Hello Celia
So glad you have got in touch with us. Because no-one talks about this condition, most medical practitioners have not heard of it. So you need to give them the facts:
1. If you let me have your address, I can arrange for our brochure to be posted to you; you can then show it to others as needed. At the bottom of the webpages you will see our support email address.
2. The UK Paruresis Trust is a registered UK charity; which gives it credibility.
3. A trustee of the charity is a retired clinical psychologist.
4. The home page of our website www.ukpt.org.uk can be printed: this contains a reference to the research that identified this condition back in the 50s. It also shows that the UKPT had Lottery Funding, again evidence of credibility.
The condition is treated using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, known as CBT. A clinical psychologist will know how to use CBT for an anxiety condition like this, but may not have the experience to deal with more severe cases.
Which brings me to our residential weekend workshops, which use a CBT approach to address the issue. We have been running these since 2003 and have run over 90 workshops, attended by over 500 individuals. The workshop leaders have or have had some degree of paruresis and so have personal experience of what participants are going through. The workshop provides a safe place for the individual to deal with the condition at a pace that suits him or her.
As for your son being 16, we have a Safeguarding Young People and Vulnerable Adults Policy, and procedures for handling a young person. We have done this successfully several times so far, with 16 year olds and a 14 year old.
The website page on workshops show there are two beginners' workshops coming up: Reading on 2-4 Feb, and Manchester on 9-11 March. I suggest the Feb workshop is probably too soon to put arrangements in place, and the March workshop is feasible.
So I hope this helps. Do get back to me on the support email address with any queries etc so that we can move this forward.
Best wishes
Andrew
Andrew Smith
Chair - UKPT
E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
6 years 2 months ago