Coming Home: We Lose Ourselves to Find Ourselves, Over and Over Again
You've heard it before: Just be yourself. Listen to your heart.
But it's not that easy. To truly be yourself requires a deep unearthing – a stripping away – of all the layers of identity that have been accumulated over the years from external voices. Parents. Culture. School. Peers. Social media. Society at large. The 21st century is over saturated with shoulds and should nots, can and can nots. Slowly, over time, and before we know it, we find ourselves wearing layers and layers of energetic jackets that are not ours. Though imperceivable to the eye, these layers weigh us down.
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Opening Up: The Healthy and the Risky Reasons Couples Explore Ethical Non-Monogamy
Opening a relationship isn't a simple decision—it's a deeply emotional one. The reasons why couples consider it can make a significant difference in where this path takes them. Some come in feeling hopeful and aligned. Others are overwhelmed, disconnected, and trying to fix something that's been hurting for a long time.
So let's talk about the healthy reasons couples explore ENM—and the riskier ones that can quietly unravel trust…
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What is Religious Trauma and What are the Signs?
Religious trauma, much like experiencing physical and sexual abuse or a severe accident can produce the same effects. Feelings of isolation, shame, guilt, anger, and dissociation are common. Direct and indirect messages from beliefs, religious leaders, and the spiritual community can become rigid, shaming, and fear-mongering. So it makes sense to find yourself desperate for control to make yourself "good" and avoid punishment.
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Teens: They’re Not Kids Anymore! Navigating the Issue of Control
Adolescence is a time of individuation. As kids grow into teenagers, so grows their desire for independence and control over their lives. If you’re a parent of a teen or pre-teen, you may notice increasing conflict with your child. They might seem more defiant, more likely to talk back, and more likely to push you away. Often, this conflict lies in the tension between your child’s desire for control and your own.
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Working Through Trauma in Couple’s Therapy
Many individuals seek therapy for help navigating trauma, but trauma’s effects are rarely limited to the person who experienced it. Often, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress create strain in a survivor’s closest relationships. These difficulties can manifest in various ways, such as emotional distance, communication struggles, and physical withdrawal. Understanding how trauma impacts a relationship is essential for both partners to navigate the healing process together.
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My Partner and I Have Different Political Views. Are We Doomed?
Because political beliefs are often tied to values, having a different view than your partner can feel like an impossible gap to bridge. These differences can lead to frustration, anger, and defensiveness, leaving both partners feeling unheard and misunderstood. Over time, this can create withdrawal, criticism, and resentment patterns.
In Emotional-Focused Therapy (EFT), we focus on the emotional underpinnings of interactions and beliefs. When partners understand why the other person feels strongly about a particular issue, they can engage more empathetically.
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Teenage Friendships
Peer pressure and jealousy can also create tension in teenage friendships. The desire to belong can be so strong that it can cause teens to consider going against their own values to fit in. They may also be jealous of others who seem to fit in more easily. On top of all of this, as a teen, you are still exploring who you are. Your values likely aren’t fully developed, and you might not even really know who you want to be friends with. This can lead to confusion and self-betrayal as the desire to fit in clashes with the desire to be uniquely and authentically you.
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Empowering Neurodivergent Clients through Internal Family Systems by Understanding Common Protective and Vulnerable Parts
When working with neurodivergent clients, a neurodiversity-affirming therapist aims to tailor their approach to account for how parts are uniquely influenced by that client's specific neurological makeup. This neurological context adds an essential dimension to understanding why certain parts emerge and function as they do.
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From Self-Criticism to Self-Compassion: An IFS Approach to Disordered Eating
If you are struggling with disordered eating, your relationship with food and/or exercise has likely become a relentless cycle of control, guilt, and shame. You may feel a deep sense of not feeling "good enough."
Beneath the surface behaviors—whether it's restriction, bingeing, over-exercising, or purging—lie common core themes that often emerge in therapy: a deep sense of unworthiness, perfectionism, fear of failure, and an overwhelming need for control in the face of internal chaos.
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Navigating Career Dissatisfaction with Internal Family Systems
Many of my clients are struggling in their careers. Some have their “dream job” but grapple with long-held expectations that do not match reality. Others hold sought-after creative roles that feel stifling and antithetical to the creative process. Some feel trapped by “golden handcuffs” – they earn a great salary but are always on call, making work/life balance impossible to achieve.
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How Relational Trauma Affects Attachment Style
Relational trauma occurs when the people we trust most—those we look to for safety, stability, love, validation, and security—are also a source of significant psychological harm. This kind of trauma most often occurs in childhood from our caregivers but can extend into adulthood, particularly with romantic partners.
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Bridging the Gap: How Integrating the EFT and IFIO Couples Therapy Approaches Can Help Partners More Deeply Connect.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) offer complementary healing paths when integrated. Both approaches emphasize that simply discussing feelings is insufficient, especially when couples are trapped in difficult cycles. By providing a space to slow down and experience emotions differently, these methods foster deeper understanding and lasting change.
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IFS & Teenage Torment: Building Identity, Confidence, and Self Esteem
Adolescence is a ripe period of self-exploration and growth. As a teenager, you are rapidly developing – physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially – exploring and learning about who you are, what you care about, what you like and don’t like, and how you relate to the world. This can be dense, confusing, and challenging – and it can also be exciting, explorative, and playful with the right support.
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Feeling Misunderstood as a Multicultural Adolescent
Being a teenager is hard enough. Add a layer of mixed cultural identity, and the challenges can quickly compound. I've been there. Your parents just don't seem to understand you. You feel like they choose to see the worst in you and fail to recognize that your experience is uniquely different from theirs. Maybe you're often grounded, or reprimanded for things that you feel are normal. The values of your home don't mirror the values you experience at school. It feels like you are living a double life, expected to chameleon your personality depending on where you are, and nobody at school or home seems to fully understand. You know you don't deserve to be punished for just being you. You feel trapped, alone, and angry.
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Navigating Loss & Change in Your 20's
Loss doesn't have to look significant to feel significant. Whether going through a breakup, moving to a new city, navigating friendships, or confronting a career transition, it is natural to feel overwhelmed by emotions when moving through change. It's that ache in your chest. The wave of sadness seemingly comes out of nowhere and brings you to tears. It makes sense. Things that once defined your identity are no longer there, leaving a void you're unsure how to fill.
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Using IFS to Work with Attachment Injuries
Attachment injuries refer to emotional wounds that occur when a trusted individual fails to provide you with support, care, or protection during a time of need. Attachment injuries often arise from experiences of betrayal, abandonment, rejection, or neglect by your parents, caregivers, or romantic partners. In my experience, we all have an attachment wound, albeit of varying degrees, because no childhood is perfect. But when these wounds disrupt your sense of safety, trust, and connection that are foundational to healthy relationships, they can often develop an insecure attachment.
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Why the Non-Pathologizing Stance of IFS Matters When Working with Trauma
When we feel powerless, our internal system develops protective mechanisms as a survival strategy. These protective parts emerge with the noble intention of preventing future harm, manifesting in a wide spectrum of behaviors. What might appear on the surface as problematic—whether it's perfectionism, people-pleasing, excessive caretaking, or more extreme responses like addiction and self-harm—are actually sophisticated survival strategies developed by our internal parts to shield us from potential pain.
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Using IFS to Navigate Life Transitions
The term “life transition” may bring to mind the sudden, dramatic shift into the great unknown we endure as young adults. But life transitions take many forms and happen at every stage of life. Common examples include pursuing higher education, moving, changing careers, getting married, getting divorced, becoming a parent, and retiring. Such turning points tend to evoke an array of emotions that can be overwhelming.
Often, people turn to therapy for help managing their overwhelm. Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic modality that is particularly well-suited to navigating life transitions in two ways: through Parts Work and Self Leadership.
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Grief and Loss Around the Holidays
Navigating grief on a daily basis is already a tough experience. As you approach this holiday season, know that it is normal not to want to participate in the things that you usually would in the past. Grief and loss change us and our relationship with the world. It takes time to adjust to a life without our person, pet, and/or community, so give yourself permission to approach this time of year at your own pace.
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Supporting Neurodivergent Partners Through Couples Therapy: A Path to Deep Connection
When neurodivergent individuals enter relationships, their sensitive nervous systems often amplify experiences that others might consider minor. Society frequently labels these individuals as "reactive" or "too sensitive," expecting them to conform to neurotypical standards by "letting things go." However, this expectation misses a crucial truth: many neurodivergent individuals genuinely experience emotions and sensations more intensely.
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