Vanderdussen Arlene Arnp Mn

I went to see Arlene as an adult, and found her to be divisive in my relationships. Additionally, she prescribed a medication and failed to notice severe side effects that landed me in the hospital. more

I went to Arlene when I was a high-school-age teenager after my parents divorce. I had an awful experience with her--not because of something directly malicious that she did, but because of what she DIDN'T do. I was a child and clueless as to what to expect from an expensive therapist. I would go in and sit on her couch and just talk, talk, talk. She sat there and LITERALLY said nothing EVER. She didn't direct conversation, as pointed questions, or offer suggestions to problems. She would occasionally write down a word or so. I am not convinced that she was probably writing her grocery list. I was a naive child that didn't realize I was being had, but my parents were the real victims in this situation, because they were not there during the sessions and had no idea they were wasting their money for my to talk to a brick wall. She always had little children toys and books lying around her office, so maybe she wasn't able to deal with a (relatively) mature teenage patient, but that's not an excuse for taking my money and not giving a real service. I feel like she just wanted our money and did as little as possible to get it. more

My son has been seeing Arlene Vanderdussen for several years. At ten, I took him in to be evaluated for ADD/ADHD and I felt Arlene did a very thorough assessment. Her conclusion was that while he did have the symptoms common to ADD, and while she felt we would see some improvement in his focus/behavior by using a medication, she felt it was not severe enough to say that he "needed it" and gave us the choice to use medication if we were interested, but did not pressure us to do so. We chose not to use it, but a couple years later, when my son's autism related conditions became more severe, and depression and irritability became so intense that he was out of control and I think we were both on the verge of breaking down mentally and emotionally, we went to see Arlene again. Her handling of our crisis is a huge part of what got us through that period. Arlene prescribed medications that treated both the depression and irritability (read: rage at the drop of a hat) but also focused on the "big picture" of his environment/support system. She continues to work with my son now, 2 years later, to manage his meds, she even keeps in contact with my son's counselor to keep a close tab on how he is doing. With her help, I'm happy to say my son is doing great. We recently added the ADD med to the mix, and I'm confident he has a good life ahead of him, in no small way, because of Arlene Vanderdussen's help with providing him a strong start. (I just read this to my son, and he agrees) more

I want to share my experience so no other mother allows her child to see Arlene Vanderdussen and thus makes the same mistake that I did. I hired Arlene as a therapist to work with my teenaged daughter to overcome some adjustment problems and teen issues that she was grappling with. Arlene worked with my daughter over several months and my daughter began to trust her and depend on her assessment of situations. Once my daughter was hooked, Arlene began to undermine our mother-daughter relationship by using clinical-sounding explanations that basically blamed Mom for everything that was going on in my daughter's life. Arlene worked my daughter over so thoroughly, I was put in a position where I was under attack from my daughter on a daily basis. When I spoke with Arlene about this, she went on the attack and made accusations that were patently untrue about my mothering and about my personality. I happened to discuss my experience with a close friend of our family, whose daughter was also seeing a therapist. She got very excited, and said she was having the same problem with her daughter's therapist. She described a name-calling incident in which her daughter's therapist called her terrible names. The names were the same as Arlene had called me, and when I asked my friend the name of her daughter's therapist, she said, "Arlene Vanderdussen". Now, my daughter talked quite a bit about this other girl in her sessions with Arlene, but Arlene never let either of us know that she was seeing both of our girls. When I had a serious discussion with my daughter about her "therapy", she decided on her own to stop seeing Arlene, and we have worked to strengthen our relationship and renew the mother-daughter bond that we've always shared. I hope Arlene does not get the chance to use her divisive techniques on any other trusting, unsuspecting people. more