Cheryle Andrews Services
As your therapist I extend to you
- Kindness and respect
- Support and encouragement on the journey
- My professional expertise
- Gentle confrontation
- Consistency
- Compassionate interest
- Guidance in finding your inherent self-worth
- Help to work out solutions according to your needs and your lifestyle
My commitment to you
- To seek ongoing training
- To honor diversity
- To build strong individuals and families
- Consistent self-care to be the best therapist for you
- Consultation with other professionals to serve you best
- Discovering and developing your capacity for survival, growth and joy
- To help you create a life of meaning and purpose
Ten things you can expect in your therapy
- You are comfortable in the environment.
- You are honest with your counselor.
- Your counselor understands your goals.
- You have an opportunity to participate in the treatment planning.
- You understand the treatment plan–your pathway to success.
- You understand your role and the role of the therapist.
- You have confidence in your counselor.
- You are treated with respect.
- Your questions are answered. There are no silly questions!
- You make a commitment to your success, which includes working through the tough spots, following through on homework (if any), as well as keeping and being on time for your appointments.
What makes therapy successful?
Research points to the existence of four factors common to all forms of therapy, despite theoretical orientation (dynamic, cognitive, etc.), mode (individual, group, couples, family, etc.), dosage (frequency and number of sessions), or specialty (problem type, professional discipline, etc.). In order of their relative contribution to change, these elements include:
- Extra-therapeutic [40%]: your activities outside the therapy session
- Relationship [30%]: the connections you make to your therapist
- Placebo, hope, and/or expectancy [15%] that things will improve
- Structure, model, and/or technique ([15%] used in therapy, such as cognitive, narrative, etc.
For more info/references: Escape from Babel (Norton, 1997); The Heart & Soul of Change (APA, 1999).
Codependency
I have trained with Pia Mellody, author of The Intimacy Factor and Facing Codependence. My training has equipped me to conduct groups for individuals wishing to recover from the pain of codependency.
Codependency develops when we forget our sense of the inalienable inherent worth with which we were born due to trauma in our lives and the consequent adapatations we make to survive. The path of recovery from codependency lies in learning how to love and be loved. The five core symptoms of untreated codependency include:
- Difficulty experiencing appropriate levels of self-esteem.
- Difficulty setting functional boundaries.
- Difficulty owning our own reality.
- Difficulty acknowledging and meeting our own wants and needs.
- Difficulty experiencing and expressing our reality moderately.
If you struggle with any of the five core symptoms of codependency and would like to assess yourself, an online tool can be found here.
I facilitate Codependency Education and Support Groups, which usually meet weekly. There are six persons per group. As members leave the groups, new members are added from the waiting list. Individuals may self-refer and are urged to consult with their own counselors about participating in a group.
Adoption
Through Portland State University in Oregon in cooperation with the State of Oregon, I received the Postgraduate Training Certificate in Therapy with Adoptive Families, which has equipped me to work with all members of the Adoption Triad—the adopted person of any age, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents. The 100-hour program provided a series of advanced, evidence-based courses for mental health professionals in the specialized theories and practices for treating adopted persons, for treating those who have histories of abuse and neglect, for strengthening their family systems, and for enhancing parental and children’s resiliencies.
Adoption therapists respect and acknowledge that each family is unique. I encourage parents to draw on their strengths and abilities, at the same time I help children explore grief, loss, attachment and identity issues. My philosophy is one of helping a family to move from just coping with life to living life joyously as a fully integrated family.
Adoption has a life-long effect on everyone involved brings unique rewards as well as challenges to families. Sometimes families will need or want professional help when concerns or problems arise.
Timely intervention by a professional skilled in adoption issues often can prevent matters common to adoption from becoming more serious problems that might be more difficult to resolve.
The type (e.g., individual, family, group) and duration of therapy will vary depending on many variables, including the kinds of problems being addressed. Some families build a relationship with a therapist over years, “checking in” for help as needed. Other families might find they need a therapist’s help only once or twice.
Sometimes the difficulty a child is experiencing is very obviously connected to adoption, but sometimes the connection is not readily apparent. On the other hand, issues that seem to be related to adoption, after investigation, turn out not to be related to adoption at all. Clinicians with adoption knowledge and experience are best suited to help families identify connections between problems and adoption and to plan effective treatment strategies.
Trainings and Presentations to the Public
I have presented to the public as well as to professionals on a variety of subjects. If you have additional topics in which you are interested, please contact me with your ideas.
- The Core Symptoms of Codependency
- Adoption Myths and Realities
- Grief and Loss in Adoption
- Talking To Your Child About Adoption
- Transracial and Transnational Adoption
- The Birth Parents
- Openness in Adoption
- Enhancing My Child’s Self Acceptance: Supporting Transracial Families Through the Schooling Experience
- AD/HD 101: The Basics
- Adult ADHD
- Gifted Students and Social-Emotional Issues
- Taming the Tiger: Your Angry Child
- What Would You Choose…Values and Your Life
- Transitioning from Elementary to Junior High School
- SPIN and SLIDE: Coping with Your Adult ADHD
Confidentiality
A competent clinician will tell you several exceptions to confidentiality before they start the therapy session. It is crucial that you understand the exceptions before you start therapy so you can make informed decisions about what you do and do not reveal to your therapist. Keep in mind that these exceptions to confidentiality are designed to protect lives. These exceptions are:
- If you threaten to harm others, your therapist probably has a “duty to warn,” those others. This may involve your therapist calling the police to contact those people.
- If your therapist has a reasonable suspicion that a child (in some states an elderly person, also) has been abused or neglected the therapist has a responsibility to report this to the proper authorities. In some states, a report from a child of harm by an adult can trigger a report to the authorities.
- If you threaten to harm yourself, your therapist has a duty to protect you from yourself. This may include calling family or friends to help ensure your safety. It can even mean committing you involuntarily to a psychiatric facility for a period of time.
- Your records (and those of your children) can be subpoenaed at a later time. This is most likely the case with divorce and custody proceedings and can be particularly difficult in domestic abuse cases.
- And of course, any time you sign a valid release, your therapist can share or receive information with the party to whom the release is addressed. The release you sign instructs them to do so.