We joined this practice in search of help for our teenage daughter, who was struggling with emotion regulation, anxiety and depression. Our insurance did not cover this group, but we were referred by someone we trusted and we were at our last rope. We paid more than $3000 a month for trice weekly sessions, plus a family group session. While the family group session was helpful and lead by competent mental health personnel, our individual experience with the only social worker on staff turned out to be quite detrimental to our daughter’s treatment. Part of the problem was a fear on her part to confide anything that was causing her confusion for fear the therapist would reveal her concerns to her parents. Because of this, events that occurred that she could not explain or understand were not explored or discussed, but taken at face value, validating our daughter’s distorted reality, and creating more confusion and pain for her and others. It is a therapist’s responsibility to listen to a patient and evaluate what statements and claims are valid and which are distorted perceptions of the patient’s reality, due to the mental illness for which he is being treated. This did not happen and therefore all kinds of admissions and declarations that our daughter made, hoping to get clarification and a better understanding of what is appropriate and what is reality based were never explored or clarified. In the end, because this therapist took all statements made by a mentally ill teenager at face value, never spending more than four or five minutes to learn if in fact they were reality based, our daughter’s false, or should I clarify and say “misunderstood claims”” were reported to law enforcement officials

causing incredible fear and anxiety for our already unstable daughter

as well as her younger

extremely fragile sister. Our daughter was lured into trusting this mental health professional

and he carelessly and without doing his homework