Developing a customized assessment is the first step in getting your child the services that will help them succeed.

Different tests can reveal different problems, and a correct diagnosis is so important for planning treatment. For example, imagine a child with autism and a serious problem with anxiety. If a clinician did not take the time to meet with that child and their parents and develop a custom testing plan, then the anxiety problem might be missed. As a result, the clinician might come up with a treatment plan focused entirely on teaching social skills, but without giving the child tools to manage their anxiety. This would be a huge mistake, because what good are social skills if your child is too anxious to use them!

At Killebrew Psychological Services and Essential Touchstones, we do not use a one-size-fits-all approach to testing. Instead, we hand-select tests and measures on a case-by-case basis, after learning about your child or teen’s specific problems and strengths. We only use up-to-date, evidence-based tests and measures that are backed up by research.

The process begins with an initial visit. This is when your clinician sits down one-on-one with you and/or your child and collects a detailed history of your child’s problems. Throughout this conversation, your clinician will be warm and validating, while gently asking questions about how severe the problem is, when it happens, where, and how often, how your child’s functioning is being impacted, and what strategies you have already tried.

Based on this conversation, the clinician will recommend a specific set of tests. We will always design a testing plan that includes a range of different ways of looking at a problem. For example, we may:

• • • Ask your child to complete specialized computer puzzles that show us how they are processing information
    • Ask your child to do activities that involve reading, writing, and math in order to get a sense of how much they are learning in school
    • Conduct a diagnostic interview with you, in which we ask about specific symptoms and gather examples
    • Observe your child while playing or holding a conversation
    • Ask your child directly what kinds of things are hard for them, and how they commonly think and behave
    • Ask parents and teachers to fill out rating forms that ask you to rate how much your child struggles with specific symptoms

After reviewing all of the information gathered from testing, your clinician can write a customized report that includes recommendations based on your child’s needs and the best practices for meeting those needs. Reports often include guidance for schools in what to include in an individualized education plan. Clinicians will also use testing results to guide plans for therapy, including identifying specific targets and goals, selecting techniques and strategies, and coming up with ways of measuring progress.

We are confident that by working closely with your family, we can design the best testing plan for your child.

Work-life balance is typically defined as the amount of time you spend doing your job versus the amount of time you spend with your friends, family, and pursuing your personal interests. Improving your work-life balance can potentially improve your overall well-being, including your physical, emotional, and mental health.

Studies have found that working long hours can lead to such serious health issues as “impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease.” Unfortunately, as these conditions arise, they can also exacerbate our work-life issues, which in turn can exacerbate the conditions themselves, thus leading to a vicious cycle.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance can not only potentially reduce stress and improve emotional states, but also increase overall productivity and employers’ bottom-line. A few tips to reduce stress and facilitate work-life balance:

• • Reduce your expectations of being “always on.” Give yourself permission to have downtime.
  • Reduce your time constraints and reduce back-to-back meetings all day
  • Meditate 5 minutes using Insight Timer can really help your mind and body recover from the constant social media distractions that lead to more stress.

Work-life balance is “equal time or priority to personal and professional activities.”

“But every time they’re knocked down, they stand up. YOU CAN NOT DESTROY THESE PEOPLE. And at the end of their lives, they’ve accomplished what they set out to do!”

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother’s womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds of hitting the ground, it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position, it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then, the mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Afterwards, she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous legs outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heels. When it does get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it off its feet again.

Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all view young giraffes to be easy prey. If the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly, the calf would get eaten in the tough world.

The late Irving Stone Underwood spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of men such as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin. Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life have a vision or a dream of something that should be accomplished, and they go to work. They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years they get nowhere. But every time they’re knocked down, they stand up. YOU CAN NOT DESTROY THESE PEOPLE. And at the end of their lives, they’ve accomplished what they set out to do!”

General outpatient services often occur once a week for one hour at most. Some teens require more intensive services than weekly counseling offers or may be at risk of residential or inpatient treatment without more intensive services. We offer an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) at Essential Touchstones that offers a more robust services designed to promote healing, mitigate symptoms and reduce the possibility of hospitalization. On average the program lasts about ten weeks and meets three days a week for at two hours and includes family psychoeducation and individual and family therapy. 

Our therapeutic groups offer a safe and compassionate setting for your teen to learn about their mental health issues and receive support as they move toward recovery. Teens are supported by Essential Touchstones’ therapists using a variety of therapeutic methods including Experiential Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and other evidence-based practices.

Experiential therapy is a multi-sensory method that supports a person’s healing process by using innovative tools and interventions. The foundation of Experiential Therapy is the idea that healing happens within the event itself. Teens can connect with difficult emotions through experience and action, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and relive emotional events to come up with different, more helpful responses to events. Using DBT, Teens learn a variety of useful skills that can be used to alter unhelpful and unproductive habits/thoughts/behaviors. DBT consists of four main skills groups: Emotional Regulation, Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, and Interpersonal Effectiveness skills. 

Essential Touchstones is convinced that we can assist your teen by combining these therapeutic choices to create a treatment plan specifically for them. Contact us today to learn how we can help.

According to the DSM5, ADHD is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder and it is found in adults, children and teens. The primary symptoms are hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention. In adults, the symptoms may be less obvious because the person likely has spent a lifetime using compensatory behaviors to get by in life. But difficulties with impulsivity, inattention, and poor planning often lead highly successful adults to seek treatment. The symptoms must be present in two or more settings.

If you have any of the following symptoms, you may be struggling with ADHD:

• • • • overlooking details
      • difficulty focusing on long, lengthy readings or lectures
      • the mind seems like it is elsewhere and even in the absence of obvious distraction, getting easily side tracked
      • disorganized work
      • poor time management
      • avoiding activities that require sustained attention and mental effort
      • losing things important for task completion
      • fidgeting
      • inability to remain quiet during activities; climbing
      • physically on the go constantly
      • excessive talking; blurting out answers
      • trouble waiting in line; and interrupting others

Abuse at the hands of an emotionally abusive person can lead to doubting self-worth, feelings of loneliness and reality questioning.

With deep exploration of abuse dynamics, we will give you specific tools aimed at building a stronger foundation.

• Learn how to protect yourself from hurtful behaviors without completely severing all ties
• Learn how to have the courage to set boundaries without feeling guilty
• Create freedom from fear, shame, and self-doubt that trap you into emotional coercion
• Restructure toxic relationships
• Learn how to recognize gas-lighting
• Recognize co-vert and overt signs of abuse

Please give us a call for more information and tailored treatment for you and your loved ones needs.