The Texas Hill Country weather is so super nice in the fall and spring. There are months and months around here when pleasant temperatures allow us to spend time in the beautiful outdoors.The correlation with good mental health and getting out in nature has become common knowledge. There is a large volume of literature that […]
Therapist Blog
Creating a Culture of Respect for Your Family
One of the biggest problems that I see in counseling, particularly between parents and teens, is a lack of respect between family members. I have lost count of how many times, I’ve seen and heard shouting matches take place in session between a parent and a teenager. Most of the fights that occur between parents […]
Resolving Family Conflict
How many people like conflict? I think I can safely say that no one does. But when it comes to relationships, conflict is inevitable. This is especially true within our families. In an earlier post I wrote about effectively coping with conflict. Now I’d like to put a special focus on resolving conflict between family […]
Nomophobia: the New Buzzword
Do our smartphones create more stress or relieve stress? Do you ever lose your cool when you search your pocket or your purse and can’t locate your cell phone? Then this terrible feeling comes over you? Sure, now we can track the phone down from the smartwatch or computer. But, worst case scenario, the phone […]
Suicide Prevention: How We Can Be There for Each Other
Suicide is an uncomfortable fact of our society. We love to treat it like the boogey man and shove it underneath the proverbial bed, away from everyday life. We are terrified to even let the word pass our lips. If we hear people talking about the very subject of suicide, we abruptly try to change […]
Coping with Family Conflict
When I say the word “family,” I’m sure that several different feelings come to mind. Let’s be real here, family can either bring the greatest joy to our lives or the greatest amount of pain. I’ll bet that many of you who are reading this post started thinking of all the awkward Thanksgiving dinners […]
Children and Grief
As adults we can very firmly attest that grief is hard enough for us to understand or heal from. Can you imagine what it is like for a child or teenager to move through those difficult stages? The challenge that children face whenever they are going through grief is that depending on their age, […]
The Messiness that is Grief
I think we can all agree on this one statement: grief is a messy process. There are days when you feel like you can’t get out of bed to live in the real world due to the pain. There are other days when you are so angry that you can’t even say a civil […]
Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder
I have been watching the recovery of the Floridian building collapse with great sadness. It reminds me so much of April 1995 in Oklahoma City. I was in Oklahoma City during the time of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. A friend of mine was a police officer and a first responder to […]
How to Cope When Your Child is a Victim of a Traumatic Event
As a therapist, there are times when I have to inform a parent that their child has been the victim of a traumatic event. The reactions that come up in the session room can range from angry to completely devastated that their child has been hurt. Also, depending on the trauma, many parents may find […]
