Welcome to ALTruistic Pursuits SpeciALTY Coaching with Dena
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
Transform Your Future with PCIT
Dena first learned PCIT while parenting 2 small children of her own, one with difficult behaviors. This program transformed her life! It gave her the confidence to parent her own neurodivergent children AND taught her practical skills to help her children manage their own behaviors. Throughout this journey, Dena realized that PCIT itself was not Neurodivergent Affirming, so she has included this LENS within the PCIT program. She saw first-hand, with her own children, how using this lens has enhanced the PCIT program effectiveness and offers this to all her clients.
Dena is nationally certified with PCIT International as a Therapist and Within Agency Trainer, and has been a trained provider for over 13 years. Because PCIT is a counseling service, Dena can only provide this service to Washington State residents.
Basics of PCIT
Parent-Directed Phase
Child-Directed Phase
PCIT is a short-term, evidence based behavioral treatment program designed for parents of children ages 2-8 with "behavioral challenges". This is not a typical counseling program just for your child. I work with you to help you with your child, to help transform your relationship, gain confidence with parenting a child with "behavior challenges", and learn skills to create a happier and healthier home environment. I use a home-based model, working directly with you and your child IN YOUR HOME.
Treatment is delivered in 2 phases and uses an active coaching approach to help YOU help your child. Typically, PCIT takes about 6-8 months meeting weekly.
Child-Directed Phase
Parent-Directed Phase
Child-Directed Phase
relationship enhancement: This phase is also called Child-Directed Interaction (CDI) and aims to teach you skills to strengthen the bond with your child, using language and specific attention to change negative attention seeking and disruptive behaviors. We most often see "behavior challenges" decline significantly just using this phase of skills.
However, I teach more than just this during this phase, I also teach parents about shifting their LENS from viewing our children's behaviors as "problems" to understanding them as "struggles" and clues to help their children by becoming more supportive.
Parent-Directed Phase
Parent-Directed Phase
Parent-Directed Phase
discipline/compliance training: This phase is also called Parent-Directed Interaction (PDI) and teaches parents a concrete discipline system AND helps you teach your child how to comply.
Prior to moving to this phase, we discuss and explore components of your child's "challenging behaviors" and try to discriminate between "can't" vs "wont". We pay specific attention to the Lens we are viewing our children through, as explored in phase 1.
If we decide a behavior is occurring due to a lagging skill or offensive environmental stimuli, we will work together to meet their unique need. If we determine a behavior is a "wont", we then move on to Phase 2.