Often when I’m working with someone in session I try to think of visual and tangible ways that they can remember some of the things that we are processing together. And what I have noticed a lot about relational interactions is that there tends to be this movement that I have found to be helpful […]

Over the last several years my wife and I have begun a new journey in our life. That journey has involved a couple of elements: 1) Trying to incorporate more adventure into our marriage (i.e. trips, taking on challenges, etc.); 2) Working on ways to partner together in marriage. And last month we took another […]

One of the reasons many couples can’t solve conflict in their relationship is because they often get stuck thinking that their argument is really about the topic at hand (i.e. money, sex, parenting, work, inlaws, etc.). And as long as they believe that, then they will stay perpetually stuck. What I’ve learned in my experience […]

A couple of weeks ago, my colleagues and I at Thriiive Practices did a lecture for the Meadow’s lecture series on emotional regulation. What is emotional regulation? It’s essentially one’s ability to control or manage their automatic, reactive responses to an emotional trigger, and instead, respond accordingly (and in a healthy manner). That is my […]

This last weekend I led a class on fostering intimacy in marriage to a group of premarital couples. I love doing this work, but intimacy can be a complicated issue. When we think of intimacy in our culture we often think of sex, or at least physical intimacy to say the least. But the reality […]

If I had to take a guess, I would guess that at least 50-60% of every couple that I work with is in my office because of an affair. Affairs come in varied forms from the physical to the emotional and everything in between. And affairs don’t discriminate based on gender, race, or age. In […]

One of the most common questions I get is about what marriage book I might recommend. That is a tough question in some ways because there are so many books out there, and every person responds to a certain book differently. So it’s hard to be too prescriptive on this topic. But I can tell […]

Last week I had the privilege of speaking to one of my favorite groups…MOPS. In this case it was the MOPS group at First Baptist Frisco which is an awesome group I have had the opportunity to speak to before (as well as their MOMSnext group). And as I was thinking about what topic to […]

So if your day was anything like my wife and I’s yesterday, it involved walking our kids into their first day of school this year. My daughter starts 4th grade, and my son starts Kindergarten. And like many of you, we are in a new transition as we begin a new school year. One filled […]

I have the great privilege of working with couples in my office on a daily basis. Some come to me before they are married, some within a few years of marriage, but the great majority of them come to see me after a crisis that was indicative of the marital drift in their life. In […]

One of the things that I’ve noticed a lot about relationships and conflict, is that a lot of it tends to happen in periods of daily transition. For example, conflict tends to arise when people are leaving the house in the morning, or coming home later in the day. Whether it’s a spouse, roommate, or […]

I’m not quite exactly sure of the origin of learning about this communication technique, but I know it must have morphed together from all of my training and experience as a therapist…so I’m sure it has it’s roots in varying theorists, I just can’t place it right now. But in my time as a therapist […]