Specialty Services
Animal Guide Cards/ Expressive and Symbolic Psychotherapy
Support and Coaching for the Transition to Young Adulthood
Attending
For those young adults struggling to make a successful transition into a fully independent adult life --- the "difficult to launch" group --- treatment delivered weekly in an office setting may be insufficient to help them create a bridge from their current situation to a vibrant, independent way of living. For these individuals, more intensive, frequent contact with a practitioner in the home and community setting may be required for them to acquire the skills and motivation to progress.
The core of the attending approach is a relationship of daily, highly individualized support (attending), through which clients build basic skills for independence, emotional regulation, self care and envisioning and creating a successful future.
Attendants are mental health paraprofessionals who are carefully selected and trained to provide a positive, accepting presence to assist the client in applying newly learned skills for coping and stress reduction, and to accompany the client in working towards goals. The attending relationship minimizes time spent alone by the young adult and provides an opportunity to improve relationship skills.
Urgent Psychiatric Care
At times, psychiatric symptoms are distressing enough to warrant urgent attention. Since in many practices, appointments for new psychiatric patients might not be available for weeks, THRIVE has established PSYC 911, a same-day urgent psychiatric evaluation service. This service is available during weekday hours only and is not meant as substitute for those cases in which symptoms are so severe that they would be most appropriately evaluated in an emergency room. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, the THRIVE Intake Coordinator will either schedule you for a same-day evaluation at THRIVE or direct you to the emergency room.
Animal Guide Cards/ Expressive and Symbolic Psychotherapy
Animal Guide Cards --- available for sale at THRIVE --- are an excellent problem-solving tool for children and adults dealing with a wide array of life challenges. Each card contains an image of a "wild" animal that offers advice or warnings based on the nature of that animal. By identifying with that animal's quality, the person can imagine how that quality can become an emotional resource they might use in a particular problem situation.
For example, Cara was having trouble coping with teasing on the playground. In a session using the Animal Guide Cards, she picked the Otter, who possessed the quality of "letting things slide off my back." Back on the playground, she was able to use the Otter image to identify with the emotional resource of letting the kids comments slide off her back and was thus much better able to handle the teasing.
For an impulsive child, the quality of the mouse --- careful and cautious --- might be used as part of a simple question-and-answer session about thinking before acting: "If you were the mouse, how would you have handled wanting to jump up in class and shout?"
Animal Guide Cards have been used as a resource for solving complex emotional and interpersonal problems that might be difficult to tackle only through the use of language, including but not limited to those challenges presented by ADHD, social anxiety issues, relationships with family and partners, and self-esteem concerns.
The combined strength of the symbolic images and the clarity of the verbal message is a powerful and effective teaching tool. Ultimately, people integrate the lessons of these Animal Guides into their own emotional repertoire, broadening their responses to the circumstances of their lives.
Support and Coaching for the Transition to Young Adulthood
Although launching a child into an independent life can be a challenge for any family, young adults with ADHD and Asperger's can have a particularly problematic transition if possible problems are not anticipated and planned for. Our services for the transitioning Young Adult, delivered both in individual and family sessions, can take several forms:
PRE-LAUNCH
- Work or college? Defining the most appropriate road to take
- Pursuing non-college options
- Deciding on the best college
- Obtaining accommodations and support services
- Study skills training and coaching
- Establishing structure and support for academic, employment and personal activities
- LIFE SKILLS 101: Managing finances, health, self-care, time
- Exploration of passions, strengths and life goals
DIFFICULTY LAUNCHING
- Returning home: revising expectations of "appropriate development" for the parents and the Young Adult
- Depression, anxiety, substance use, ADHD: dealing with the factors that lead to the problems
- Dealing with "SPIN OUT": Difficulty coping with change, emotional overload and stress
- What Next?: Revisiting the college/ employment road map
- Staying Strong: remaining hopeful, self-confident and resilient
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
- Attending (see above)
- Coming Out of the Basement and from Behind the Computer: motivation and movement for the "stuck" Young Adult
- Realistic goal setting for parents and Young Adult
- Parental Behaviors: how to support without enabling
- Exploration of passions, strengths and life goals