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Originally Posted by amandalouise
the minor teen did not say in their post they are afraid their parent is going to sexually abuse them. they were very clear the therapist suggested this because the parent needs to view the self inflicted wounds.
its a parents job to view a childs boo boo's or scrapes, cuts, breaks, sprains and so forth, then get the child the appropriate medical care.
according to the posters own posts the therapist recommended this because they were hiding their self inflicted wounds.
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Excuse me, but a teen is not a child who needs their boo-boo handled by a parent. Not most teens I've known anyway. We had a pretty solid idea what injuries needed what treatment (granted, they weren't self-inflicted, and granted, it helped that there was rarely a need to hide them, and the injury being serious enough tended to override any such needs). Sure, there might be a medical risk, that's a fair point, actually. And I get that the parent is responsible in the end, and I'll defer to you WRT the legal stuff because I don't even live in the US.
Still, I think the risk of medical issues from SH should be weighed against the risk of further phychological damage resulting from inadequate treatment. We don't have the full picture in the OPs case in terms of the actual/likely physical injuries, but the psychological damage seems considerable. There are ways to
encourage them to be more open about SH, and this persecutory attitude is the exact opposite of that. There's a reason OP is engaging in SH and there's a reason they're hiding it. This treatment is likely to re-affirm those reasons rather than diminish them.
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I have a teen with schizophrenia that self injures. there was a time when she hid her self inflicted wounds and I had to have her disrobe daily to check for wounds, medicate any fresh wounds, bandage the fresh wounds and determine whether any fresh wounds need the care of her medical doctor for the stitches or infections or possible life threatening situations that self injuring can lead to. thats part of being a parent.
my teen ager knows the difference between a parent doing their job and disrobing for sexual gratification. she was fully aware that the doctors and therapists were telling us to do this so that she could get her self inflicted wounds treated and bandaged.
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Seems that you have a situation where it's a genuine necessity, AND there's enough trust between your teen and you for that to work. But in general, it's often toxic family stuff that leads to SH in the first place and this procedure is not easy to execute in a way that doesn't increase toxicity, and doesn't erode whatever trust there might be.
Just because it's the same, or looks similar to your experience, it doesn't mean it's a good way of doing things - in fact, it sounds like you didn't get the support you needed and deserved either. And it certaily doesn't mean that it can't or shouldn't be handled differently.