July 2024
6 Principles of Sexual Health
By: Tim White, MA, LMFT, LSOTP, ASAT, APTT, CST Student Preface I have found the concept of sexual health principles fascinating and helpful in practice over the last few months. As many of my clients know, I am a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist. This certification has given me the insight and ability to help many clients struggling with their sexual behavior. While I am grateful for this training, I have resolved to go further than just helping people with problematic sexual behavior and operate in the realm of more generalized sexual health. This has led me to seek out training
July 2023
Rearing Emotionally Healthy Children in the World Today
By: Kayli Beaty, LMFT Associate, Supervised By Dr. Mark White, LMFT-S Perhaps you are a new parent striving to set firm foundations in place to ensure you are prepared to rear a strong, healthy child. Maybe you have been a parent for a long time and are seeking a different way to help your children grow in their emotional intelligence. Wherever you stand, it is not too late, or too early, to review and alter the narrative around emotions in your home. One of the foundational concepts attributable to emotionally healthy children comes from a sense of emotional safety and
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
May 2023
Therapy for Children and Adolescents: The Language of Play
By: Kayli Beaty, LMFT Associate As adults discuss the contents of their heart through conversation from one side of the room to the other, children tend to have greater difficulty expressing their needs in the same way. Play is the native language of children, so why are we attempting to speak to them in a way that is more difficult for them to conceptualize? Incorporating play into the therapy room alleviates the pressure children might feel when sharing their difficulties, as it is something familiar and a way to connect that feels organic to them. Similar to an adult in
February 2023
From Discovery Through Recovery
There are many circumstances in life in which it is intuitive to determine what actions to take to resolve a problem. Discovering that a trusted life partner is emotionally or sexually involved with another person or that they are involved in a sexually compulsive behavior like pornography use isn’t one of those circumstances. As individuals and couples, we are designed for intimate connections, with life commitment and marriage being the most intimate. I like to explain it using the concept of power. We have in us an inborn, God-given, DNA-structured design and desire to be the most powerful intimate connection
Making Sense of the Senseless
This is a continuation of my blog series titled From Discovery Through Recovery. I will begin with a deeper explanation of the power of connection because, upon discovery, a life partner is typically trying to make sense of a circumstance that seems senseless. As individuals and couples, we are designed for intimate connections, with life commitment and marriage being the most intimate of those connections. I like to explain it using the concept of power. We have in us an inborn, God-given, DNA-structured design and desire to be the most powerful intimate connection in our partners’ life. Discovering that someone
December 2021
The Ever-Present Calculator: A Message on Eating Disorders
By: Kayli Spears, MFT-Intern A 2020 research article on body shape ideals in the United States yielded that women “reported conflicting pressures to be thin while also having the desire to have curvier and fuller bodies” (Hunter et al., 2020, pp. 240). There has been yet another shift in the perception of the “perfect body” in the United States over the last couple of years. Similar to the changing of the seasons and the trends that come and go, society’s ideal body fluctuates as well. How can anyone win with what is “in” or “popular” when standards are constantly shifting?
October 2021
The Reality of Chronic Illness: An Invitation to Leave the Mask at Home
By: Kayli Spears, MFT-Intern “You look normal.” “Why don’t you ever want to do anything?” “You are so flakey.” “Why are you always tired?” “Can’t you just take some medicine?” If you are an individual with autoimmune conditions or chronic pain, you will likely find the first few statements all too familiar. God has designed our minds and bodies to have open and intricate lines of communication with one another. When an individual experiences chronic stress, fear, anxiety, or depression, those emotions have the potential to manifest into physical ailments in the body. When autoimmune conditions are present, the mind
