Steps Family Therapy

  This quote has been discussed a lot at church recently, but there’s actually a lot more to think about here than “being nice” because you want people to be nice to you. People sometimes use this statement to justify hurtful behaviors, as we sometimes feel like we need a kick in the pants, so others must need one too. Or we want a quick fix, or a logical solution, so we should treat others accordingly. This can be destructive to our health and relationships. Jesus is not asking us to project our own feelings onto others. The modification of this quote “treat others the way THEY want to be treated,” is also incomplete. Sometimes others ask for aggression to get them to do something, or for a band-aid for their pain, or for you to remove your healthy boundaries for their short-term benefit. This helps neither them nor you. If you stop to consider the original version, you’d find it suffices when you consider the complexity of different circumstances and emotional states. We might in...

Thinking About a Theory of Everything (20 min read).  The audio version is episode 11 on Steps with Boone  podcast (on all major streamers) or here: https://open.acast.com/public/streams/634b7a13a82792001234e124/episodes/644355e9dcef5900114e7d96.MP3 What's the Issue? The world is in turmoil about mental health issues, as if they were a mysterious phenomenon with no solution. We’ve convoluted the investigation with scientifically unfounded theories about brain chemicals, DNA, and arbitrary diagnostic categories. We’ve developed hundreds of research-backed therapy approaches, and are no more effective as therapists than when we started psychotherapy 100 years ago. We’ve developed many medical approaches with many more on the rise (e.g., psychedelics), and yet the rate of mental illness increases. Maybe we’re missing something? What Do We Know? The world of psychology is going through a replication crisis, meaning that many of the research findings and theories from psycholo...