Do you think too much therapy is excessive?

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I grew up in the '90's and had affluent parents who put me in every concievable form of therapy they could find in both the public and private sector. In any given day I was in some form of therapy for two hours or more and I was often placed with children of a much lower ability and these therapies were more tailored towards children of a low ability. There was a lot of positive reinforcement; we were often told how "special" we were and often got praised for doing very special things. Many of these therapy sessions were unnecessarily dumbed down; The therapists found it necessary to be "creative" rather than straight forward, which I would have preferred. I was forced to go to tutoring sessions for even the most basic things, I felt the teachers over looked my abilities. The school hired an aid, who hovered over me and followed me everywhere. When I went to the bathroom, she would wait outside the stall for me. My parents had to hover over me at all times, and when they wanted me to do something, they would always explain it in clear, concise terms, no matter how basic. I found all this therapy to be excessive, and I came to view myself as "defective." I got the message that I needed to be "fixed." I was led to believe that I was ret*d
I have been diagnosed with every conceivable thing you could imagine, and I have been forced to take every conceivable psychiatric drug available. This has pretty much been a death sentence for me.

I am not against labels or therapy, but we can not let children be defined by their respective label(s). We need to allow children who have been labelled, to develop their own identities, apart from what the school says about them and assess their true abilities as well as their challenges and use this as a basis to improve and offer effective therapies.

The thread title made me laugh. If it's too much then it is excessive. If it's not excessive then it's not too much.

But to answer your question, if the therapy is resulting in improvement, then it isn't too much.

Too much of anything is excessive. (ditto Wavefreak)

If you have an undiagnosed autism spectrum condition, then you can get all kinds of wild and wonderful diagnoses and therapies before you get anywhere near something useful. If indeed there is anything.

Obviously you've been a victim of a misunderstanding world and affluent parents who so often feel a pressure to make their child normal, and have the resources to throw at anything that seems like it could work.

I hope you are in a more accepting, comfortable place now.

But the right therapy practiced correctly for the correct amount of time for the right person is just right.

Maybe the proper word was redundant.

It just struck me as giggle worthy.

Are you currently in therapy? Sounds like you were put through a lot of unnecessary things.

Do you think too much therapy is redundant?

Possibly, and the more resources that are available to the therapist, the more possible it becomes.

At some point, living in the theoretical world becomes counterproductive.
There also comes a time when fear of breaking through can manifest into excuses.
Every case is different, every patient is different, every therapist is different and so on.
Perhaps a vacation is in order for the therapist, perhaps the patient, or both may need time.

I have a good social worker. She believes she had NLD, so she is not condescending. My parents force me to see a psychologist, who does nothing; he is just out to rip you off but that is infinitly preferable to being condescending. My psychiatrist is pretty weird. She sees everything through a psychological angle so when I told her about my medical condition, Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disorder, which does not allow me to keep food down she insisted I don't have GERD, I'm bulimic and I need to go to an inpatient clinic.

How old are you? Are you diagnosed with an ASD?

Well, usually one extreme is as bad as another. So if you can not have enough therapy to meet your needs, you can surely have too much. Even drinking too much water can kill you.

I'm 23. I have Asperger, ADHD-inattentive type, and dyspraxia.

After all the other diagnoses and pills and 'help', how to you feel about these? Do you feel they are accurate? If you do then you have a solid starting point to find ways to live better.

For me, the dyspraxia diagnosis is dead on but I feel that it should be classified as a physical disability rather than a learning disability. That way the schools would not be able to justify placing children in remedial gym classes with low ability students. Dyspraxics should get physical and occupational therapy outside school and be placed with people recovering from injuries or have private therapy sessions. I would love to learn to drive better and to get in better shape physically. My handwriting has drastically improved since elementary school, but my physical strength and stamina has not. During my middle and high school years, my dad tried to convince me to take up Karate but I had an attitude problem when anyone tried to tell me what was good for me. Dyspraxia also affects my ability to apply makeup. I have low motor tone in my arms, so I end up smudging my eye liner.

I would love to take control of my Executive function and be more organized. But I learned more about organization from real life experiences than I did with therapists.

I have a much better attention span than I did when I was in elementary school but I don't know whether that is due to maturity or improved self confidence. I had very low self esteem when I was in school. I was in a mainstream classroom with children with very diverse abilities. My school district had a strong inclusion policy, so there were children with more bordeline retardation as well as mild learning disabilities. There were ESL students and students in the METCO program, which bused in a limited amount of inner city minority students to a privileged school district. But I was the only student with Aspergers and apart from ADHD, I did not have any learning problems. I was always pulled out at least twice a day and placed in therapy sessions with the borrderline ret*d students. The bordeline ret*d students had their own academic groups, but whenever we were split into groups according to our level, I was always placed in the lowest level groups so I could work with the classroom aide. This was bad for me as I had an aaverage verbal ability for a demanding school, and an above average math ability. I scored pretty well on standardized tests. But I felt that I was being identified with children of a lower ability, so I identified myself as such and didn't feel it necessary to pay attention in class. I still space out in class from time to time and often forget to do important things so I guess I agree with the ADHD diagnosis but I think the stigmatization of being placed with ret*d children made it worse than it had ever would have been.

I agree with the Aspergers diagnosis, however AS manifests itself differently in everyone and I hate the generalizations that the professionals typically have about AS. For example, the general perception is that people on the spectrum love routine, but I thrive on spontaneity. Another generalization is that we're hermits, we live in the library etc. But I can't stay in one place at any given time. So I feel these generalizations may hurt us rather than help us. It's important to have criteria and give people a general idea about what to expect but professionals can not dictate who we are.

If it's "too much" then isn't it, by definition, excessive?

Seems like you have a fairly good handle on where you stand. Maybe you just need to be a little more assertive about the direction of treatment. Unless your under some legal constraint, you can make decisions about who your psychiatrist is. One thing I learned is that having confidence in your service providers is really important. If your shrink is saying you have bulimia and another health professional is calling it GERD, then one of them is wrong. Stick to your guns. Don't just lay down and take it.

I'm planning to major in Special Education and Psychology so I can have a voice and be more critical of the special education system and psychological profession and I'm planning to write a book about how excessive therapy led to my low self esteem and emotional problems. Thats the best form of healing I can think of.

I'm financially dependent on my parents (it's complicated) so they choose my psychiatrist.