May 2025
When Kids Say “No”
By: Justin Rivas. In Marriage and Family Therapy, we often encounter parents grappling with a common challenge: a child's resistance to therapy. It's understandable to feel frustrated, annoyed, or worried when your child refuses help, but how we respond can significantly impact their willingness to engage in the process. Firstly, acknowledging the child’s feelings promotes participation. Children, like adults, have the right to express discomfort. Instead of dismissing their resistance, try to understand the root cause. Fear, shame, and anger often arise as emotional barriers to therapy. Open, non-judgmental communication can set the stage for a meaningful discussion to begin.
December 2024
Child-Centered Co-Parenting
Navigating the world of co-parenting can be a real rollercoaster of emotions and challenges for many families, especially if you are newly separated or divorced. Effective co-parenting often starts by putting the child’s needs front and center. By focusing on what’s best for the child, parents can set aside personal differences and work together to create a supportive and loving environment for the child/children. One key piece of advice I always emphasize is never to talk badly about the other parent in front of the child/children. A child carries a blend of traits from both their mother and father, and
November 2024
Therapists Need Therapy Too
By Adrienne Rains, LMFT-Associate Supervised by Dr. Mark White As therapists, we carry a lot of things with us in our hearts, minds, and souls. We need a place to get those things out. When in school or newly licensed we have a supervisor that allows us to express ourselves in a safe place. We are constantly talked to about self-care and what our plan is, but what happens when we are finished with school and supervision and on our own in private practice and our self-care falls by the wayside? This is when therapists need to turn to other
June 2023
Motherhood is hard
By Adrienne Rains LMFT - Associate (TX) and AMFT (NM) Supervised by Dr. Mark White I’m going to say what we are all thinking, motherhood is hard. You go into motherhood thinking about all of the sweet things that a baby will bring into your life. Like love, joy, cute outfits, setting up the nursery just so, etc. But once your little one is in your arms you learn about the sleepless nights, the crying, the spit up (or in some cases projectile vomit), the poop, being peed on, but mostly you learn that you as the mother can lose
March 2020
Struggling with Sexual Temptation as a Married Man? Part 5
Previously, I presented Proverbs 5 as God’s design for husbands to make sense of sexual temptation in marriage, and to further discover effective antidotes to prevent empowering the sexual temptation experience. God’s design is to empower a man’s experience of his wife, thereby disempowering the experience of sexual temptation. A husband needs to choose to rejoice in, be satisfied by, and be captivated by his wife, exclusively. Wives are designed to thrive in a context of knowing their husbands are making these choices. A fourth design parameter to consider comes from 1 Peter 3:7 where we find a verse stating
Struggling with Sexual Temptation as a Married Man? Part 4
Previously, I presented Proverbs 5 as God’s design for husbands to make sense of sexual temptation in marriage, and to further discover an effective antidote to the experience. The first design antidote is to choose to rejoice in your wife. The second design antidote is to choose to experience physical, sensual, and sexual satisfaction exclusively with your her. The third is to choose to be captivated in your wife. The scripture in Proverbs 5:19 states in most versions ‘may you be captivated by her love.’ Notice that the scripture does not include choosing to be captivated by physical characteristics. It
Struggling with Sexual Temptation as a Married Man? Part 3
Previously, I presented Proverbs 5 as God’s design for husbands to make sense of sexual temptation in marriage, and to further discover an effective antidote to the experience. The first design antidote is to choose to rejoice in your wife. The second design antidote is to choose to experience physical, sensual, and sexual satisfaction exclusively with her. The scripture in Proverbs 5:19 actually states in most versions ‘may her breasts satisfy you always.’ It seems clear that the verse is not about anatomy, but about the satisfying nature of bodily contact with a wife. Notice that the scripture does not
Struggling with Sexual Temptation as a Married Man? Part 2
Previously, I presented Proverbs 5 as God’s design for husbands to make sense of sexual temptation in marriage, and to further discover an effective antidote to the experience. The first design antidote is to choose to rejoice in your wife. Proverbs 5: states ‘may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.’ Rejoicing is not a common term for most of us in today’s culture. What does this really mean in the Hebrew context in which it was written? We need to know the meaning in order to live out the design. Rejoice means to feel or to show great
