Clay: Hello and welcome to the Online Counselling Podcast. I’m Clay Cockrell and I’m very glad you could join us. It has been an amazing week and I want to give a shout out thank you for Melvin Varghese who had me on his podcast, Selling the Couch. Actually, it was a two-episode podcast where we talked about the who, what, where, why, when, and how of online counseling, really able to delve pretty deep into it. Melvin has a huge following and is a great resource to our profession. If you haven’t checked out his site yet, please be sure to go over to Selling the Couch. I think it’s sellingthecouch.com. There is a lot of great information there on running a private practice and he’s a really great guy.
As a result of being on his podcast, we’ve had a lot of new people to this podcast. If you’re new, welcome, and also a lot of signups to The Directory, which if you haven’t had a chance to check it out, please do. We are up and running and it seems that all of the little glitches and bugs that we had with the site have been resolved. Yay! I tell you, it has been a journey. I’m a therapist with a full time practice, not a web designer and I’ve had a massive learning curve. Let me talk just a little bit about The Directory for a minute. We started it as a service to therapists who want to grow their online practices.
It’s essentially the Psychology Today Directory for online counselors. Same kind of deal, you create a profile and upload your picture, decorate your profile with a background picture whether it’s your office or maybe a calming photo, and you list all of your specialties like depression, anxiety, relationships, and your approaches, whether they are cognitive, behavioral, person centered, whatever you have as a specialty and then we market you and hopefully, bring clients to you. When there’s a client out there looking for an online therapist or life coach that has your specific specialty, your profile will pop up and they will send you an email.
Now, you don’t actually meet with your client on our site, which is onlinecounselling.com. You decide how you want to meet with them. You keep that choice of whatever platform you prefer and if you don’t have a platform you prefer, we have a lot of great information of what we call the Therapist Tool Box. It’s a little tab up on the menu where we talk about licensure, best practices, and all sorts of free information. That’s where we list HIPAA-compliant platforms like WeCounsel, thera-LINK, Regroup, VSee. Some that aren’t listed yet are Zoom and Doxy.me. I need to update those, but you have choice of how you want to meet with your client. That’s a little commercial about the directory.
We are donating a majority of the proceeds to nonprofit arts because I think it’s important to do that. Kind of like how Paul Newman, he has a salad dressing company and they donate all of the money that the make to charity. I love that. It inspired us to do the same. It’s a site developed by a therapist for therapists. Check it out. Let me know what you think and how we can improve.
On to today’s podcast guest. The podcast started out as a way for me to interview other therapists that were working online and finding out how they were doing, what the benefits were, and the challenges, sort of how we can learn together from those who have been doing this. Then the podcast seemed to go in the direction of interviewing experts in the profession on the legal issues, HIPAA issues, the not using Skype issue, I guess you could call it, and I found that to be very helpful. Hopefully, you have too, but today, we go back to our roots and get to talk to a therapist who has been working online, Janeen Herskovitz of Puzzle Peace Counseling.
She is a licensed mental health counselor based in Florida. She is an EMDR trauma therapist and her focus is on working with families particularly mothers of children with autism. She brings a ton of experience to the table as well as a lot of heart. She herself is a mother of an 18-year-old with autism. She has been working in this field for a very long time and from personal experience. She brings a lot of love. I had a great time getting to know her. I hope you do too. Welcome to the podcast.
On the podcast today, Janeen Herskovitz of Puzzle Peace Counseling. Janeen, welcome to the show.
Janeen: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
Clay: Now, we first met at the most awesome conference about a month ago now, right?
Janeen: Yes, it was incredible.
Clay: It sounds like things have been busy for you since the conference.
Janeen: They really have. It’s made such a huge difference in my practice. It’s great.
Clay: Oh, good. Tell us a little bit about your particular practice which as soon as I heard about it that this is fascinating and such a huge need. Tell us a little bit about Puzzle Peace.
Janeen: Sure. Well, Puzzle Peace, we treat, it’s myself and one other therapist, and we treat mostly autism families. They are families that are living with autism in some capacity, either they have it themselves or they are raising a child with it. I started the practice because I’m an autism parent myself. I’ve been raising my son, Ben, for 18 years and he is profoundly affected by autism. I use both the combination of my clinical background as well as my personal experiences to help parents just navigate a new diagnosis, get on track, process all the feelings, and just the difficulties that go along with it.
Clay: As a parent of an 18-year-old, this, I would imagine, when you first got this diagnosis all those years ago, there were not a lot of resources out there. This must have been kind of like somebody threw you in the deep end of the pool. “What the hell is this?”
Janeen: Exactly, yes. My son was born in 1997. He developed normally for the first 2.5 years of life, hitting 99% of his milestones, and then started losing things – waving goodbye, making eye contact, speech that he had he lost, things like that. At that time, as a mom, you think you’re going crazy and you think, well, maybe I didn’t see the things that I thought I saw, but it’s considered what’s called aggressive autism. I didn’t have a lot of resources. There were resources for him, for my son, to get treatment but there wasn’t any specific help for me.
Clay: Yeah, as a family member.
Janeen: Correct, yeah, and so it takes its toll on your mental health. It takes its toll on your physical health because very often, your child doesn’t sleep.
Clay: Oh.
Janeen: Yeah, so we would be up sometimes for days and then I hit just rock bottom and had to go to counseling myself and get some help. The counselor I went to is wonderful, but she wasn’t familiar with autism at that time. There wasn’t the amount of children that are diagnosed today.
Clay: It’s just fascinating, I think, what brings us to the profession, right, and you, having the experience of day in and day out for 18 years, now knowing how to deal with a 3-year-old, a 10-year-old, an
18-year-old, across the spectrum as those needs and challenges change. You bring a wealth of information to your clients, I would imagine, not just clinically but experientially.
Janeen: Yeah. I feel like I do and I tell all of my clients I don’t consider myself “autism expert” because I feel like each child with autism is so different, but I am an expert in my child and in managing my own self care, which self care is the key for parents and that’s the thing I help them with the most.
Clay: How difficult has it been for you to essentially start a business? How long has Puzzle Peace been around and you’re running this business. You’re also managing your home life. How’s that been?
Janeen: Oh, it has been a challenge, to say the least. I am so blessed. I have a very, very supportive husband. My husband is a teacher and he has been a teacher at a local school here for 18 years. I also have a daughter who is two years younger than my son. Juggling all that has been difficult. I went back to school to be a counselor when my children were little and it took me literally twice as long as it would anyone else because I took one class at a time. I then launched right into the practice right out of school. Part of my internship and my time as a registered intern with the State of Florida was on the ground floor starting my practice. I jumped right in because I had the opportunity to work side by side with a local autism doctor here in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, Dr. Julie Buckley, and she really helped me get the practice off the ground.
Clay: That’s right. I do want to clarify, it’s Puzzle Peace but Peace is spelled P-E-A-C-E.
Janeen: Yes.
Clay: Bringing peace to these families.
Janeen: Exactly.
Clay: And it’s a puzzle.
Janeen: Yes and Puzzle Peace has been kind of an icon for autism.
Clay: Oh, okay.
Janeen: It’s kind of cliché now. It’s just when we parents see the Puzzle Peace, we’re like, “Yup, that’s our people.”
Clay: Oh wow.
Janeen: Yeah.
Clay: So outside that world – I didn’t know that. That’s really interesting.
Janeen: Yeah and the cool thing is as I treat people who also don’t have anything to do with autism but might be going through just a difficult time in their life, especially people who are caretakers of sick family members and things like that because when they read my story, they figure, “Oh, you can probably help me too.”
Clay: Yeah, absolutely. Now, you work online and face to face. Let’s talk a little bit about your online approach and what are people in general coming to you with? What are some of their complaints, their issues that they bring to the table?
Janeen: Sure. Well, most of the people that I see are moms and they usually call me with just complete overwhelm. They usually tell me that either their child has just been diagnosed or they might suspect that something is wrong and they don’t know what to do, or perhaps they are hitting one of those milestones. In my experience it has been, the initial diagnosis was difficult then when he turned 5 years old, that was hard because I had to make a shift. “Okay, now we’re school age. Now, what do we do?” When he was 10, I was on the cusp of puberty. That brings in a whole other host of issues and now that he’s 18, I’m dealing with a young adult. I’m dealing with things like guardianship and is he going to live on his own , what is my life going to look like from here on out, and then what are we going to do when my husband and I aren’t here anymore. Some of the really tough things to talk about, parents will call at those different stages and say, “I don’t even know where to start here.”
Clay: Yeah, wow. Just wow.
Janeen: Yeah, it’s overwhelming.
Clay: Yeah. You’re working in Florida. You’re based in Florida. Let’s talk a little bit about the online experience and when did you first start working online and not just face to face because you do both, right?
Janeen: Yes, I do. I started working online because the doctor that I lease a space from her, she sends me most of my referrals and she was sending me, she attracts people from all over the world. People will come to her because she’s an autism specialist and then they will go back home. She’ll say, “You really do need to follow up with some counseling,” and then when they hear about me, they want to see me. In the beginning, I was seeing people not knowing via Skype and other things, and then once I realized, “Oh gosh, I’m not allowed to do that,” I pulled back and started using other platforms. I’ve used VSee. Now, I currently use Doxy.me.
Clay: Doxy.me. Why did you gravitate to Doxy.me?
Janeen: I read about it, I think it was Roy Huggins. Is that his name?
Clay: Yup.
Janeen: I followed his blog and he just has a wealth of information. VSee was kind of, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel aesthetically pleasing to me when I would use it so I thought, well, let me try Doxy.me, and I gave that a try. I’ve tried some paid services and they were okay too, but I find that this is the best fit for me right now.
Clay: So Doxy.me, is that paid or is that free?
Janeen: It’s free.
Clay: It’s free and HIPAA compliant.
Janeen: Yes.
Clay: That’s incredible and they’ve got a pretty good connection, pretty clear image?
Janeen: Yeah. I’ve had no issues with it at all, unless it has been on the other person’s end. I’ve run into that where on their end, they don’t have a great connection.
Clay: Okay.
Janeen: Yeah, that has worked out good. For now, I’m trying to stick within the state of Florida as much as I can until I learn the other states and what they require. I’m only an hour from the Georgia border and Georgia has just instituted some fairly strict laws.
Clay: Yeah, let’s talk about that.
Janeen: Yeah.
Clay: You have to go through a training program, right, like a six-hour training program?
Janeen: Yeah. I just started looking into that and I will probably do that just so that I have it, but I think, and this is something that I’m working on finding out actually, I think you also have to be licensed in that state.
Clay: Okay. You have to be licensed and then those licensed people have to get additional training and accreditation for their Distance Credential Counseling, I think it is.
Janeen: Yes.
Clay: Okay. Alright, but before the call, you were saying a little bit that there is this doctor that sees a lot of Georgia patients and wants to refer these people to you.
Janeen: Right.
Clay: But you can’t really see them.
Janeen: Yeah. It’s difficult and I was seeing a few of them before on and off, and when they instituted this new telemental health law, that changed things for me. Now, I’m just going to find out how do I comply? How do I do that?
Clay: Right, just figuring it out. You also then will do coaching and some of the training and I guess techniques and tips for parents of autism and you work across state lines with a coach.
Janeen: Yes. When I started doing some CEUs in telehealth, what I learned very quickly was that whether you call yourself a coach or a therapist, because I have a license, I have that license to protect – bottom line – no matter what I’m doing, but I think it comes down to my informed consent where I will make sure that I know what that person’s needs are. Say, if I’m going to go across to Tennessee or South Carolina, or something like that, I’ll make sure that they are aware that I’m not going to be doing “therapeutic interventions” with them, but we’re going to be talking about their child, about parenting skills, things like that. That’s outlined in my telehealth informed consent. If I find that they have other issues which they often do, I mean, I’ll be honest, autism parents, they’ve got depression, anxiety, sometimes substance abuse issues, things like that. I will refer them to a counselor in their area. They can see face to face and in person because I find that a lot of those issues, unless I’m very familiar with the state laws, it can get kind of sticky.
Clay: Yeah, absolutely. What about international clients, do you have clients overseas?
Janeen: I have had two clients that technically live overseas but they will come a couple times a year to see the doctor that’s next door to me and so we will coincide our appointments when they are here in person. I have done one or two online appointments with a client in Nigeria. That was just to follow up with some coaching after she had left the States.
Clay: Wow, Nigeria.
Janeen: Yeah.
Clay: I’ve had clients in Kenya, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia, but I don’t think I’ve had a Nigerian client before. That’s pretty cool.
Janeen: Yeah. It was very cool.
Clay: Has anything come between you when you are online using Doxy.me? How was it different for you in connecting with parents or with anyone versus face to face? What’s the experience like for you?
Janeen: I think that’s one of the reasons that I stick to the coaching instead of the heavy duty counseling because I do EMDR therapy for trauma as well. I can’t do that online. If people do, that’s fine, but for me, I need that in the room face to face physical space between us connection because it can be so tricky with trauma. Actually, there are studies that show that the experience of getting a diagnosis of autism for your child is considered a traumatic experience.
Clay: Yeah.
Janeen: That’s why I got certified in the trauma therapy, but to answer your question, the difference for me is that I find the online platform is much more conducive to coaching where I’m teaching, I’m checking in and saying, “Hey, how are things going this week? What do you feel like you need help with?” That usually involves things like dietary interventions that they are trying or navigating different therapies because there are hundreds of different therapies for children with autism. |Navigating the sibling issues, the marital issues, all of those things.
Clay: So a lot of logistical things.
Janeen: Exactly. A lot of logistical things, a lot of how can I set up my house to be safe and autism friendly, and things that they might not think about. As my son got older, he figured out how to open the locks and how to get out. He’s gone missing a couple of times.
Clay: Oh dear.
Janeen: Yeah, so these are things that happen to a parent. They are like, “Oh my gosh. I feel like a terrible parent.” You’re not. These kids are smarter than we are and it’s really, sometimes, it’s hard to keep up with them. That kind of stuff is great to talk about online.
Clay: That’s fascinating to me because I don’t know if it was Kelly Higdon or Miranda Palmer of ZynnyMe. One of them went completely in the direction of coaching, I think that they were just feeling that pull versus doing therapy online, then I heard the exact opposite that there are some people that just take to this like a fish to water and this is a natural environment for them and they are able to connect online really, really well. It’s interesting your experience was what it was.
Janeen: Yeah and I don’t know if that has to do with my age or my technical ability. I mean, I’m 45 so the internet for me has only been around for like a quarter of my life where I’ve been really comfortable with it whereas I find my younger clients like a teenage client that’s maybe going off to college. They don’t think twice about saying, “Hey, let’s just video chat my next appointment while I’m away at college.” They have no issues with it because it’s part of their culture.
Clay: Yeah, but that therapeutic relationship is different when you’re not in the same room and Philippa Weitz who I spoke with a couple of podcasts ago, she brought up an interesting question of, do we want it to be the same because it’s different and take advantage of those differences.
Janeen: Yes and that’s a really good point because people that have a lot of anxiety or agoraphobia, things like that, this is a beautiful solution for them. A lot of the moms that I treat can’t get out of the house. They can’t get a sitter. I just usually try to make sure have at least, during our time together, someone else watching your child so that you can give your full attention to this hour, but that travel time for them, they can’t do it. They can’t make it work or they are too far from me.
Clay: Yeah, absolutely.
Janeen: Things like that. It works out great.
Clay: There’s got to be this incredible connection with you. “Here’s another mom who has been doing this.” That’s got to feel great for a client to be able to connect on that level.
Janeen: That’s what I’ve been told. A lot of moms will come in for the first time. They haven’t had a place to just sit and cry, and just have space held for their grief because they get this diagnosis. They hit the ground running. Most of the moms that I come in contact with are such amazing people where they say, “Okay, we’re going to get this child what they need,” and that was me. I hit the ground running and I said, “Whatever we need to do, however much money we need to spend, I’m going to do it for this kid.” It can take a toll because if you don’t stop and grieve, that grief is so important and it seems in our culture, nobody teaches us how to grieve. That’s one of the first things that I review with them. This is a traumatic experience. It’s a grief stricken experience. Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about how you’re doing with it and nobody has done that for them before. A lot of times, the first time they will come in, they will leave my office saying, “You know, I just feel better knowing that somebody else gets it.”
Clay: Yeah. It goes back to like my graduate school days as a social worker. It’s all about the system. It’s not one person with diagnosis. It’s the entire family. It’s the system that’s being impacted here. That’s your approach. You’re looking at the whole.
Janeen: Yes, absolutely because it affected my entire family. It affected our marriage. It affected my daughter and there are lots of aspects to that that you have to be aware of and address at different points.
Clay: I think some people are going to be listening to this podcast and they are going to be drawn to it because it’s about online counseling and we’ve talked a little bit about the benefits, challenges, and state issues, but I think people are going to find this podcast also as a parent of an autistic child. Can you put out a few tips or things that people should be aware of and things that you work with clients when they come to you. You’ve addressed several already, but maybe talk a little bit about that.
Janeen: Yeah, sure. I’m a very big advocate for self care. I think that’s another thing that our society doesn’t teach very well is taking care of ourselves, putting on your own oxygen mask like they tell you on the airplane before you help someone else that’s in need. It feels so counter intuitive as a mom or as a dad to do that. There’s a lot of guilt when we do, if we take time for ourselves or if we eat before our children wake up, or anything like that. There are all these things that get in the way. Self care is something that I try to teach and that, I think, comes from a home that is as secure as possible. In my house, we’ve got certain types of locks that we have on the doors to make sure that if my son is up in the middle of the night wandering around and we’re not awake, he’s not going to get out.
Clay: Okay.
Janeen: Cameras if needed, we have a camera in his room so that we know where he is. My son went through a period where he would kick holes in the walls when he would get really, really, really angry because with autism especially adolescents, have difficulty managing their emotions. They have really strong emotions and often can’t talk about them, so he would smash holes in the walls. Well, we learned how to put up wainscoting over 95% of our house so that he couldn’t do that anymore, things like that.
For my daughter, we have a lock on her door with a key that she has the key to so that she can keep him out of her space. It’s just things like that that a lot of people don’t think of until tragedy strikes or something gets broken, things like that. If you name it, we’ve been through it with my son, self-injurious behavior, attacking other people in the family, trying different medications, all kinds of things. I’ve actually taken a lot of that and blogged about it and then also started my podcast on it about living with people with autism in a more peaceful way.
Clay: Wow. Let’s talk about your podcast. I know it’s coming up. It’s not live yet, right?
Janeen: Correct. The site is live. Its’ autismblueprint.com and there are two giveaways on there. There’s one for professionals, which is a best practices guide that you can download for free and then there’s a self care guide for parents as well. They are just two PDFs of the stuff that I found most helpful, both for the professionals and for the parents and caregivers.
Clay: Is there a network of other professionals, therapists, with this niche because the thing that occurs to me talking to you, is it fatiguing? You are autism 24/7. You are living with a family member. You are working with other family members. It’s nonstop autism in your life.
Janeen: Yes, yes. It is. I can say that.
Clay: There is no escape from this. This is your world, your profession. How do you deal with the fatigue of that?
Janeen: My self care is radical. It really is. I only see clients two days a week and I do long days and do like a 10-hour day, but I only see clients two days a week. The other days, I’m either working on my business or working on other things. I tend to be a little bit introverted in how I recharge. I need to have alone time to do creative things and I find the podcast and writing a blog, those are fun for me. I find them energizing, but I also need time to read, to hang out with my husband and my daughter, things like that. I make sure that I schedule that time and I figure if I don’t do it, I have to practice what I preach. I mean, I can only take a client as far as I’ve gone.
Clay: Right, right.
Janeen: I really do have to take care of myself in order to teach other people how to do that.
Clay: That’s poor podcasting as I asked two questions in one.
Janeen: Oh, it’s okay.
Clay: You answered beautifully. Is there a network of therapists or professionals dealing with this community?
Janeen: Not that I know of, not that I am aware of, but I have had several professionals reach out to me and specifically EMDR professionals, which has been really, really cool. I’ve been using EMDR with autism because not only is it traumatic for the parents but for the people with autism themselves, teenagers and young adults that are fairly verbal, verbal enough to engage in the therapy. Their perception of the world is very different from ours and it’s a very scary place when you feel things differently and you process things differently in your brain. They need some help with that processing and I have a lot of kids that have had really bad school experiences, really bad therapy experiences, and the EMDR has helped them.
Clay: I didn’t realize it. You’re not just doing EMDR with the parents, you’re doing EMDR with the patient that has autism.
Janeen: I am. I am.
Clay: Wow, and effectively.
Janeen: Yes and it’s just so cool and exciting. In my experience, and again, I haven’t done any research in this area because I’ve only been treating people with autism with EMDR for about three years now. What I’m finding is that they are picture thinkers. If you know anything about EMDR, you’re asked to picture the incident and to picture the worst part of the incident, the part that was most disturbing to you and they can do that so readily and so easily a lot of the time, and then they process super duper fast, super quickly, which is really cool. They get it and they get better quickly.
Clay: That’s great.
Janeen: Yeah.
Clay: Let’s talk a little bit about, you’ve got a speaking engagement coming up. Tell me about that.
Janeen: I do. It’s a small organization in Wisconsin. It’s called, I think, it’s the Autism College of Wisconsin. Oh, this is terrible, now I’m not sure of their actual name. It’s a Conference of Hope and I was just asked to come and be one of their speakers. I will be going up there and talking about how to help yourself as a parent and how to navigate it.
Clay: That’s great. This is your first speaking engagement?
Janeen: Yeah. Technically, it’s the first big one. I’ve had others, but this is my biggest one so far.
Clay: Are you nervous?
Janeen: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely I am, of course. If I said no, I’d be lying and you guys will be like, “Yeah, whatever.”
Clay: I never think about that that people that stand up in conferences and whatever, you just naturally accept them as leaders and they know what they are doing, but they are also humans. Their palms are sweaty and they are nervous as well.
Janeen: Oh yes and usually for me, I get nervous the months and weeks leading up to it. Once I get up there, I’m fine. I have a background in voice and acting and things like that.
Clay: I didn’t know that.
Janeen: That’s my little secret.
Clay: Well, not anymore.
Janeen: I do have training in getting up and performing in front of people.
Clay: Okay.
Janeen: If I can just kind of, once I get up there, I’m good.
Clay: Yeah, alright. Good and then webinars are in your future?
Janeen: Yeah. The National Autism Association, NAA, which is my very, very favorite autism organization as far as where their money goes and how they raise their money and the people that are affiliated with the organization, it’s the one I trust the most. They have asked me do a webinar for them which will be on July 7th at 7 PM.
Clay: Okay, July 7th.
Janeen: Yeah and I will be speaking on parent self care and that should be fun.
Clay: Excellent.
Janeen: That will be my first webinar. I’m nervous and excited about that too.
Clay: I’m nervous and excited. I want to do a webinar about online counseling and Joe Sanok is pushing me in that direction. I haven’t quite jumped into it yet, but maybe we can learn together.
Janeen: Yeah, that would be great. I think it’s important for us all to admit to each other, “Hey, I don’t know how to do this, but I’m willing to learn and let’s figure out together.”
Clay: Yeah. One of the things I ask people who come on the podcast is to think in an unusual way of what tips you would advice not to go to, like for example, my wife is an actress and I wanted to write a book on how not to get an agent in New York, all the mistakes that actors make in trying to get agents, trying to get on stage so that it’s a guideline of things to avoid. Do you have something along those lines to parents, either newly diagnosed children or living with this, some things to avoid or not to do?
Janeen: That’s a great question. I would say don’t run yourself into the ground. So many therapists who work with kids with autism specifically the interventions that are working on behavior, the behavioral interventions, and things like that will say, “You got to do 40 hours of therapy a week. Push everything else aside. Your kid needs eight hours a day seven days a week.” I don’t blame them for making that recommendation because early intervention is key and lots of it, but so many parents, including myself, will do it to the detriment of themselves and the rest of their family.
It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You have to pace yourself. You have to do what’s right for your family. Your child is the center of the family universe when they are diagnosed with autism and sometimes, they need to be because you don’t have any other choice, but you need to be aware that they can’t always be the center of the family universe because that’s going to take away from the rest of you.”
Clay: Absolutely. How much do you deal with guilt with parents?
Janeen: Yes, guilt is huge. Huge guilt over the diagnosis, guilt over why didn’t I see this, why could I have done differently, was this my fault?
Clay: Not doing enough.
Janeen: Not doing enough. Oh, not doing enough happens all the time and so often when I can look a parent in the eye and say, “You’re doing enough. Slow down. It’s okay,” and they just breathe a sigh of relief and burst into tears and go, “Thank God somebody told me I can slow down.” I’m also able to say, “Let’s look at some of the biomedical underpinnings. Maybe they have some food allergies that need to be addressed. Maybe they have some toxicity issues that need to be addressed. Maybe there are alternative ways of communication. We all want our children to speak, but not all children are going to be able to speak for whatever reason. I wouldn’t say stop trying. My son can speak and he can tell us what he wants and what he needs, but we hadn’t ever had a conversation about what he thinks about and how he feels until last year when he learned how to start typing.
Clay: Wow.
Janeen: Yeah. When he was little, I was told by speech therapist, “There’s this window of time and if he doesn’t speak by the time he’s six, he’s not going to speak.” That’s not true and it’s what we thought was true at that time. It’s not true and he’s still developing language. He’s still developing the ability to communicate. It’s just going to look a little bit different. What I tell parents is, “You’ve got to figure out what your new normal looks like.”
Clay: Yeah and my experience with parents of children of different diagnoses is that you’re dealing with this is not what you expected your life was going to be. To let go of the ideal and go, “Okay, this is what this is.” That’s part one but then also I imagine with autism, there is this hunger to connect with your child emotionally and there’s nothing there.
Janeen: Yeah or if there is, it’s really difficult to get to or it’s fleeting where you might see it one day and then you won’t see it again for a couple of weeks. It’s tough but there are things that you can do.
Clay: Okay.
Janeen: The biggest thing that you can do is get help for yourself.
Clay: Okay. So we’re at puzzlepeacecounseling.com and there is autismblueprint.com for a few giveaways, and your podcast is going to live there?
Janeen: It will live there and on iTunes.
Clay: And on iTunes, okay. You’re going to be talking with different experts in the field?
Janeen: Yup. Some of the episodes will be just me, talking about my experiences. My husband and I will also be, Chris, I’m trying to rope him into it and he’ll come on board because I’m telling him to, but he has a lot to share as well from a dad perspective. We’ve learned a ton. We’ve been married 21 years and we have really learned a lot about marriage and just when it’s under that amount of stress what to do about it. I’m planning some interviews with professionals and it’s mostly going to center around the family and the home.
Clay: Okay, good. I want many people to come to you. It is puzzlepeacecounseling.com, autismblueprint.com. For those of you who are listening and you haven’t joined our Facebook group it’s The Online Counselling Podcast at facebook.com/onlinecounsellingpodcast. If you are a therapist looking to perhaps grow your practice globally and want to learn about online counseling, we are at onlinecounselling.com and let us know what you think. If you have questions either for Janeen or myself, comment and let us know what you think. Janeen Herskovitz, thank you so much for joining us today.
Janeen: Thanks for having me, Clay. It was a pleasure.