Dear Clients, After forty-five years of working with addiction, trauma, and mental health in various capacities, I’m stepping away from my day-to-day psychotherapy practice today. It has been my honor to walk with you on the path to wholeness, to witness your courage in facing … Continue readingA letter to my clients, past and present
This post will make more sense if you’ve read my last post “Perfectionism Part 1: A Problem on the Rise.” Though perfectionism is on the rise across the culture, some subcultures have long been especially vulnerable. Children of service members, commonly known as military brats, … Continue readingPerfectionism Part 2: Mormons and the Pursuit of Perfection
Perfectionism is on the rise, especially among young people. And the perfectionism I’m talking about isn’t the good kind, the kind that keeps a composer at the piano until every note raises goosebumps. That’s healthy or “adaptive” perfectionism, and, though I very much hope it’s … Continue readingPerfectionism Part 1: A Problem on the Rise
When I was six years old, my mother took to her bed. I don’t know how long she stayed there, because time is elastic to a child, but my best guess is several months. My family was living in the tiny western town of McDermitt, … Continue readingMornings at the White Horse Inn: A Story of Parentification
Opioid Addiction: Advice to Parents Readers, I have a guest blogger today, a woman who was once addicted to opioids but gave them up for good seven years ago. We were discussing the current opioid crisis when I asked what she would say to the … Continue readingOpioid Addiction: Advice to Parents
Introduction When the #MeToo Movement took off in October of 2017, one group of men immediately saw themselves in the stories women told. Whether personally guilty of sexual harassment or not, they recognized the underlying dynamic by which a human being reduces another human being … Continue readingMen Talk about Sex Addiction, Recovery, and the #MeToo Movement
An important film is soon to premiere in Salt Lake City. Titled No Crime in Sin, it tells the story of Kristy Johnson and her sisters, abused from an early age by their father, who was protected by the Mormon Church. I wrote about Kristy … Continue readingFilm Premiere and Panel Discussion Coming
Best-selling author, TED-talker, Instagram star, and celebrity pal Brené Brown has a brand new special on Netflix. Titled The Call to Courage, it’s a 75-minute talk at UCLA’s Royce Hall, though the talk seems shorter because Brown is so engaging, a fine storyteller whose self-deprecating … Continue readingBrené Brown’s “The Call to Courage”: Notes for Survivors
What prompts an adult to molest a child? Whether we’re survivors of sexual abuse ourselves, involved with survivors, or simply reeling from ongoing revelations about the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, most of us eventually wonder about the perpetrators. Who … Continue readingThe Challenge of Understanding Child Sexual Abuse
Ten days ago, the news broke that fifty people were being indicted in a scam to buy admission to colleges such as Yale, Stanford, and the University of Southern California. As commentators hashed over the scam, which involved bribing coaches, cheating on standardized tests, and … Continue readingBehind the Snowplow