Parenting is difficult no matter what, but having a child with a mental illness can be even more challenging. Celebrity mental health expert Dr. Flowers and expert parent educator Dr. Brad Reedy offer guidance for parenting children with mental illness and addiction, what mistakes a parent makes, what to look for in a therapist, and discuss the thoughts, shame, and guilt parents face.
Guest Social Media Handles:
- Instagram: @drbradreedy, @evoketherapy, @evoketherapyintensives
- Facebook: Evoke Therapy Programs, Evoke Therapy Intensives
- Twitter/X: @evoketherapy, @drbradreedy
JFHI Social Media Handles:
- Facebook: facebook.com/jflowershealth
- Instagram: instagram.com/jflowershealth/
- Twitter: twitter.com/JFlowersHealth
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/jflowershealth/
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Listen to the podcast here
How To Parent A Child With A Mental Illness And Prevent Parent Burnout [Episode 42]
Introduction To The Episode
In this episode, our special guest is Dr. Brad Reedy. I’m so excited to have you. Thank you very much. Dr. Reedy has been doing some work with our program and he works across the country. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know how busy you are.
I’m very honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
You’re welcome.
Dr. Brad Reedy is a co-owner and clinical director of Evoke Therapy Programs, a therapy program for adolescents, young adults, and families. He has served on the Utah Department of Child and Family Services Board, the Board of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, and the En Garde Arts Board. He’s a prolific public speaker who has delivered keynote addresses at conferences, private events, nationally syndicated radio shows, and universities on experiential therapy, mental health issues, treatment, childhood issues, and parenting. After years as a parent educator, having broadcast over 1,400 webinars on parent and family issues, he co-authored The Audacity to Be You: Learning to Love Your Horrible Rotten Self, and The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child’s Struggle & The Road Home. Welcome.
The heroic parent is one who’s willing to do their own work. Look inward, because healing starts with you.
Thank you for having me.
You bet. Thanks so much. I’d love to hear first about your book, Your Horrible Rotten Self.
I talk about this and teach this to both parents and the therapist that I train. It’s a little bit counterintuitive, which is until we’re willing to own our stuff like insecurities, emotions, feelings, and limitations, and embrace that and learn to love that, the people around us that we serve professionally and that we love and care about are going to suffer because we’re going to need to make them the problem, the bad one, or the one with the issue. Almost like the title of your show is the title of my book.
That’s why I started with that. I was like, “That sounds familiar.” In your experience, how do you get someone to own their stuff?
Simply put what I do is provide a space, a place, and a conversation where when they present to me something that they’ve done, feel, and they are, it’s okay. I’ve learned this from being the client, not from being a therapist, but sitting with an empathic other who doesn’t have an anxious, nervous, angry, disappointed, frustrated, or upset reaction, starts to rewire the brain to say, “I’m okay.”
I quote this in the book, and I’ll clean it up a little bit for the show, but my therapist said to me years ago, “If you came in here telling me that you were having sex with a chicken, I would assume you had a good reason and I would want to understand why.” That moment you can sit with somebody who can be curious about anything, you start to heal.
Genuine curiosity. I was talking to a mother. She asked about the process and what we do at J. Flowers Health Institute at the beginning of the process. I said, “Much of it is about bringing the anxiety level down.” When you sit in a therapeutic alliance with a therapist, that therapist can have genuine curiosity, and the client can feel heard and relaxed, then the client feels comfortable talking to you and starts building that trust.
Do you know what we call it when they spend time with you and bond with you? “You’ve been flowered.”
That’s nice. I like that.
Tips For Parenting A Child With Mental Illness
I don’t know about that one. I should have not known that. What tips do you offer parents with children with mental illness?
The most important thing is that children require great capacity, even children who aren’t struggling. Children who are struggling with mental health require more of our capacity. The most simple and basic thing is you need help from somewhere else. If you don’t take care of yourself in therapy and Twelve-Step groups with a mentor response or somebody who can hold space for you, then your interactions with the child will serve to take care of you instead of being there for them.
The most important thing is that there’s no shame in needing help. I’m a therapy client. I’ve had children in therapy. I’ve been to family therapy. It’s destigmatizing and de-shaming the idea that we all need help. If your child is struggling with addiction or mental illness issues, you need more help. Take care of yourself so when you show up, you can be there for them instead of the reverse, which is part of the original problem most likely.
To help your child with mental illness, you must first help yourself. Self-care isn’t selfish; it’s necessary.
I completely agree.
That goes for the parents who have children with chronic pain and things like that. We know a few families where the parents need to take care of themselves.
They get their therapy. Some parents say, “I’m so focused on her or him. I don’t have time to go to therapy.” They have to take self-care and do their therapeutic work.
In a lot of ways, it’s a similar process that it is for us. I call the therapy we do Trojan Horse therapy. The gift is we’ll fix your identified patient, your child, husband, wife, or whomever. We’ll work with them. In the meantime, once you’ve accepted that gift, all of us professionals get out of the horse, surround the family, and offer them support and encouragement, and a place for them to be okay and take care of themselves.
Finding The Right Therapist
How do you talk to parents about therapy and finding the right therapist?
I’m going to start with the hardest task in finding a new therapist, which for me is when you tell a therapist what you don’t like or what bothers you about them, something that they’re offering where you don’t feel heard, understood, or you’re not getting what you need, the moment that you share that with them and they can hear and respond sensitively and empathically in a caring way and say, “I’m so sorry, I’ll do what I can to help you,” then you know you have one that you don’t have to take care of.
It’s about a therapist who will accept your agenda to start. It’s what you need and what you’re asking for. Their theory, model, and technique don’t eclipse or get in the way of understanding you. For me, it’s about having a therapist who has the flexibility and the capacity to meet you where you’re at and then find a way however possible to support you where you need to go instead of them coming in saying, “I know what you need to do. I’m the expert on your life. Follow me and I’ll teach you how to do it right.”
We hear that phrase often and parents will tell me, “Every therapist I’ve seen and every treatment center my son or daughter’s been to say they’ll meet my son or loved one where he is. None of them met him where he is.” What does that mean to you when a therapist meets you where you are?
It means that I understand the defenses as a part of their solution and I’m not interested right away in getting rid of the symptom of the defense. My method is attachment-based. It’s like the story about the chicken I told. Instead of saying, “Having sex with a chicken is not a good idea, especially for the chicken,” my therapist is saying, “What’s going on for you? Tell me about that. I want to understand it.” By unraveling that part inside of me that is leading this behavior, I heal. That’s when we meet them. A lot of people use the phrase, “Meet them where they’re at,” but then they attack the defense. They go right up against it.
Speaking of defense, as a therapist, how do you therapeutically align with a combative client who says, “I’m not the problem. There’s not an issue here?”
Some are more challenging than others, depending on the level of defense. My wife, my daughter, and my daughter’s boyfriend are all therapists. We were chatting about having clients that present exactly the way you’re talking about, Dr. Flowers. What I was describing is I believed that they have a good reason for being skeptical. They’ve been hurt in the past and institutionally or clinically abused, if you will. Maybe that’s too strong of a language for most people but I have to assume that that combativeness serves a purpose. If I can say that makes sense, I’ve been mistreated by authority figures, even people in the therapeutic world.
Immediately, you can see the defense. The nervous system starts to down-regulate and relax. I despise the phrase “trust the process” because it’s a therapist’s shortcut or cheating saying, ”Trust me.” What I say to my therapist that I train is, “If somebody comes in distrusting our process, they have a good reason for that. Spend time honoring that distrust rather than trying to get rid of it.”
Understanding Guilt And Shame
Can you talk to our parents about feeling guilt or shame?
There is a large idea in the therapeutic world that guilt and shame are different. Shame is feeling bad for who you are and guilt is feeling bad for what you do. I’ll say it this way. They’re closely related. If they’re not the same, they’re siblings. People have to learn to feel guilt to tolerate, battle with guilt, do the right thing, tell the truth, say no or, “I can’t,” or set a boundary. This idea that guilt is associated with mental health and morality is nonsense. Guilt tells us constantly to do the wrong thing. We’re hurting somebody else and that’s not okay.
What I tell parents is, “You have to get comfortable digging in, swimming around with it, and understanding what your guilt and shame are teaching you. By and large, for the most part, they’re lying to you.” Everybody that I talk to can think of at least one thing immediately, if not hundreds, that if they did and it was the right thing, they would still feel guilty. That tells you that guilt is not a reliable source of right and wrong and morality. You have to debunk that idea, first and foremost, and then do battle with it. I’m not making progress in my life if I’m not suffering and struggling with some kind of guilt.
Guilt is not a reliable guide for what’s right. Learn to feel it, but don’t let it control your decisions.
Switching topics a little bit on there, let’s talk about a parent with an adult child who may have severe or chronic pain issues, medical issues, co-occurring mental health issues, and potentially even co-occurring addiction to help with chronic pain, the perception of pain, and maybe somatic symptoms on top of it that overdoes and constantly trying to help that loved one at the risk of the parent’s life of overdoing it for the child. How do you talk to parents about separating and allowing the treatment team if that’s outpatient therapy per se to do their job and get out of the way? How do you talk to families about getting out of the way?
First and foremost, I have to hold the parents’ pain and somehow help them help me make sense of what I call the difficulty of sitting in empathic misery. It’s hard. I have to sit with them first. In a way, Dr. Flowers, you’ve presented to me what I call an unsolvable problem in the sense that chronic pain may not be resolvable. Talk about the human condition. You have to first sit with that parent, understand them, provide a safe place for them, and then gently help them take small steps toward tolerating difficult and overwhelming feelings.
It’s not that much different than dealing with any other person with any other presenting issue. In essence, not to be too simple but to make it digestible, we have to learn to feel. Some problems have no solution. It’s like if you lose somebody to an addiction or somebody has chronic pain that there’s no solution for and then you put on top of it the somatic stuff and the therapeutic stuff. In general, there are some problems we have to learn to feel and deal with. I provide a safe container and allow them to feel their empathic misery and pain. By so doing, I’m showing them how to do it. As a parent of four, a hard thing to learn is how to tolerate and breathe through.
At what point did they come to you for care? How did they navigate their way to you?
At evoke, usually, there’s a pretty clearly identified patient like a child struggling. We accept that as the ticket for entry. In our wilderness program and intensive program, we have some processes and ideas that can help anybody who’s suffering. That doesn’t matter if you’re the primary patient, the identified patient, or the loved one of a patient. We’re here to take care of you.
I get people writing to me because of my books and podcasts for all kinds of reasons. It comes down to, “Can I support you? What do you need? Can I give you what you need and provide that container or safe space so that you can heal and move through your human process?” In a way, I’m modeling. Essentially, I want to do the same thing for the parent of an addicted child that I would want the parent to do for that addicted child, which is to have boundaries and take care of myself first. That’s my job independent of the client.
What can I do to support you in getting to where you need to go that doesn’t take away from that first thing of boundaries? I’m modeling for a mother, a father, and a spouse, hopefully, the same process that is going to be required of them with other people which is to take care of yourself first and then love the other person as best you can. If number 2 starts to compromise number 1, go back to number 1. It’s those two steps over and over again.
Talk to the families of mentally ill patients or addicted patients and therapists about preventing parental burnout.
Burnout is a fascinating thing. They are going to make fun of me but I was driving with a therapist to get out to our wilderness area. He happened to take a couple of calls from parents who were calling on our way out to the field. We were doing supervision and preparing for the day. I said to him, “You have permission not to take that call.” He said, “It’s my extra customer service that I’m going to do. It’s not our scheduled time.” I said, “That can be okay but you’re doing more than you need to do.” If we do this well, we prevent and mitigate suffering.
My idea is that burnout is when you’re working on something that’s not within your purview or control. I talk about this all the time. As therapists, professionals, and fathers, we have to learn to disappoint people and let them down. If we are to grow as professionals, we have to become comfortable with letting people down with dropping balls. I don’t know about you but that’s not an easy task, even for me. It’s hard to live in that space.
Burnout happens when you’re working on things outside your control. Stay in your lane to protect your energy.
What does it mean to be a heroic parent?
The title of my first book, The Journey of the Heroic Parent, is based on Joseph Campbell, the greatest American mythologist who has ever lived. Star Wars is based on his work. He’s wonderful. He talks about how in every great story or myth, there’s one story, which is the heroic journey. For me, no matter what the story or the specifics of it, it’s being willing to look inside of yourself.
The heroic parent is willing to do their work and walk into an Al-Anon meeting, a parent coaching session, or a Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting for the first time. That is the heroic journey. All the metaphors in storytelling are about going inside of ourselves. The hero looks inward. To be non-heroic is to look for the problem outside of yourself or look for the problem in others.
Thank you.
An Overview Of Wilderness Therapy
I wanted to ask about your wilderness program. Could you tell us more about it for the parents reading who don’t know about it?
It’s nomadic primitive living, which means that they’re out there for about ten weeks on average. They do everything in small groups. Everything becomes this microcosm for life. They’re camping, hiking, building shelters every day, and creating a kitchen area and a living area. I always say it’s like life but only more. It’s unplugged, good sleep, exercise, and outdoor nature.
You’re starting to describe everything that researchers would tell you to do for mood issues and addiction issues without even talking about the therapy. On top of that, we have a sophisticated therapy team. Not only do we get access to things in clients that we wouldn’t normally get if it was just talk therapy. It’s such a raw, provocative experience. I find that we get parents’ investment more.
There’s a vulnerability to having your child in the mountains of Utah or Oregon. With that, there seems to be this increased investment in parents saying, “What do I need to do? Give me the assignments. I’ll do the work.” That’s not universal but it’s camping and being outside in small groups. NASA uses it with its astronauts. If they haven’t worked together, NASA will use primitive living wilderness experiences.
They found that exercises and contrived experiences aren’t as powerful at generating vulnerability and that natural exposure to all of your emotions, problem-solving, and relationship issues. For people who don’t know it, it’s camping outdoors and then therapy on top of that. That’s a pretty decent recipe for healing for a lot of people.
What’s the ages?
We have adolescents and young adults. Most of our clients are between 13 and 18. We have a couple of young adult groups in 18 to 22. They’re coming voluntarily. They have to want to be there. When they’re above eighteen, that’s a big commitment on their part. We have an intensive program for individuals and families who want to come for a 3, 4, 5, or 6-day experience in Northern Utah to do psychodrama and a deep dive into their family of origin to see how that’s affecting their current day dilemmas and relationships.
Talking about finding a wilderness program, finding the right therapist, and collaborating with you, what I was thinking in my head is that’s one of the reasons that it’s so important to come to a facility or an institute like the J. Flowers Health Institute to undergo that comprehensive diagnostic evaluation. When they go into the wilderness, is a wilderness program appropriate?
They arrive and have this beautiful MRI of this patient’s life that gives them a full understanding of the person with whom they’re sitting. It’s a crystal clear image of diagnoses and lack of diagnoses. Is there a diagnosis? Is there not a diagnosis? What’s the right diagnosis? What’s their history? What’s their trauma? Are they appropriate? Here you go, you can start your amazing program. It’s been a beautiful collaboration. We love working with you. Do you want to talk a little bit about the consulting that you do?
Dr. Reedy’s Mission With Therapists
I also do clinical supervision consulting. My life’s mission and bliss is to help all therapists and healers work through the issues and barriers that they inherently carry around because of their trauma so they can be better healers for the people that they serve. I saw this documentary about a prison program. One of the prisoners said, “It was a beautiful moment.”
I’m beginning to understand that we’re all traumatized people who were raised by traumatized people. My job is teaching about our issues and how they show up in therapy as professionals. It’s a parallel process between me as a supervisor, the therapist, the parents, if there are parents involved, and the children, if there are children. It’s to provide teaching, education, support, and spaces where therapists can work out their issues.
I teach therapists all the time, “You’re a disaster and you’re a miracle. The sooner you embrace all of that, the better off it’s going to be for your children if you have them and for your clients when you have them.” It’s about embracing the human condition for all of us and learning to love your horrible rotten self so that you don’t have to make other people the problems in your life. That goes for parents and therapists. It’s about teaching, training, and speaking. At this point, I do it all over the world because there’s no shortage of need for healers to have that same space that they’re providing for the people that they love and care for.
You’re amazing at what you do. You came to Houston and worked with our clinical team. I wasn’t able to join that day. I don’t remember what I was doing. I walked in about lunchtime. All the therapists were walking out and were crying. I was like, “What’s wrong?” They were like, “He’s amazing. He’s changing our lives.”
The thing about your team that was amazing is it didn’t take much. It’s just a few questions and they were ready to lean into their humanity, tell stories, and how it was affecting their conceptualization of cases. For the folks who are thinking and know about J. Flowers, I will tell you something about that team. You have a team of people who are willing to hold on to and work on their stuff in the context of being a therapist and a healer. That’s what you want.
If a therapist or therapeutic program isn’t willing to be self-critical without shame, a lot of self-punishment, and self-guilt, then you have something there. That’s the thing that’s contagious. It finds its way to the client who’s suffering and who thinks they’re a hopeless case. Thank you. What a beautiful team of professionals you have. They’re wonderful.
Thank you so much. We can’t wait to see you back here. It’ll be nice. We love collaborating with you and your programs. Thank you for taking time. We appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
If someone wants to reach you, Dr. Reedy, how do they reach you?
The best way to reach me is to go to EvokeTherapy.com or DrBradReedy.com. Either one of those places is a great place to find out about the work that we do, all those services, and all of the podcasts. The webinar is everything we provide to the public.
Are you telling me that you have boundaries and you don’t give your cell phone out to parents?
I didn’t say that. It’s about not responding to the parents.
You have it right there.
If they want to reach J. Flowers Health or you, Dr. Flowers?
The best way to do it is JFlowersHealth.com.
Thank you again.
Dr. Reedy, it’s good to see you. Thank you so much. I hope to see you soon.
See you again.
Thanks, guys. We’ll see you soon.
Take good care.
Important Links
- Evoke Therapy Programs
- The Audacity to Be You: Learning to Love Your Horrible Rotten Self
- The Journey of the Heroic Parent: Your Child’s Struggle & The Road Home
- Facebook.com/JFlowersHealth
- Instagram.com/JFlowersHealth/
- Twitter.com/JFlowersHealth
- LinkedIn.com/company/JFlowersHealth/
- @DrBradReedy – Instagram
- @EvokeTherapy – Instagram
- @EvokeTherapyIntensives – Instagram
- Evoke Therapy Programs – Facebook
- Evoke Therapy Intensives – Facebook
- @EvokeTherapy – Twitter
- @DrBradReedy – Twitter
