Steps Family Therapy

 Music Therapy  Often, all we need to heal from emotional wounds is validation, and that validation can come from many sources. Music is the universal language of emotion. It emerges from feelings, and allows them to take form. Artists have cultivated a talent for expressing emotion, and may have produced something that really resonates with a feeling you've had. This is a list of songs and artists that validate particular feelings that we feel a lot in therapy. I will divide them according to emotional categories. PLEASE COMMENT with Suggestions to add to this list! I will have to screen them, but will be updating it frequently. Don't be ashamed of your music taste! You may find some of my faves from boy bands and classic Justin Bieber on here... Heartbreak/ Regret: -"Amnesia" by 5 Seconds of Summer -"Aubrey" and "Diary" by Bread -"When I Was Your Man" by Bruno Mars -"Die from a Broken Heart" by Maddie and Tae -"In My Bone...

  This post is to help us avoid instilling a totally unnecessary and avoidable dose of childhood anxiety. Though I don’t do Santa Claus with my kids, I think there are ways the concept can either induce shame or confidence in children, depending on how we use it. Let’s discuss Santa Shaming first. Children learn to define themselves according to adult perceptions. If they feel respected and loved by adults, they will come to feel generally lovable, and will love themselves in the healthiest sense. If they think adults think they are bad, stupid, or annoying, they will internalize these traits. They will either develop anxiety about trying to disprove these ideas (which does NOT foster healthy character), or become depressed and angry as they submit to them. Santa can throw more data into the mix. We introduce someone with the power to judge children as good or bad–and to let them know their goodness or badness through the outcome of Christmas morning.  However, it seems that...

  Update on the Flip-phone Life It’s been 3 months since I transitioned back to flip phone life. And a lot of people have asked me about it. Here’s my response. This is the Nokia N139DL. It cost $20 from Walmart. I got a brick phone when I turned 16 (2012), and used a flip phone for most of college, from 2015-2018, and I was quite satisfied. I switched to an i-phone only because my dating life was stunted by errors in communication between my 2007 Verizon model and the newest smartphones. Now I have a family, a small business, and a small social media presence. And I am highly satisfied with returning to a flip phone. For starters, it was way cheaper up front than trying to replace an i-phone 8. Second, I have significantly reduced the amount of time I spend catering to my phone. I’m not afraid to lose it, break it, or afraid that I’ll need it for something besides calling people. My phone serves me, not vice-versa. It’s highly replaceable. When people see it, they often assume tha...

https://youtu.be/-4EDhdAHrOg?si=VaPTmlTBojNi300_   Everyone can relate to this hilarious satire on some people’s inability to see the obvious impediments to resolution. There’s a NAIL in your head! Don’t you think the pain and pressure you’re feeling, and the snags in your sweaters, will go away if you took it out? The answer is YES, but the woman is actually correct in that the real issue is NOT the nail.  Let me explain. The pain, pressure, and snags are issues caused by the nail, but the REAL issue is the underlying reason that this woman feels the need to have a nail in her head. The NAIL serves a function. I might theorize that this woman may feel starved for attention and will desperately seek it in extreme ways. Or, she is experiencing a deeper pain and needs some extreme stimulation to distract her from it. Or, she has a suppressed fear of intimacy, and that nail keeps her boyfriend at a safe distance.  Some analogous nails in our lives are:  -Alcohol  -...

  It would be best to read this article after reading “How to Measure Progress”, found here .  This article takes us a step further in understanding what different psychological states look like, thus helping us understand how to interact effectively with people in various states. As a review, we recall that there are 6 common emotional states for people to be in, as seen in the U-Model:  Dissociated Logic : A functional state where people can remain productive as long as they can avoid certain triggering stimuli. Though people in this state seem “ok”, they are actually in survival mode, have limited access to empathy, and are engaging in at least some behavior detrimental to their health to help them stay in this state (e.g., addictions to caffeine, gaming, sugar, excessive humor, etc.). This is a common state for those with personality disorders. See the post “Covert Depression” for more about this state. Dissociated Fight/Flight : A state of intense anxiety or anger th...

*Current wait to see Boone is 4-5 months, depending on the client's flexibility. 2/15/2025 I was born at Camp Pendleton, California, on March 23, 1995. I am the middle of 5 children, and have two brothers and two sisters. My father is a family physician, and was in the US Navy for the first 10 years of my life. My mom is a nurse. We lived in California, Guam, Florida, California again, and Italy. I went to Italian public school for a year, learned sufficient Italian to survive, but can’t speak much anymore. After, we moved to Provo, Utah, where I started 5th grade at Edgemont Elementary. I graduated from Timpview High School in Provo, after which I immediately left on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Mozambique/Swaziland (Southeast Africa). I spoke Portuguese. After returning, I defied my medical parents’ wishes and majored in Anthropology at Brigham Young University, with an emphasis in agricultural non-profit development. I worked several landscapi...

A Child’s Work Ethic? Photo by Filip Urban on Unsplash I was recently asked the question, “How do I help my kids develop a strong work ethic?”. It seems somewhat straightforward, but sitting with this question showed me how complex it actually is. I did have some practical advice that addressed this parents’ concern, but I had to point out the basic assumption of the question: that there is such a thing as “strong work ethic,” or that kids “learn” to work hard. This assumption is not scientific, but moral in nature. And I cannot judge how moral/spiritual someone is, and most people don’t believe in judging others like that either. For example: Does a surgeon who works 80 hours a week, but neglects his wife and kids, have a “strong work ethic”? Does a teenager who develops ulcers and migraines to keep perfect grades to avoid criticism from perfectionistic parents have a “strong work ethic”? Does a depressed mom who used all the energy she had to just get out of bed have a “poor work et...

“But What About MY Feelings?” Family therapy is a harrowing process. It often starts with parents bringing in a child, wanting to know how to help them. I often start by gathering information from the child about their stress, and find it is most often related to parental behavior, or could be improved if parents did something differently (Honestly, most child cases turn into couple cases). This doesn’t mean the parents are doing anything inherently wrong, it just means the child feels stressed and doesn’t feel a therapeutic connection with parents. Parents often feel shame, guilt, or defensiveness when they become aware of how their actions affect their child. They often grieve over what they didn’t know about their child’s feelings. However, it turns out parents are also human, and thus need their feelings validated. Parents cannot sustainably help a troubled child heal and grow without having an outlet for their own tremendous stress. Parenting is the most admirable of callings. It ...