Dr. Joseph Balzarett began treating child during early elementary school. During elementary school years therapy was beneficial. Junior High and later became a frequently changing sequence of medications with very sparse psycho-therapy.
On several occasions inquired why no individual or group therapy. Response was consistently that psycho-therapy was not called for. Requests for coordination with other practitioners was extremely difficult to obtain.
Rather than eating disorder therapy, bariatric surgery was recommended to correct significant weight gain without ensuring appropriate pre-op eval or post-op management. Surgery opened the door to long term battle against pain med abuse, followed by alcohol abuse.
The long term negative emotional impact on family has been very heavy, as has the financial impact.
Located competent therapist early 2015, learned of intensive therapy program which identified the root cause of mal-adjustment to be arrival of sibling at age 3. The trauma of no longer being the sole motherly focus set off rages, tantrums, etc., which were never diagnosed or presented by Dr. Balzarett.

Submitted Oct. 20, 2015