Has anyone taken their child to a naturopath for anxiety?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi,
As a parent who is wary about medicines, based on personal experience (yet, I can't function completely without them), I was wondering if any other parents have taken their child (pre-schooler) to a naturopath to find a more natural approach to medicine, with regards to anxiety?

I understand many people may be skeptical, but the idea is I'm not interested in trying to 'cure' my child of her atypical wiring. I understand what it's like to live with my own alternative current, but the reality is, I do acknowledge her anxiety may be the thing that holds her back (and I don't mean just in school, I mean quality of life in general). Since my child is 4, I am concerned about putting her on pharmaceuticals. She was barely 3 when a neurologist suggested Zoloft (one I'd heard before he suggested it, has been related to suicidal tendencies).

Does anyone have any experience with dealing with a naturopath for anxiety in kids? If so, was it helpful? I guess I'm seeking an opinion before I drive 50 miles to locate one, acknowledging it's almost certainly not covered by insurance.

Thanks in advance.

I don't have kids, but my understanding is that naturopaths are pretty much homeopathy. If you don't want to do meds, I would try something like mindfulness or progressive muscle relaxation for children.

(Edited for typos.)

Last edited by ConceptuallyCurious on 28 Mar 2016, 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of alternative quackery employing a wide array of "natural" modalities, including homeopathy and acupuncture. Naturopaths favor non-invasive treatments and generally avoid the use of curative surgery and effective drugs. Naturopathic medicine contains many pseudoscientific concepts and is considered ineffective and can be harmful, which raises ethical issues.

If it quacks like a duck ...

Maybe I'm projecting, but as someone who struggled with anxiety his whole childhood, the dead-last thing I'd want for my anxiety is some "metaphysical" activity that requires me to feel something while or after doing it (or else something's wrong with me, on top of the anxiety). This includes things like deep breathing, yoga, meditation, etc.

By the way, my parents did a placebo effect thing with another thing I struggled with: constipation. They gave me things like activated charcoal or dark-colored vitamins, and told me it was a "very strong laxative". To make it seem real, they even refused to let me take it before school, "so I wouldn't have an accident". And world of wonders, it worked! (They "declassified" the truth sometime when I was in my late teens, and I was actually thankful to them.) An idea for the OP?

If you are looking for something non-chemical, I suggest increasing whatever scaffolding your child currently has. If you know what is causing the anxiety, addressing it directly may be the best thing.

Those techniques have actually worked well for our daughter so far. But perhaps you are thinking of something else?

Deep breathing, yoga, meditation and the like are not metaphysical and they don't require someone to feel anything. When taught effectively there is nothing at all mystical about them, they are merely tools for becoming more aware of one's body and to some degree gain control over it. Since a fair part of the feelings of anxiety are the body's automatic reaction to emotional states, gaining awareness and some degree of control can actually help lower the severity of the emotional states.

As an example, the first thing we taught our daughter was that when she's having an anxiety attack, the racing heart, faster breathing, raised arousal (='alertness', not sexual arousal) were the direct result of her body releasing adrenaline. Once she learned about it and became aware of how it burned off over the course of 15 minutes in her body, it became much easier for her to identify the feelings in the heat of the moment and not emotionally spin further out of control due to feeling that her body was out of control.

My friend's daughter has had a lot of success with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Oh, I've personally had tons of success with it too...until it collapsed, and everything fell apart. And because I never learned proper ways of dealing with being autistic in a culture that expects people to conform to behavioral expectations, the cycle would simply repeat.

CBT is a form of reparative therapy ultimately based on operant conditioning. As such it has a core assumption that all 'autistic' behaviors are learned and can be unlearned with no ill effects. In its present form CBT does not accept that forcing 'normal' behavior/suppressing autistic behaviors is harmful. Sad thing it parts of it could actually could be helpful if it taught as mere workarounds and with the assumption that autistic behaviors are innate and cannot be suppressed forever without causing damage. They could be teaching autistics how to get through a situation successfully and then take care of the needed decompression/decomposition, but that would not be nearly as lucrative.

< / rant off >

Good to know. I don't know much about it myself, but had considered looking into it for my AS son for his anxiety since my friend was telling me it worked for her daughter's. My friend's daughter is not Autistic. She has severe anxiety, and my friend has said that CBT has really helped her manage her anxiety. Other than her anxiety, she is typical. Thanks for your input. My son has a lot of anxiety as well, but I would not want to choose a therapy that would focus on suppressing Autistic behavior or forcing him to practice 'normal' behaviors. That would just add to his anxiety.

I was also not aware that that was what CBT does. I thought it was good for things like fixing magical thinking, catastrophic thinking and logical fallacies, because I assumed it was logic-based, which would be good for Aspies.

I thought it was ABA that was centered around conditioning. I did not know CBT does it too.

Edenthiel- I was interested in your comments about the CBT...my daughter (19 yrs.) was told to try this per her psychiatrist. She does not like regular talk therapy and the psychiatrist thought this would work better. Do you have any other suggestions or thoughts?? I am going to see if she will go to yoga with me this week...she has been resistant to going so far. She will do some yoga at home as she had a prior class, but not on a regular basis.

Prairie_Fairie- I have never been or taken my kids to a naturopath...I am a bit skeptical....but I never was in a position of putting my kids on anxiety, etc. meds when they were really little either. My girls now need meds for their anxiety...they are in their late teens. One is on the autism spectrum...level 2 social - level 1 repetitive behaviors....if that makes sense. She was misdiagnosed as a small child with a learning disability, etc. Eventually diagnosed on the spectrum a couple of years ago. She had an IEP for some of her difficulties...but was in mainstream classes with no helper for all of her school years. She graduated high school and did very well overall...but it was the social aspect that was so hard for her, that eventually led to her diagnosis. My other daughter is supposed to be "gifted" per the school district... her anxiety is due to mostly social/sensory issues, but she is not diagnosed as on the spectrum.
Anyway, I saw your other question too about behavior and your description of your daughter does remind me somewhat of my oldest when she was little. She didn't respond to regular discipline such as time-outs. I ended up reading a few parenting books at the time and ended up doing a lot of "redirecting" with her when she was small.

It really, really helped I think. It made everything not so much of a battle...And I would say to really pick your battles...if it doesn't really matter in the long-term don't worry about it...such as mismatched clothes or not putting toys away just as you like, etc. My daughter ended up being very well behaved in elementary school, but she was more difficult than average I think when she was very young. Also, try to give her "time and space" when you can related to meltdowns/tantrums....at least for mine, that is really what she needed as most of the time she wasn't trying to be manipulative with them. Just some thoughts about what worked for us!

Also, I would check out Diary of A Mom blog and facebook page. The lady that writes it has a young teen daughter on the spectrum and has some really good thoughts I think. She also has blogs listed of other autistic adults that can give you some perspective on raising your daughter. It has really helped me learn, along with reading a lot here on Wrong Planet, how to try to help my daughter along and be respectful of her and not to try to make her be someone she's not...but also to help her along in life.
Best of luck!

Not to add confusion, but it can actually be quite useful for anxiety over specific *things* (snakes, dishwasher noises, toilets, classrooms), as those *are* learned. Basically in those cases carefully structured desensitization is usually used. Far as I know, for that application there are no downsides as it really is a simple relearning of something that is not intrinsic.