Elena was a court ordered therapist, recommended by minor’s counsel, to be the parent alienation, co-parenting and reunification specialist. Boy, was the G.A.L. wrong. For months my kids and I came to therapy sessions and all we did was playing games on the floor in her office. Occasionally, she’d ask my kids why they were accusing me of things that never happened? In the majority of cases after not getting responses or explanations that were true or made any sense, she continued on playing those games. There were attempts to get to the truth here and there but usually she was extremely timid in her treatment.
While continually acknowledging presence of alienation and expressing her empathy to me for going through this ordeal, she was very timid in her reports to court. I always wondered why? Was she scared of my ex’s aggressive lawyers? Her empathy never made it to court reports. Her acknowledgement of alienation never made it to her reports either. All she wrote about was how badly my ex and I needed to learn how to co-parent.
I finally realized that Elena does not know much about parent alienation after months of no improvement in my relationship with my kids and my ex. She had no clearly defined plan for her therapy. She often blamed me for having such a bad relationship with my kids. She did not know that in cases of parent alienation the target parent is always the bad guy. She also never mentioned to the court that my ex often tried to avoid coming to therapy all together.
Her rates are reasonable and she is a nice person. She required a retainer but after I told her that I could not afford it, she just charged me after every session.
All in all Elena provided an expensive playground for my children and I to sit and engage in obsolete, often very uncomfortable, conversations.
My kids moved to another state, which put an end to so needed contact with them. It also ended our sessions with Elena. Her final report was a little more revealing. But just a little and again made no difference in court.
I feel her puzzling holding back caused damage when she did not disclose to the court what really was going on with my kids.
Too bad for me. Too bad for my kids. Too bad for her future patients that trust in her knowing what she is doing.