Serve and Return: Connection Through Bids
Pickleball made “serve and return” part of everyday conversation. But in relationships, serve and return means something deeper. Emotional connection is often built in moments that are easy to overlook. A child asks you to …
The Essential Ingredient for Successful Therapy
Countless approaches to therapy exist: ACT. CBT. EMDR. IFS. EFT. DBT. Narrative therapy. Psychodynamic therapy. Somatic work. Exposure and response prevention. The list goes on. The different approaches matter: the right intervention, delivered at the …
The Importance of Soothing and Attunement
Soothing and Attunement The importance of helping each other soothe, attune, and regulate can be overlooked. Consider the following example, where one partner is dysregulated, and the other refuses to help: Mary and Sam were …
Discover Your Inner Teenager
What does it mean to “discover your inner teenager”? Many adults carry an inner teenager—a part of themselves that developed during adolescence in response to unmet emotional needs, family dynamics, and experiences of powerlessness, invalidation, …
Navigating Change as a Couple and Family
Navigating Change as a Couple and Family _______________________________________ Change is a natural part of life, yet navigating change can be difficult. Sometimes change is exciting and something we have been looking forward to–starting a new …
Relationship Work: The Hidden Burden of Understanding
The Relationship Work No One Talks About A therapist’s reflection on hermeneutic labor, emotional exhaustion, and the hidden burden of understanding. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that does not come from work, parenting, …
