Executive Officer, COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE TRUST
Understanding Family Therapy with Timothy Meyer
Dr. Lukin engages in a deep conversation with renowned family therapist Timothy Meyer, tapping into his extensive experience in ...
About Timothy Meyer
In a September 2020 interview, Timothy Meyer, an executive officer at Community Healthcare, discussed his clinical approach to working with children and families. Meyer stated that he takes a "big family therapy approach" combined with play therapy and individual children's therapy, tailoring evidence-based practices to each client. He described using motivational interviewing with adolescents who are ambivalent about change, explaining that the goal is to find the client's own motivation rather than imposing external pressure. Meyer noted that he often uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and emphasized the importance of involving parents to reinforce therapeutic work outside of sessions. Meyer also addressed how he engages families who are unsure about therapy, saying he sometimes meets with parents first to explain his methods and set expectations. He highlighted the value of confidentiality for teens, stating that having a confidant can be beneficial for addressing issues they may not want to share with parents. Meyer described the "MI spirit" as putting the client first and walking alongside them to increase motivation)Skip
Transcript (33 segments)
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Interviewer0:07
Hello everyone, thanks again for joining us today. We'll be having a discussion with one of our clinicians, Timothy Mayer. Hi Tim.
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Timothy Meyer0:16
Hey.
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Interviewer0:16
Today I thought it might be a good idea to talk a little bit about Tim's expertise and how he works with kids and families. Tim, could you tell us a little bit about that?
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Timothy Meyer0:28
Yeah, so a lot of the work that I do is with kids and families. It's something that has been sort of a specialty of mine. I have a lot of experience with it in other places in the past in my career. What I do is I take a big family therapy approach and then I also work that in with a lot of play therapy and individual children's therapy. So it's something that I really enjoy doing. It's been something that's been really great for me and a lot of the kids that I see.
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Interviewer1:00
Great, great. I also know that you put a big focus on evidence-based treatments as well. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that as well.
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Timothy Meyer1:08
Absolutely. So I've been fortunate enough to be trained in a lot of different evidence-based practices, which is really again fortunate for me. And so what I do with each child and family that I see is I sort of tailor it specifically to them, picking out the individual evidence-based practice that I believe would work best and most effectively for them.
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Interviewer1:30
Okay. Do you have a particular idea of how you work with kids versus adolescents? Do you feel like the family dynamic plays a bigger role in one versus the other?
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Timothy Meyer1:42
Well, I think for children, younger kids, I have the families in more than with adolescents. I still think that family therapy is important for everyone. I think that the family should be involved as much as possible. However, as kids do age, I do find myself meeting more with just the adolescents rather than with children.
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Interviewer2:01
Okay. Do you ever run into a question where you have an adolescent maybe around 16 or 17 years old? Although they're typically considered a minor, at the same time I would imagine they also want a little bit of privacy, autonomy in terms of how they function. How do you usually handle that when a parent either calls you and wants to come in a little bit more frequently than you think is necessary?
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Timothy Meyer2:23
Yeah, so there's something to be said about confidentiality with teens. A lot of the teens that I work with, they do really value the fact that our conversations are private. And so there is a line that I draw, and it's a little bit different with every family. But I do have to say that it's extremely beneficial to have these teens, these sometimes young adults, and to have that confidential person, that confidant, to work on the things that teens are dealing with nowadays. And some of those things they don't really want their parents knowing for a good reason, I think sometimes.
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Interviewer3:01
So Tim, I also mentioned that you have training in a lot of different evidence-based treatments. Could you tell us a little bit about maybe each one that you practice and how you tailor it towards a particular client?
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Timothy Meyer3:13
Sure. So I can be too rough too bad. Motivational interviewing and CBT, those are two big ones that I found myself using often with children and adolescents. And again, it really depends exactly on the case that I'm working with what will be most effective. So I don't have a steadfast rule, but it's really all about in the beginning when I'm getting to know the client, understand their problems and how they function, and then tailoring the evidence-based practice specifically to them.
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Interviewer3:46
Okay. So one thing that I heard you mention, Tim, is motivational interviewing. And maybe you could tell us just a brief overview of some of the elements of what it is so that we are better equipped just to make a decision whether it's something that would work for some of the clients that might potentially be coming in.
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Timothy Meyer4:05
Sure. So motivational interviewing in a nutshell is a modality of therapy where you partner with the client. And without getting into all the nitty-gritty details, what you do is you find their motivation, you find out where they are, and you work with them in order to move through the stages of change, which is what they call them in motivational interviewing.
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Interviewer4:33
Could you tell us a little bit about what the stages are just so that we have an idea of what to expect?
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Timothy Meyer4:39
Sure. So for example, most people come in to therapy in either the precontemplation or the contemplation stage. So the precontemplation stage is when you're not really thinking about any sort of change, and the contemplation stage is where you're what we call ambivalent about making a change. That means that you feel two different ways about the same thing. So for example, if a child comes in or an adolescent comes in and they are in the contemplation stage, they're ambivalent about making some sort of change, whatever that change might be. Now in motivational interviewing, you're certainly not telling the adolescent to change or you're not putting any of your own bias on it, but what you're doing is you're interviewing them to find their own motivation to change. And once you find their own motivation to change, you sort of pull that out and you foster that as much as you can. So it gives much more reason for someone to change when it's coming from them rather than from somebody else, right? So that's really in a nutshell, I guess that's what we're always looking to do in motivational interviewing.
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Interviewer5:50
Okay. So it sounds like picking out the elements that the person can identify, whether it may be amplifying them in therapy, so the person can walk away feeling, 'Okay, here's my own reasons for potentially contemplating change.'
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Timothy Meyer6:02
Absolutely. I can tell adolescents a thousand reasons to do something, but that doesn't matter because that's not true to them, right? That's not their narrative exactly. And so really it's about finding the right...
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Interviewer6:18
Do you particularly use motivational interviewing with one subset of individuals that comes to mind, and maybe then you follow up with more cognitive behavioral techniques?
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Timothy Meyer6:30
Yeah. So for example, a lot of folks bring their kids in due to maybe some behavioral issues or some motivational and emotional problems in school. So for example, if someone is maybe not performing as well as they could be in high school, I would probably right off the bat start off with a lot of motivational interviewing to really ramp up that motivation and that drive to perform better. But then if there's other things that need to be worked on in a cognitive behavioral way, then I would absolutely kind of weave that in as needed.
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Interviewer7:03
Any particular technique that comes to mind when you're thinking about motivational interviewing that you feel from your experience really works especially with that sort of young adult population?
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Timothy Meyer7:18
Yeah. So in motivational interviewing, one of the big parts of it is the MI spirit, they call it. And so the motivational interviewing spirit is really all about putting the client first, understanding them from their point of view, and really walking alongside the client to increase their motivation. So I think kids and adolescents, they have a lot of people telling them what to do, which I don't think necessarily increases too much motivation. But when you have a therapist, an older adult, walking alongside someone to get them to a point where they want to get to, I've found it to be extremely effective. So I guess I would say that in motivational interviewing, the spirit is key.
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Interviewer8:10
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Especially, I would imagine, as you said, with kids and adolescents, parents and just the adults in general typically tell them what to do. By having an individual who's impartial, who's able to sort of accept and authentically relate to them what they're going through, I feel like that's what you're saying is really captured well in motivational interviewing.
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Timothy Meyer8:32
Yeah, absolutely. So my first goal always is to really establish a really good relationship with the child or the adolescent and really kind of build that rapport with them so that way we can work on whatever it is that we need to work on together.
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Interviewer8:48
Great. And anything about cognitive behavioral therapy that jumps to mind that you find yourself using more frequently than others?
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Timothy Meyer8:57
What jumps out at me: a lot of adolescents and teens, they come in, they feel very anxious. They're anxious at school, they're anxious at tests, they're anxious performing. And I use CBT an awful lot when it comes to anxiety. So really to be able to dive in, look at our thoughts, and learn the skills and techniques in CBT, I found that a lot of adolescents really, really benefit from it. They pick it up rather quickly and they find it very effective.
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Interviewer9:29
Well, it's good because it works rather quickly.
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Timothy Meyer9:32
Great, yeah. And that's what I find a lot of the clients that I see at the Lucan Center are looking for: an actionable plan, they look for coping skills, something that could be used pretty quickly and going forward.
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Interviewer9:47
So it sounds like from what you're saying, motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral techniques are uniquely positioned to help the clients from that point of view.
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Timothy Meyer9:56
Absolutely. And also when the parents are involved, depending on the case and the age obviously, to really reinforce all the things that we do in here for the rest of the week, it's much more beneficial for the client. Because the more that the things that were talked about are reinforced throughout the week, well then the better they sink in, the better they sort of work. So that's also a huge piece of why I feel like the parent piece can be hugely important in their...
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Interviewer10:28
Okay. Tim, what do you typically do or what advice would you give to some of the parents out there that are maybe unsure about whether therapy is the approach for their child or adolescent? What are your thoughts on that?
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Timothy Meyer10:40
So that does happen pretty frequently. And what I find happens a good amount of the time is a parent might schedule a session with me first, so that way they can get to know me, they can get to know what I do, how I work, they can explain to me the problem from their point of view, and I can kind of give them like a preemptive game plan of sort of what to expect. I find that's really helpful so that way parents kind of know what they're getting themselves into and know how the child is being helped.
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Interviewer11:13
Wow, that's a really great idea because it sounds to kind of answer some of the questions that are being posed. When an individual has a game plan, I feel like they'll be a little bit more comfortable coming in or bringing in their child or adolescent so that Tim can do the good work that he does here at the Lucan Center. Thanks so much. See you next time.