How to ensure Success in Treatment
Let’s be real. Nothing is guaranteed. There are a million moving parts at play for your loved one to be successful in treatment. In my experience, here’s what really indicates whether a loved one will be successful:
First, they need to be at the right treatment program from the get-go. If you enrolled your loved one in a treatment program solely because of insurance, your friend’s kid went there, or you did Google research and found them, let’s just hope it’s a good fit. In this situation though, hope can be moot point.
Be prepared for your own flood of emotions once you no longer have the loved one to care for you or be your caretaker. It’s like visualizing twiddling your thumbs but it gets faster and faster as your anxiety builds. Here’s my suggestion: If you aren’t seeing your own therapist, get on it. Immediately! If you need to take a mini vacation, do it! Self-care will be key!
Parents need to anticipate that within the first two weeks of treatment their young adult will ask to leave. They will know exactly what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to in order to get what they want – which is out of treatment. They’re enrolled for a reason though. As the parents, you need to anticipate this manipulation and hold a firm boundary. If you rescue them, it’s game over.
If you get through the initial shock of enrollment and hold the boundary for them to remain engaged, then you need to prepare for a honeymoon of what will appear to be significant clinical strides. No, it’s not the “one step forward, two steps back” but rather a “two steps forward, one step back.” This is a slow process and you don’t want to get overly excited when you hear how well your loved one is progressing.
As we hit the half-way mark of treatment, chances are the Therapist will broach the topic of next steps post-graduation. Never, and I mean never, is returning home a good idea for a young adult. In terms of what’s recommended, I’ll always defer to the Clinician working with the young adult. If they believe they need a recovery program, I’m recommending a recovery program. If they say a young adult transitional program would be best, I’ll start searching for that type of option. Basically, if they say jump, I jump. Not because I’m a robot, but because clinically I defer to the Therapist who has been working with my client’s judgement. I have worked with parents who have gone against clinical recommendations. You want to guess what happened next? About 99% of them ended up going back to get the level of treatment that was originally recommended, after an unfortunate series of events with their young adult. The 1%, well they are still working a part-time job paving the road for their young adult because they refuse to admit that it would have been easier follow clinical recommendations.
Once the continued care placement is locked down, anticipate some backsliding after enrollment. It’s normal. They are settling into a new environment, with new structures in place, and with a new community. Stay the course, and help they stay the course, and you’ll continue to see progress.
Don’t believe any of this? That’s okay too. I’m just speaking from experience.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
