Serendipitously, shortly after completing my training, I got the opportunity to work with a family who were ideal candidates for SPACE. 9 Year old child with contamination OCD, parents engaged in extreme accommodation (brushing teeth for him, opening doors for him...), and child absolutely refused to have anything to do with therapy. Today was the preparatory session in which parents worked on the letter and prepared for possible child reactions. I’m hopeful, given the parents’ buy in and willingness to do anything at this point.
Tune in next week. Hopefully, I’ll have good news to report.
Hope to bump into some SPACE folk at ABCT this weekend.
Elliot
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Wonderful!! Keep us posted!
Eli
Exciting! Do keep us posted. I'm due to attend SPACE training in February and looking forward to putting it into use with the families I work with and learning from those of you who are already doing so.
Upon receiving the letter, 9 yo son calmly tells his parents " Thank you for the letter, you can both go f***ing kill yourselves." Despite that reaction, parents were largely consistent with being supportive and not accommodating, son originally tried other ways to avoid, but has shown increasing flexibility with approaching anxiety inducing stimuli. Unfortunately due to flu and holiday vacation, we are on temp hiatus : / but its moving in the right direction. To be continued...
Elliot, That reaction sounds about just right - to me, anyway. If he would have said, "Yay! I'm super excited this is happening!" I would have been suspicious. Looking forward to learning about the "to be continued..."
Perhaps not quite the reaction they hoped for but...calmly is good :)
As long as parents can remain calm and supportive and stick to the plan things are indeed moving in the right direction. I know I'm eager for the next update!
Happy Holidays everyone! Eli
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