I never treat a child alone because their behavior cannot be changed without changing family interactions. The family is an integrated and interactive system. As I often say to families, "I don't know anything about ADHD kids. I only know about ADHD families. Out of the family and school context, ADHD children make no sense. In the family and school context, ADHD children make perfect sense."

Since many families come from out of the area, the structure for treatment is to see a family for six hours per day for three to four days of very intensive treatment.

Treatment begins with a family discussion of the issues and concerns. From this discussion, I create a list of issues that each family member needs to begin working on. This and further family discussions allow me to teach parents how the dynamics of their family works, how this relates to the child’s problems,  and offer parenting techniques to resolve these issues. Many parents who come to treatment for their child also have their own individual issues, such as depression, anxiety, stress, work problems and phobias as well as marital issues. These are addressed as an integral part of the child’s treatment, at no extra cost.

I very briefily review the theory and mechanics of the CAER machine. Anyone who comes for treatment is required to have read one of my books, either ADHD: Drug-free and Don' Fine or my previous one, ADHD: A Path to Success, where the treatment rationale and procedures are explained in detail. That way I do not have to use valuable treatment time to cover this material.

Once I have a clear idea of the emotional issues that each family member needs to deal with, we began the CAER part of therapy. Each family member gets in their own CAER machine. From a console, I am able to talk with each family member during CAER therapy to assess their progress and make suggestions about what to focus on next. A large part of each day is spent doing CAER therapy. Throughout the day, individual and family discussions are interspersed with CAER therapy.

I serve a working lunch because it gives me an opportunity to observe and interact with a family in a more representative family situation, rather than the typical artificial office clinical interview. This provides me with a better opportunity to assess individual and family dynamics. I also use these lunch times to offer theoretical ideas, suggestions for parenting, coaching and demonstrating actual parenting techniques as opportunities arise, as well as to answer questions.

At the end of the first day, the family is given a homework assignment to create five minute audiotapes for one another of the things that they actually say that annoy, upset, or irritate each other. These statements are usually many of the triggers for problems. I supply the tapes and the tape recorders.

The next day, while in the CAER machine, each family member listens to the tapes made for them. Initially the words on the tape trigger bad feelings, but after listening to them several times, and concurrently watching the moving lights, the bad feelings subside so they become emotionally meaningless phrases. When these same emotion-triggering phrases reoccur in the future, they no longer have the power to trigger an emotional response or much behavior. Problems do not reoccur because the former triggers no longer elicit an emotional response.

After an appointment is scheduled, but before the family arrives, instructions are sent to the family to forward to teachers on how to make the recordings online. Teachers are asked to record typical classroom statements such as “sit down,” “pay attention” etc. The recordings are instantly emailed to me so that I can review them ahead of the family’s arrival. The teacher-recorded messages are played to the child while in the CAER machine. Soon, the teacher’s words no longer trigger negative feelings either in the CAER machine or later in the classroom. Without this emotional arousal it, is much easier for the child to attend and behave in class.

The CAER machine is paradoxical. That is, while you are in it, you want to think and feel the problem as vividly as possible. The more vividly problem thoughts and feelings can be experienced, the more quickly they can be extinguished. The recordings help elicit the negative feelings, which speeds extinction with CAER. Following this extinction procedure, the person no longer has an exaggerated response to the words, people and images that they elicit. Then it is much easier for family members to respond in a healthier more productive way, be it to each other, teachers, or schoolwork.

Along with extinguishing the reactions of others, it is also important to extinguish the “dumb kid” and “dumb adult” stories that both children and parents often say to themselves. Recording these self-damaging phrases is the homework assignment for the second night. The next day, in the CAER machine, these tapes are played to the person who made the tape to extinguish their own negative stories. This is a powerful way of extinguishing them in real life, and the numerous problems they can cause.

If the child has academic problems, such as reading, spelling, math or science, I have them attempt to do the problem tasks. This may be a math problems set, or reading a difficult book. When their emotional blocks become apparent, I help them identify the emotional experience and then send them to the CAER machine for a few minutes to focus on and thereby extinguish those negative feelings. This process is repeated until the academic task no longer triggers the emotional barrier. Academic performance usually improves dramatically as the negative emotions that have prevented the performance of the skills they already have are extinguished. I regularly see children improve their reading several grade levels, and I do not teach any reading skills.

Removing these emotional blocks also clarifies whether the lack of performance is due to emotional blocks vs. true skills deficits. Usually it is then much easier to address any remaining skills deficits once these emotional triggers are extinguished. 

Throughout the typical three to four days of treatment, I work on helping parents see, real time, how their child’s behavior “works” for them. Once they can really “see” what is happening, together we develop specific procedures to shape their child’s behavior. I have the parents practice those new skills whenever an opportunity occurs during treatment.

At the end of treatment, I do a demonstration of online follow-up treatment technologies, WebCAER, the Goals Program and the Homework Messenger.

 Dr. weathers presents a short narrated slide show 

I have created this two minute slide show to provide a quick and easy overview of my ADHD treatment theory and program at  Dr. Weathers has extensive credentials to treat ADHD Make sure your sound is turned on.  Unfortunately, unless you have a broad band connection, it may take a few moments to down load. Please be patient. You will find the result well worth the wait.