JULY 30 • 2020 | 23
J
ennifer Sobol’
s 13-year-old twins Ezra and Ruben arrived home
from their first morning at Therapyology, a new outdoor day camp
program wearing the biggest smiles they have shown since before
the pandemic. Sobol and her husband, Louis, are both physicians who
have best managed their practices, patients and family life as their sons
coped with distance learning and missing their social life.
“I saw the spark going down out of them from the isolation,
” said
Sobol of West Bloomfield. “When summer came and Tamarack was
canceled, I could not bear to encourage my sons to have more screen
time. When I learned about this all-outdoor day camp program, I saw
Therapyology as a great change of scenery for them.
”
Taking place in designated parks around West Bloomfield and
Birmingham, Therapyology was hatched by family therapist and social
worker Brooke Bendix. Therapyology meets three mornings a week for
tweens and teens and includes the usual friendship bracelet making,
water balloon tossing and even team-building activities with toys pro-
vided by Toyology.
Campers also participate in facilitated discussions that touch upon
building healthy relationships and coping with the anxiety and uncer-
tainty that we all are facing in coronavirus times. If in-person school is
canceled for the fall, Bendix said the program may continue as a limited
after-school program.
Bendix cherishes her memories as a camper and counselor at Camp
Walden. She and her staff were months into rebranding her family ther-
apy practice when coronavirus began to send children into physical and
social isolation.
Bendix said while many families held out hope that overnight sum-
mer camps would not be canceled, she and her staff brainstormed
about safe ways kids could meet and socialize outside in person.
“When April came around, my staff and I scrambled to come up
with a plan,
” Bendix said. “Could we provide them with a safe in-per-
son social outlet as well as a cool way to address mental health practices
to help them deal with all the uncertainty?”
Bendix and her staff facilitate discussions modeled after group ther-
apy classes she has taught for the last four years at the School of Social
Work at Wayne State University.
“
After being in social isolation for so many months, kids need a
platform to talk about what’
s been going on in the world and around
them,
” Bendix said. “Kids can feel safe to say they are nervous, that they
don’
t know what the future is going to hold and to know they can feel
the connection of others who are feeling the same way. The camp is
designed for kids to make trusting connections and to let them know
they are not alone.
”
A Place
to Connect
Therapyology Camp
gives tweens and teens
a place to socialize and
talk about feelings.
STACY GITTLEMAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Brooke
Bendix
THERAPYOLOGY.COM
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