Psychotherapy is a process; it's not an injection. Even though there are psychotherapeutic techniques that can have immediate impact, the whole of it is a process.
I liken it to growing a vegetable garden. When you plant the seeds for your vegetable garden, what do you do?
Let's say we are planting tomatoes. You plant your tomato seeds and may add some fertilizer to the soil, and you nurture your tomatoes-to-be along the way with water and care.
You certainly don't yank up the roots to make sure it is indeed growing, do you? If you did that, then what would happen to your tomatoes? Obviously, doing so would impede the growth process. Even worse, it would bring it to a halt.
How You Can Help Your Adult Child Benefit from Psychotherapy
When you sponsor therapy for another person as is done with parents of young adults in abusive relationships, keep in mind that therapy is a growth process just like any other growth process.
And if there is something in your adult child's life that inspired you to initiate such a process, then you hold the responsibility to support it along the way, not dissect it to death.
If you are a parent who believes your child is in an abusive relationship and you have initiated psychological care for your child, allow the process to unfold. Have faith in the fact that the psyche longs harmony and well-being. It's inevitable that this is the direction people go with proper intervention.
If you question the process and intermittently yank up the roots, you will be wasting your child's time and your family's money. Secondly, if you inspire such an intervention for your adult child, there will be a need for commitment on your part to this process as well.
Request an estimated time frame from the therapist for the course of therapy. And, if you elect to assess things at some designated point along the way, do so with the understanding that you are indeed looking at work in progress.
Your commitment to and faith in the process is the gift you give to the adult child you have inspired into therapy. Keep it at that, and your adult child will change and will grow.
Signs Of Abusive Relationship
Evolution of Isolation in Abusive Relationships
It often evolves so gradually that you don't realize it's happening until you wake-up one day and notice you have no friends and your contact with your own family has vanished. Now the funny thing is that as your icy isolation is being groomed, you're conditioned to believe that it is "good for you." (There's that conditioning, again.)
You're told things like this person is not worthy of your company, that person is undesirable to your partner, another poses a threat to your relationship. There are as many reasons for you not to have people in your life, other than your partner, as there were people in you life before the abusive relationship.
And when you internalize your partner's perception of his/her preferences with respect to the people being walled out of your life, you are rewarded. Sometimes this reward maybe in the form of a positive gesture by your partner. Or, it may present as the absence of a previously negative spill of verbal emotional abuse when you failed to comply with the walling off of this particular person.
How This Isolation Serves Your Partner.
There are several ways in which your isolation serves your partner and helps maintain the abuse in your relationship.
a) Your isolation creates a relationship climate of dependence, as there are no other adults in your personal orbit other than your partner.
b) Your isolation creates an exterior shield of silence regarding the abuse in your home.
c) Your isolation serves to silence you from yourself with respect to your abusive relationship.
What You Can Do to Overcome Icy Isolation of an Abusive Relationship.
If you are in an abusive relationship, the "other" people falling out of your personal orbit may very well be your first tip-off that something is not right at home. When you notice yourself participating in the narrowing of your personal social circle, take a hard and honest look at all of the defining characteristics of abusive relationships.
If your relationship has progressed and you see yourself in many ways "stuck" or merely trying to work things out with your partner, make a personal commitment to yourself to keep at least one channel of contact with someone near and dear open always, even if you have to do so secretly. This person could be your lifeline in a time of need.
Dr Jeanne King Phd has sinced written about articles on various topics from Divorce and Infidelity, Legal Matters and Writing. If you want a deeper understanding about abusive relationships—what maintains them and what breaks the cycle of abuse, visit
