The Parallel Process

Growing Alongside Your Adolescent or Young Adult Child in Treatment

By: Krissy Pozatek

Narrated by: Sara K. Sheckells

Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

For many parents of troubled teenagers, a therapeutic program that takes the child from the home for a period of time offers some respite from the daily tumult of acting out, lies, and tension that has left the family under siege. However, just as the teenager is embarking on a journey of self-discovery, skill-development, and emotional maturation, so parents too need to use this time to recognize that their own patterns may have contributed to their family's downward spiral. This is The Parallel Process. Using case studies garnered from her many years as an adolescent and family therapist, Krissy Pozatek shows parents of preteens, adolescents, and young adults how they can help their children by attuning to emotions, setting limits, not rushing to their rescue, and allowing them to take responsibility for their actions, while recognizing their own patterns of emotional withdrawal, workaholism, and of surrendering their lives and personalities to parenting. The Parallel Process is an essential primer for all parents, whether of troubled teens or not, who are seeking to help the family stay and grow together as they negotiate the potentially difficult teenage years.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2011 Krissy Pozatek (P)2017 Lantern Books

Good for parents that have not done much personal

This is a good book. I struggled a bit with it because I have done a lot of work on myself (therapy, etc.). I don't in any way shun accountabity for my contributions to our family system, but the families chosen as examples were not relatable for me. We did lots of attunement and boundary setting/holding. We tried to hold him accountable while having empathy. We've all had good therapists for awhile - and yet we still ended up 8n a place where sendingour son to wilderness therapy was the best option. I will continue doing all I can to discover and change my negative behaviors, and I think this book is generally worthwhile, but it will not likely be a revelation for those that have experience in therapy and personal growth.

surprisingly eye opening

My husband has a PsyD in child Psychology and I have an BS in child development and have been raising our 6 kids with pretty good success, until... our youngest has so many different diagnoses and struggles with mental, hormonal/chemical and physical challenges. He has struggled with suicidal thoughts since he was about 6 years old. He knows he is different and over the years he has become reactionary and angry. 90% of the time he is delightful 10% of the time he is catastrophic in his thinking. It is hard to tell which is manipulation and bad habits vs. actual limits of his capabilities.
After a suicide attempt, we enrolled him in a wilderness therapy program and they suggested this book.
I thought with our years of schooling and training that I would not be as enlightened as I actually was. This book is very concise and clear. The author was able to put theories into real life situations and that was very helpful. I have a lot to work on and I have some hope for a better direction.

Emeralds and Rubies Hidden in Quicksand

Observation 1. All the "This is who I am, what I do, why I do it, who I know, who told me to write a book, who published my book, ad nauseum, sounds like an Academy Awards Acceptance speach. It belongs at the back of the book. We shouldn't have to listen to almost 5 minutes of "Me! Me!" before getting to the substance.

Observation 2. Subject breakdown and coverage was excellent. We found a little of most case examples in things we have tried over the years. Definitely eye opening even for functional parents. Just honest mistakes perpetuated to the point of delivering wrong messages, or in some cases, dysfunctional parents with their own psychoses .

Observation 3. The backdrop for the book is Wilderness Therapy, something we heard of but didn't really know the details. All the "Me!" stuff at the front would have been well replaced by a rundown on how the author's camp functioned. What are the levels, how does the initial break down work, when does individual and group therapy happen, are individual kids given responsibilities that affect the entire group of kids, etc.?

Our kid is in a place with Equine-assisted Therapy. We found that to understand references to specific camping events, we really had to put this book down and spend a few hours on the internet surfing for details about various camps. Having done so, we could better inuit the subtle inferences about tasks the kids were doing and what that example was trying to show.

Understand all that is involved in Wilderness Therapy before listening.

Observation 4. Quicksand along the trail.

The first 3 or 4 case examples were just about right in content, order of delivery, clarity, etc. Very well written without a need to hit the pause button and think, "Whoa, wait! What did she just say? Where did THAT come from?!"

In contrast, much of the subsequent case examples rehashed the information from earlier cases. I found myself wanting to hit the Skip Ahead button quite often. Not wanting to miss anything important, we staid the course to the end, but feel like this 5+ hour book really needs to be 3.5 hours.

helpful even if your child isn't in treatment

Enlightening to say the least. Be patient with the storytelling of why this book was written because it does get to practical steps and examples of how to implement these new parenting skills. highly recommend this book.

It's really great info.

Answers the question, where did i go wrong. What do I need to be doing differently..

Narrator is so boring

I struggled to get through this because of the mind numbing monotony of her voice and tone, the slow pace, and her sometimes ridiculous sounding role playing of conversations. The content is good, just difficult to get through because of the delivery.

Changed for the better as a parent!

I can’t emphasize enough how much this book resonated with me and changed me for the better as a parent. Is “saved” too strong of a word? While my daughter was in wilderness therapy as I listened, this book has fundamental parenting principles that will benefit any parent. I have listened to countless parenting books but this is the one that will guide our future as a family. My daughter is coming home today!

Father going through the wilderness process

My 15-year-old son is currently in Utah, enrolled in a wilderness program. We have known that he was slowly slipping away from the path we wanted for him and were not sure how to get him… and perhaps us… back on track. Although still unsure, the examples, scenarios, and possible resolutions elucidated in this book were certainly spot on with his particulars. I look forward to trying on some new skills when he returns to us.

Parallel Process appreciated

grateful to listen to this as our child is in wilderness therapy. we chose the audible version so we can both be listening and commenting on it at the same time.

! Don’t drink the Kool-Aid !!!

This book was refuted to me by a Therapeutic camp. This is part of a billion dollar industry that make you feel you have no other choice but to sign away you child to a therapy doc boarding school. This is something that you should take very seriously. This is Literally part of the program. After reading this I felt even more helpless. Please read other books do your research. When you sign up for these programs Realise that children are protected under law so the court cases records are sealed. So finding information is almost impossible to find. This is for the child’s protection as a minor.. this is why you do not hear about the therapeutic camps or boarding schools short comings.read at any cost by Maia Szalavitz instead !!!!