Articles
What is Insecure Avoidant Attachment?
Take a moment to think back on yourself as a child. Think about your relationships with your parents or caregivers. What were they like? Did you feel safe and secure around them? Was your heart met with delight? Were your desires honored with curiosity and healthy discipline? Did they attune to you when you were upset or crying? Did they comfort you and bring you back to a calm or regulated place? Insecure-avoidant attachment defined To ask the question, “What is insecure-avoidant attachment?” is to engage these core areas and narratives around desire, delight, safety, attunement, and curiosity. More specifically, it is [...]
What Does it Mean to Receive Trauma-Informed Care?
A person who experiences trauma has a hard time getting the help needed due to the alteration of their ability to recover from the event. Trauma is not the same for all people, so there is no one way to approach the healing process. Receiving safe healthcare for trauma starts with the ability of the caregiver to understand that trauma can impact a person’s ability to engage in treatment. This is the basis of trauma-informed care. What is trauma-informed care? Trauma-informed care is the practice of universal precautions for trauma. Just like the universal precautions for pathogens, trauma-informed care is a [...]
Making Use of Your Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
Have you ever heard the expression, “read the room” being used before? Often, it’s used when someone blunders into a situation and acts in a way that’s totally out of sync with the prevailing mood. They fail to pick up on the non-verbal and verbal cues given by others and respond inappropriately to what is being said and done. Failing to read the room can make you feel isolated and lost in social interactions. Being able to read situations and respond appropriately is important not only in social settings but at the workplace as well. There are many interpersonal interactions in [...]
How to Move Beyond Codependent Relationship Dynamics
A relationship can be like a grapevine – planted in good soil and with the right mix of what it needs, it can produce an amazing crop. The best relationships leave you feeling deeply satisfied, and there’s nothing quite like them. When two people genuinely love and respect each other, those are the makings of a beautiful relationship. However, just like a grapevine, a relationship can be emaciating and unhealthy in a variety of ways. Codependency is one of many ways that a relationship can go wrong. The good news is that codependency can be dealt with, and a relationship can [...]
Symptoms of OCD and How Christian Counseling Can Help
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a mental health condition that involves repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that are relieved by repetitive rituals (compulsions) that appease the discomfort of the behavior. As the symptoms of OCD become more pronounced, the pattern of behavior can become further engrained and feel uncontrollable, causing much distress to the individual, as well as their loved ones who witness the struggle. At the heart of OCD lies deep-seated anxiety, which can be treated with medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. However, Christian counseling offers an additional tool. By reminding individuals that the symptoms of OCD are not beyond the sovereignty of [...]
PTSD and Relationships: A Circular Pattern
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is a mental health disorder that can develop as the result of a person witnessing or experiencing a shocking, terrifying, dangerous, traumatic event such as war, physical or mental abuse, violence, captivity, an act of terrorism, or a natural disaster, where someone’s life was threatened, or a severe injury or death occurred. How PTSD and relationships interact PTSD symptoms can create issues with trust, closeness, and communication that affect the way a trauma survivor suffering from PTSD acts toward others. This, in turn, influences how they respond to the survivor’s actions, which impacts his or her reaction [...]
Grieving the Unexpected: Coping with the Loss of a Child
From the earliest hint or news that we are adding to our families, we encounter a range of emotions. Whether we give birth or adopt, the process of preparing for a life and welcoming another family member grips us with joy, anticipation, hope, and uncertainty. We want to give our children the best of everything, and most of all, ourselves. We do all that we can to make their paths look a little different, and in many ways better, than the events and circumstances that contributed to our challenges. It is all normal to experience this as part of the [...]
How Do Different Attachment Styles Show Up in the World?
If you are currently sitting at your laptop or reading this on your phone, then you are likely asking yourself the following questions: “What is my attachment style?”, “How does my attachment style show up in the world?”, “What are the different attachment styles?”, or “Why is attachment important?” If that’s you, welcome. In the field of psychology, “” is widely understood as being “the emotional-relational bond created between a parent and child during the first few years of the child’s life.” This bond is characterized by and observed through proximity-seeking behavior from the child toward the parent, and from the [...]
Understanding Types of Adult ADHD Therapy
Most of the time ADHD is diagnosed in children, but there are instances where ADHD isn’t diagnosed until a person is an adult. As the person ages the symptoms can change and often add stress to daily life. Those diagnosed with ADHD as an adult frequently prefer to use therapy for treatment rather than medication. This treatment plan involves learning how to manage and cope with the symptoms of ADHD. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be [...]