Articles
Group Therapy Vs. Individual Therapy: A Christian Counselor Explains
Sometimes it takes an outsider viewing your insides to help you be the best you can be. – Mike Holmes “Welcome, come on in, and get to know me better,” says the ghost of Christmas present, expressing a basic human need. I believe all humans need others to enter their lives and know and be known. The evidence seems to be everywhere – human beings have always lived in groups. We all need persistent relationship, a deep sense of purpose, and positive reciprocal interpersonal bonds. If most of our interpersonal connections are derogatory the result will be that we gain a [...]
How to Keep Nighttime Anxiety From Disrupting Your Sleep
Anxiety is the body’s response to real or perceived stress. Unlike worry, however, which is typically centered on a specific issue, anxiety is more of a generalized feeling of dread about what may lie ahead. Nighttime anxiety is no different than daytime anxiety, but it can seem worse at night because you manage to avoid it during the day when your mind is busy with other matters. It appears to surface at the end of the day when things quiet down and there are no more daytime distractions to deal with. The typical scenario is that you feel tired and climb [...]
Healing for the Soul: Addressing Trauma, Overcoming Shame
Scripture describes God’s Word as alive and powerful. Sharper than a two-edged sword, it is dynamic to distinguish the nuances between soul and spirit. It is discerning enough to denote what emerges from our spirit that is made new when we confess Christ as Lord and Savior. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12, NIV As believers in Christ, our soul is in the process of being continually transformed. Hearing and [...]
Keeping Promises to Yourself: Stress Eating Over the Holidays
The holidays are such a joyous occasion. For a day or two, you can feel the magic of Christmas as you honor Jesus’ birth with traditions. You spend time with your family, watch your favorite movies, and recreate family dinners. However, the holidays can feel like a trap for someone who struggles with stress eating. The weeks leading up to Christmas may have been spent with worry about making ends meet, gift-giving, menus, extracurricular events, working overtime, and keeping the family healthy. Maybe you shrug on Halloween night when the candy comes out and decide that you will not think about [...]
Figuring Out Physical Intimacy After Infidelity
Few things can damage a committed relationship more than infidelity. The closeness that a couple cultivates can be shattered through an affair, regardless of the length of that affair or whether it was an emotional or a physical one. One of the main areas that is affected in the relationship is the couple’s intimacy. Their emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy can suffer damage, and it takes a lot of work to rebuild that broken trust. Why intimacy after infidelity is hard. Physical intimacy with someone, particularly sex, requires vulnerability. One spouse puts themselves out there by initiating and expressing their desire, [...]
Parental Codependency: Understanding and Breaking Free
Codependency is not just related to substance abuse relationships, it now includes the emotional connections of dependence on anyone in a relationship. Parental codependency is when a parent feels that they have an intense feeling of being responsible for their child and an excessive need for approval. This creates an unhealthy relationship with the child. The codependent parent tends to exercise an overabundance of control. This makes the already complex relationship between parent and child more complex. These relationships become harmful and can lead to unintentional abuse. These relationships have little to no boundaries. What are the causes of parental codependency? [...]
Understanding Disenfranchised Grief
Grief is the emotional and psychological response people have after suffering significant loss. Different societies have norms, rituals, and attitudes toward grief that are considered normal. When grief does not align itself with these norms and attitudes it is termed disenfranchised grief. The term was coined by Dr. Kenneth Doka, a respected authority on understanding grief and bereavement. According to him, disenfranchised grief is grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly mourned. Though a person’s grief is normal, real, and legitimate, society denies the grieving person space and support to grieve. For grief to be felt fully and [...]
7 Causes of Resentment in Marriage
Most couples get married with the hope of a, “happily ever after” etched deeply in their hearts and minds. In the early days of marriage, husbands and wives proclaim undying love for each other, telling each other how they couldn’t imagine living a life without the other. Passion, romance, affection, and sharing of hopes and dreams are probably the most common and expected characteristics of the early stages of marriage. It is in these early stages that most people experience the cliched marital bliss and unfortunately, it is also in these same years that the tone is set for whether a [...]
Overcoming Offense: Tackling Conflict in Relationships
Belonging to a family, whether by birth, faith, or choice, develops connections. These can sometimes be marked with apparent contradictions. They can prove exhilarating, but also exhausting. We love each other, but don’t always align. We toggle between the tensions, finding ourselves at odds and offended by each other. Instead of covering faults with prayer and love, we expose one another and misuse our relationship as an opportunity to injure and retaliate. It can result in cutting each other off or continuing in a relationship that is suffering because wounds and major issues are left unaddressed. It is not always intentional, [...]