Behavioural therapy - for parents - combine with… what? Pointers appreciated

Question

TL,DR: My son's therapy is taking a break; to help me help him I am contemplating behavioral therapy for myself - as well as combining this with consequential discipline, praise and all the other things a parent needs to give, what else could/should I think about?

• Son is (almost) 13 years old
• After repeated concerning behavior as child, has seen behvioural therapist for last 3-4 years
• Therapist reports behavior is coping strategy to deal with unknown, un-dealt with disturbances in the past
• Therapist insisted on pause; strong resistance from son and wife made therapy un-workable
• Son's coping mechanisms still in place, long-term these do him just as much, if not more damage - refuses to want to deal with events in his past

Assumptions:

1. I can't change anyone else, only myself - or better yet, my attitude and way I help my son
2. Son's issues need professional help which I can't give
3. If son should get professional help it will only bear fruit if he agrees to ,be helped' which he doesn't

Suggested steps:

1. Speak to my doc about referral to behavioral therapist for myself - aim: strengthen self-reflection, what can I do to help my son? Entirely possible I "can't see wood for trees" as well as being "too convinced of my own ways"
2. Undertake behvioral therapy (if possible) to improve communication and parenting
3. Ditto parenting course
4. Perserve (harder) with current plan of support and discipline, love and help, good examples
5. ???
6. Child develops newer, preferable behavior to when he finds things hard (without giving too many examples, it seems as though he makes his own life hard (sets incredibly high expectations, which he then fails to meet) and also projects a feeling that everyone and everything is out to persecute him - that people only want bad things for him…)

So… What comes at point 5? What have I missed? What have I overseen?

If there are further questions, I will attempt to answer them.

P.s. I live in Germany, land of (near-complete) medical insurance, at none of the above stages or processes would I really need to worry about expense… only that which is good for my son.

P.p.s. I cannot expect the support of my wife for any of the steps I choose to take. We have been separated nearly 2 years, she is convinced any therapist is "only in it for the money". Sadly my son shares this feeling. :(

Edit in response to comments.

As well as taking the decision to undertake behavioral therapy for myself (to improve the er… ,family experience' and better reflect my own behaviour and response to my child), I'm looking for other points of view or ideas about positive steps I can take to make progress on this tricky area of life.

I'm looking forward to exploring the tour and help center; don't agree that my question is about medical steps, more about accompanying things that I perhaps haven't thought of.

For the sake of clarity, I guess my question is the following:

"My son makes his life difficult though his belief that the odds and the world are stacked against him - apart from getting professional help for me as his parent, what other approaches, tips, tricks and strategies are worth looking at?"

Answer 1

A couple points:

First point: You say your son believes the world is against him, the odds are stacked against him....Probably the most important thing to do in response to that is to empathize. Use what they call empathetic listening. Validate his feelings.....He is probably wrong, the world is probably not stacked against him but telling him that the world is not stacked against him is likely to increase his resistance towards you.

Second point: You mentioned seeking behavioral therapy. Is there any reason your focus strictly on behavioral therapy? There are lots of kinds of therapy and you might want to consider: cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy , psychodynamic therapy, family systems therapy the list goes on and on. I would think that something other than behavioral therapy would be more appropriate for the kind of issues you are dealing with.

Third Point: But would probably matters more than the orientation of the therapist is the quality of your therapeutic alliance. Basically use your gut to decide if therapy is working with this particular therapist - if it isn’t working switch. If you are new to therapy it might make sense to try a few sessions with one therapist and then a few with another and yet a few with another still....That way you can get a sense for what kind of variability there is and then you can make a more informed decision about who is the best for you or your son at the present moment.....In fact there’s a decent chance that your son didn’t like the therapy because he was with the wrong therapist.

I suppose the fact that you are doing therapy Will not only be good for you but you are leading by example and this may reduce your sons resistance a tiny bit (Likely imperceptible to you).

Some other ideas for softening your sons resistance. You could have him try and group therapy. With other kids his own age possibly with similar issues it might make it attractive for him. One group might randomly have someone in it that makes him very motivated to be in that group. So again shopping around might be worth it.

Other ideas would be to give him a reward for trying it. Video games and dinner out a gift card you know what he’ll like the best.

I would also interview the therapist before hand and tell them that you are dealing with a kid who doesn’t really want to be in therapy ask them what they would do to draw the kid in. Pick the therapist who has the best answer.

As you already seem to know, There’s only so much you can do. And related to that, I find the Headspace app to be very helpful in mindfulness training.