Therapy options for 16yo
Hi
My 16yo son came to me aged 10 with suspected sexual abuse history. No memory of it and no clarity from the agency as to what actually happened. We’re not aiming at memory recall but processing trauma as he’s sitting at emotional development of a 5 year old - still very clingy, needs lots of reassurance, needs to have a bed time routine etc.
We’ve tried talk therapy and he deflects. Play therapy (at 15) and we just made forts and attacked each other with missiles for a year. Life story therapy had the biggest impact (they go through the records of what parents were convicted for, raise issues of mother choosing the stepdad over him etc) but it’s led to him going to teacher to teacher frantically. They see him as a potential suicide risk. Something about school being a safe space means it’s the only place he’ll talk.
What other therapies could we possibly try?
No point getting a referral to a sexual assault service if he doesn’t know it happened. And we don’t know for sure.
I’m in Sydney, Australia