is not to the parent is safe and the world might be… 

If you are looking for a family therapist to help you and your adopted child, contact Ron Huxley today at http://parentingtoolbox.tumblr.com/familytherapy