Steps Family Therapy

  Mental Illness in Context In “Covert Depression,” I discuss the necessity of “dysfunctionality” for a DSM diagnosis. This post discusses how people don’t need to change themselves to duck this criterion–they can just change friends or locations. Virtually all mental illness can “disappear” under the right circumstances, and we can’t blame people for wanting to reduce anxiety and stress in the least painful ways. Here are some examples: In the heat of battle, hypervigilance, body tension, and quick anger triggers are functional. When you return from Afghanistan, they become “PTSD.” The discomfort of these symptoms in civilian life is often why veterans often have the urge to re-enter warlike situations (police force, MMA, etc.), where the symptoms don’t constitute a mental illness. Perfectionism and the absorption of other people’s emotions are anxiety symptoms that work well in hospital environments. Many people with parentification trauma find relief in urgent care settings as ...

  Hibernation is a form of depression. When an animal feels that going out into a food-scarce snowy environment will be a waste of calories, it stays in bed and slows down its metabolism. When your body is physically exhausted, it “depresses,” diverting all resources to conservation and recovery. When a deer is caught by a mountain lion and resistance is futile, it depresses its functions, particularly pain transmission. Depressive responses are normal and necessary for mammalian survival. Now, imagine interfering with them. You go into a bear’s cave while it is hibernating and poke it, saying things like: -So, what’s your plan? -You can’t just do nothing all day. - C’mon, I have lots of ideas! -You’re causing your own problem by being so lazy. If you’re lucky, the bear will ignore you, but I expect an aggressive response. If you manage to kick said bear out of the cave, it will operate half-heartedly because it is resisting strong hibernation instincts. This disruption will make i...

  “...The human being is designed for a long childhood, followed by a short adolescence, then adulthood… What we see children experiencing now, however, is an ever-shorter childhood, followed by premature, prolonged adolescence from which ever fewer seem to be emerging.” -Benjamin Hoff, The Te of Piglet, 1992 I could very easily diagnose most of my clients with a condition called “premature adolescence,” which I agree leads to “chronic adolescence.” There are many ways we can induce such a condition in humans, which all can be described as developmental missteps: -Children are often made to feel responsible for adults’ emotions. Not even the best therapists can sustainably be in charge of other adults' emotions. Adults who can’t manage their own feelings diminish the period wherein children learn to manage theirs. -We instill a sense of competition--the belief that there aren’t enough grades, college spots, or jobs to go around. I see 7th graders losing sleep over their resumes. -W...

  I once hit a roadblock in therapy with a woman struggling with an eating disorder. I was trying to instill the belief that our worth does not depend on our appearance, but she stumped me with the hard data of all the guys that now slide into her DMs, the new friends she has, and the easier conversations with her family, all who pay her more attention and validate her with compliments since she started starving herself. It looks like looks matter. In which case, maybe she should continue her 400 calorie/day diet? I’m trying to spread a belief that society doesn’t seem to share. We know body fixation is toxic, but we so often fall into the trap ourselves whenever we are critical of our own bodies, or complimentary of others’. That isn’t to say compliments should be banned, but that they need to convey the message we are actually trying to send: “I love and value you, and validate your efforts and feelings,” as opposed to, “You are more worthy of my attention now that you’ve changed...

  I kid you not. It was the hardest I’ve cried since my childhood. And I learned about myself as it happened. I won’t tell you what sent me over the edge, but once I got over the edge, I leaned into it. I recalled many experiences that I haven’t thought of in a long time; experiences that hurt me just a little bit, but never enough to cry about, and some never enough to talk about. But they came back to me, and I let them out. Crying is the body’s natural way of processing trauma and relieving emotional stress. If you can do it with a safe person, or in a safe place, without fear of injury or invalidation, it will actually make you STRONGER. When the brain accesses emotional pain and exposes it to a safe experience, it lets go of fear and shame. It gives you more capacity to do hard and scary things. It gives you more capacity to enjoy things. Very few people needed to learn how to cry as babies. But many of us learned how to NOT cry (and must now relearn). This may have served a u...

  The Psychology of BYU Breakups  Check out this podcast episode geared toward LDS singles:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mq02to4OKR39tF8JoXpm2?si=jOWim0GAQeCNPBox_PPolQ  Is this breakup, friend-zoning, or ghosting just eating you up inside? Does it feel like you've lost your eternal companion? Like you will never recover? It's ok to admit that this hurts. And it hurts for a reason!  Part of it is grief; you really liked this person, and maybe even loved them (or at least the idea of them), and you’ve lost the potential of something that could have brought you a lot of happiness. The pain of loss is natural, and will heal as you let it happen and incorporate new experiences and relationships into your life. But, if you find yourself unable to feel at peace after a normal grieving period, you might have to dig a little deeper to see what is really stealing your peace. Have you ever ruminated on thoughts like these?   "Did I do something wrong?"...

  How We Keep Injuries from Healing Most people don’t recognize the similarities that mental or emotional injuries have with physical injuries: -They mostly come from environmental sources, which can be treated. -They hurt when you touch them. -They both have a natural healing process that will run its course if allowed to. -They require more intensive treatment if aggravated. -As with bones and muscles, proper healing often leaves emotion systems stronger than before. I think the main difference between the two are that emotional injuries are on the inside--they can’t be seen (except on a brain scan, where they are clearly visible). Physical injuries are in plain sight making them easier to identify and understand, both for the injured person and for treatment personnel. I wonder, how would we treat emotional injuries if we could see them? Well, I do know we definitely wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) say things like this to someone with broken femur: -I just don’t see what the big deal is...

  Treating Nightmares, and Working with the Unconscious I don’t interpret the symbols of dreams for therapeutic purposes. However, the emotions of dreams can be very useful for significant healing. There is a lot we don’t know about dreams in the scientific community, but the general theory is that dream content is synthesized from material already within the brain. This happens most during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where it is thought that information is integrated into long-term memory. The material might be new, or it might be very old, and can include cognitive content (details) and emotional content. The various images thrown together on the dream stage can be pleasurable, boring, frustrating, embarrassing, or terrifying. They might be random, or the brain may create images to help integrate an emotional memory without attached cognitive details. Some nightmares happen sporadically, and the fear fades quickly after you wake up. These dreams do not necessarily implicate u...