Mental Health Support
The Mental Health (MH) program at Developmental FX offers psychological support and counseling via highly individualized interventions for children and families with a wide range of neurodevelopmental and emotional needs. Mental health therapy helps children identify, name, and gain control of their feelings so they can use their “smart brains” to solve their problems and advocate for any help they may need.
Feeling Heard & Understood
With their DFX Mental Health (MH) therapist, children may learn to feel comfortable exploring their feelings, understanding what those feelings mean and the reason why they respond the way they do when grappling with emotions. As with other therapies offered at DFX, our therapists make MH therapy fun and engaging, meeting a child where they are and using the power of connection and play to help the child feel heard and understood.
Why might we consider mental health therapy for our child?
There are many reasons that a family would seek out MH therapy, but most commonly, it is because the family is concerned for their child’s wellbeing. The mental health therapy we offer for young children is designed to support them in understanding and articulating “big feelings” and uncovering relational dynamics that may be contributing to or causing challenging behaviors. It works to support a child’s understanding of their feelings and find a new way to respond to their feelings.
There are many reasons that a family would seek out MH therapy, but most commonly, it is because the family is concerned for their child’s wellbeing. The mental health therapy we offer for children is designed to support them in understanding and articulating “big feelings” and uncovering relational dynamics that may be contributing to or causing challenging behaviors. It works to support a child’s understanding of their feelings and find a new way to respond to their feelings and build healthy tools for managing stressors.
At DFX, we believe that caregivers play a critical role in the therapy process and we often support parents through coaching and/or direct sessions with the therapist (either alone with you or in the session with your child). When caregivers learn to use the same therapy tools that their child practices during sessions, they may feel confident in supporting their child at home and this reinforces the techniques the child is learning in their therapy sessions. It can also be helpful to explore the relational dynamics between you and your child and how these dynamics show up in the home. During caregiver coaching and education sessions, DFX’s MH therapist may explain the reasons why a child may be struggling and use research-based information about how the human brain and body respond when under stress, and ways the caregiver can provide support to ease the stress response. Caregivers may increase their understanding and skills in supporting their children’s needs and help them to become more resilient.
The course of therapy is different for all children. Some children need only a handful of sessions (4-8) to build skills and show improvement in the struggles that brought them to therapy. Other children need longer to work through their struggles and might attend therapy for 6-12 months, or even longer. Many children show improvement in the first few weeks or months of therapy and continue to improve as time goes on, which may lead to less frequent sessions.
Absolutely not! Noticing that things are not right and taking the steps to help your child shows your love and commitment to your child. Many things contribute to a child’s need for therapy and help, and even if the parent/caregiver dynamic is explored in therapy, it is only to help you understand the relational dynamic between you and your child and ways to begin a shift in that dynamic. Parenting/caring for children is a hard job, and with complex kids, everyone can use a little support.
Talking to your child about why he/she is seeing a therapist can be hard and requires a balance of age-appropriate information and honesty about the struggles you are experiencing. You can focus on the positive aspects of how therapy can help your child and the family as well as how therapy will help your child learn new ways to cope with their feelings and tricky situations. You can let your child know that many people benefit from therapy, just like they might see a doctor for physical health and that there is nothing wrong in getting a little help sometimes. Your child may also feel better knowing they will have a safe place, without judgment, to talk about the hard things in their life. And, of course, let them know that they will get to play and have fun while learning about their feelings.
Mental Health Therapy FAQs
Can parents/caregivers be involved in mental health therapy?
At DFX, we believe that caregivers play a critical role in the therapy process and we often support them through coaching and/or direct sessions with the therapist. When caregivers learn to use the same therapy tools that their child practices during sessions, they may feel confident in supporting their child at home and this reinforces the techniques the child is learning in their therapy sessions. During caregiver coaching and education sessions, DFX’s MH therapist may explain the reasons why a child may be struggling and use research-based information about how human brains and bodies respond when under stress. Caregivers may increase their understanding and skills in supporting their children’s needs and help them to become more resilient.
