Even for people fortunate enough to be able to stay safely at home, the pandemic has created a lot of new challenges.
Many parents are feeling the strain as they try to homeschool, work from home, keep the house together, and plan activities for increasingly cooped up children.
So in the video below, Bonnie Goldstein, PhD, shares how she helped an overwhelmed parent find a way to focus on her online sessions without distraction – despite being in a busy home.
How have you helped parents who are feeling overwhelmed during quarantine? What has been the most effective strategy you’ve found to help them?
Please share your experience in the comment section below.
I truly believe adding the option of telehealth or video conferencing is so important for those who physically cant get to therapy. However as someone who struggles with PTSD and lives with someone who still is interwebed in my trauma recovery (someone I wouldn’t want to over hear my therapy sessions) while it’s great to have access to clinicians this way when there is no other option however in the long run when the pandemic calms and things begin to find new normal I hope in person therapy can still be a thing. Even for me just having that as a reason to leave my house and having to force myself to get dressed to go to appointments and having that social interaction it is a make or break a lot of the time in my recovery and while I feel alot of guilt and shame for thinking this way when this virus is killing people… mental illness in this pandemic is also killing people.
To Be Frank “Virtual Online Therapy is Utterly useless and truthfully waste of Health care dollars.” These are Chronic conditions started as dysfunctional emotional Patterns in early childhood, that most of us practice Unconsciously.
However for acute crisis,I will talk to them on the Phone as their Therapist which then might trigger some level of Trust through already established “Therapeutic Alliance ” . Voice gives way to true Emotions and then only I can be with my patients therapeutically. Bottom up approaches through the Body like deep diaphragmatic Breathing , Visualization , Mindful Walking meditation etc etc etc.
Patients or as you call them clients , don’t need a highly trained Therapist to tell them to light candles or burn essential oils and take warm baths .
Youch! There is extensive research on treatment efficacy (even RCTs) on camera for communication and swallowing disorders. I believe having effective treatment accessible to everyone is a therapeutic obligation and treatment efficacy is only limited by ourselves. There is no need to be exaggerated on camera. As long as the patient can see and hear you, you are authentic, and your treatment is supported by evidence you can be confident that your patient will experience a treatment effect in person or on camera!
When I run into clients who feel guilty about complaining during this time, that they “should” feel grateful, I remind them that they don’t have to choose between gratitude and whatever painful emotion they are feeling.
I frame it as “part of the landscape within their view”, i.e., when we are looking at a landscape, we choose to look at different parts of it at different times. Of course, if someone is only looking at the negative, painful aspects, then I delicately try to introduce gratitude into the conversation. If they are feeling guilty for complaining, again, I remind them about the vastness of the emotional landscape at a given time.
Beautiful image and very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you Bonnie. Well said. I have a couple who decided to build a little “office” out of an unused closet in their home for mom. We then had an online family meeting to talk about how she would use it and when so that the kids would fully understand her need for a bit of private alone time. The kids were so sweet about it once she found the courage to ask for what she needed. Again, I asked, is there a small part of you that feels deserving of a space of your own? We also traced it back to her childhood where she was always “in charge” of her siblings when her parents would get drunk and fight. Her “survival suit” demanded that she do do do and never relax. Once we were able to unlock that belief in her emotional brain, she was free to fully enjoy her little “office”. I believe she did add a candle I’m not so sure about the champagne!
Fostering self-embrace has been my choice, too, in helping struggling moms during confinement. Self-embrace with satisfaction for the multi-tasking they were able to accomplish and self-embrace with compassion for whatever they were unable to manage. The latter not to be confused, however, with self-pity!