Cynthia and others,

I originally posted a version of what you'll find below on October 6th,
2001 and received many sympathetic responses.

I am married to a psychologist. He is now 50, I am 31. He talked the
talk of being enlightened, pro-breastfeeding, earth-man, modern
feminist. Until we got pregnant and his mommy got involved. As I recall,
it feels like we fought for the whole first year of our child's life.
But I'm here to say there is hope. I also must say that he defended me
to his mommy. When he got off the phone with her, though, he would say,
"Well, why don't we just give her just one bottle? Why don't you just
train her to sleep through the night? etc.

I took the dear man grudgingly to the 1998 La Leche League of Florida
Conference in Gainesville. Our daughter was one week shy of her first
birthday, and I had not yet applied to become a LLL Leader. Just before
lunch, he came to the door of the session I was attending and signalled
for me to leave. I went out into the hall and he apologized. He said he
was sorry that he had fought me on my instincts, that parenting this way
had integrity and most importantly for him, the kids he was seeing
wall-to-wall were turning out OK. He said it was all his cultural
baggage that had held him up.

He is in practice with his best friend. When my child was 4 months old,
his best friend took it upon himself to call me up and try to speak
authoritatively on why I should let my child cry it out, to prepare her
for the woes of the world. That's what he'd done with his child, who was
then 4.5 and "doing great" already on ADHD meds. Even this guy has
finally apologized, as he and his wife were able to conceive another
child and this time the mother is still nursing youngest and allowing
her into bed. The baby turned 3 in November, and is an entirely
different person from her older brother. The parents say it's night and
day when you go with the flow. The man says that he has difficulty
relating to his now 9 year-old son, but that his daughter is entirely
different. Now, I know we are dealing with different genders and that
every child is different. But even he has apologized, and about a year
ago, my husband told me that his partner has a father in his office who
admitted that his 6 year-old son was sleeping with him again after a
trauma in the family. The father was concerned that was "wrong," and my
husband's partner assured him it was not. He would have threatened to
notify the Dept. of Children & Families a few years ago. They can be
trained!

It's a matter of finding a therapist or "training" them. Some of my
suggestions include asking a potential therapist questions like how they
feel about the work of John Bowlby, Harry Harlow (yes, Harry Harlow!),
D. W. Winnicott, Meredith Small, James McKenna and Marshall Klaus. Ask
the therapist if they've read A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis
and others. What were their thoughts and feelings about the book? Ask
them how they feel about attachment theory (not attachment parenting).
Ask them if their aware of the emerging body of literature in the field
of evolutionary medicine, and what their feelings about that are. Most,
if not all, therapists will not share how they parented or were parented
themselves with you as that would be disclosing too much, but you can
ask pointed questions such as, "What are your feelings about
breastfeeding?" "How long do you think breastfeeding should last?" "Do
you think it's appropriate for children of x age to sleep in the same
room or bed as their parents?" Do not be afraid to ask pointed
questions; remember, if this relationship works out, you're going to
have to share some pretty deep stuff with the therapist, so it's not a
bad idea to leave the first session thinking you can trust the person.
Also remember that they work for you; you have the right to interview
them, just as new parents have the right to interview the pediatrician
prenatally.

There are schools of psychology, some more responsive than others.
Psychology has also moved to face the reality of the HMO, and some
therapists today are trained in what I would derisively call the 6-to-8
week solution; that is, most insurers will only cover 6 to 8 therapist
visits, so therapists have designed programs to get a person in and out
and maybe on meds within that time frame. There is some evidence to
suggest that the cycle of true depression is about that long, but hey,
with depression I'd be afraid to generalize (Andrea Yates comes to
mind...). Ask the therapist what their "normal" treatment plan and
duration is. When they start talking in 6-to-8 session plans, ask them
what they think the goal of the therapy will be. There really shouldn't
be a cookie-cutter treatment plan or duration, though at the end of the
interview the therapist should be able to scope out some preliminary
plan or at least suggest an issue to start with.

My husband and I have seen a therapist. We once went to see a colleague
of his at his alma mater who now runs the family center for one visit
solely because I was sick of my husband's not trusting my intuition
regarding sleeping through the night and co-sleeping. My husband needed
someone with letters at the end of her name to tell him that what I was
saying was realistic, probable and normal. More recently, we've done
some marital counseling with a man. I was a little concerned initially
with his gender, but like the very good therapist that he is, this man
took us where we were at and accepted the parenting style. I would
recommend this guy to anyone, really, he was that good. I have, and the
response back from those who have been to see him are as positive as my
experience. The therapist we saw is a cognitive behaviorist; my husband
and his clinical partner are (in his words) "psychodynamic with a
Jungian bent".  I'd love to be able to say that there is a "vintage" or
"brand" of psychologist that you could probably trust to be open-minded,
but I really can't because psychology is so inextricably linked to
culture, right Cynthia?

Those are just my thoughts on psychology and referrals. Apologies on the
length!

Natalie Rawlings Kraut
LLL Leader, Plantation, FL
Regional Conference Adminstrator, Great Lakes - Eastern US Div., LLLI
Book Evaluation Committee, LLLI

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html