Blog Articles
Additional resources written by our PCS therapists.
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The Madonna-Whore Complex as a Form of Objectification
If you found yourself feeling deep love, appreciation, safety, respect, and admiration toward your spouse, while at the same time experiencing intense sexual desire and erotic attraction toward “the other woman,” you may be experiencing a psychological pattern in which emotional attachment and erotic desire become divided. Your spouse may… -
World Mental Health Day: Learning to Listen to Ourselves
There are moments when I notice I am moving through my day without really being in it. I might be walking somewhere, thinking about the next thing on my schedule. I might be answering a message while already thinking about what I need to do afterward. Sometimes I don’t realize… -
I Should Be Over It By Now
How many losses in our lives have we been trying to “get over” that we never actually allowed ourselves to grieve? For a long time, when I thought about grief, I only thought about death. Losing someone you love. The kind of loss that everyone recognizes and understands. But loss… -
The Courage to Be Real — Authenticity as a Path Out of Shame
When sitting with people struggling with addiction I commonly hear the refrain, “I don’t even know who I am.” This state of “not knowing” is typically rooted in a childhood of abuse or neglect, which is followed by years, or decades, of numbing with substances and behavior, typically rooted in… -
Growing Up in the Midwest: Reflections on Childhood, Community, and Impacts
When I think about growing up in the Midwest, I see experiences shaped by wide open spaces, tight-knit communities, fields of gold (wheat), and the gentle rhythms of small-town life. Where there are four changing seasons and the winters are brutal. Where traditions are passed down through generations and the… -
The First Few Days of Vacation Aren’t Wasted Time
It’s summertime, and for many people, that means a vacation, often with travel involved. For those of us who live in Southern Arizona, we’re trying to get out of the heat and cool down. Although cooling down might be one reason we’re trying to escape the heat, a mental break… -
Deliberate Play: A Motivational Hack for Skill Acquisition
In psychology, the inverted U-curve, also referred to as the Yerkes-Dodson Law, is used to illustrate the relationship between stress and performance. The law states that performance improves with increased stress (i.e., physiological activation), but only up to a point. Once that upper threshold is breached, performance then begins to… -
Parenting and Perinatal Mental Health: The Stuff We Don’t Say Out Loud
Several months ago now, my colleague and friend Dr. Erin Buggy and I were discussing the ever-challenging transition to parenthood. If there’s one thing I wish every parent heard early on, it’s this: You’re not failing. You’re adjusting. Adjusting is messy. Parenting has a way of cracking us wide open—not… -
The Coin of Conditional Worth
The coin of conditional worth: I’m OK/NOT OK if, when and because….” Bob is feeling good about and liking himself today because he not only sold more cars this month than he did last month, but also because he sold more cars than anyone else on the sales team. He… -
The Case For Connection
A friend of mine has a bumper sticker on her car that says, “Don’t Honk if You’re Introverted.” This always makes me smile. She knows she needs more quiet, reflective and alone time than some others do, and yet she is often the one to initiate visits with our special… -
Learning to Trust Yourself Through Change
When I was catching up with a friend recently at a coffee shop, she shared that she had accepted a job she had been interviewing for months and one she had desperately wanted. After the initial celebration, she paused and admitted something unexpected: she felt terrified to step into this… -
The Spiral of Overfunctoning: How to Benefit Your Relationships by Doing Less
The “ant spiral of death” is a phenomenon where blind army ants, which rely on pheromone trails to navigate, get trapped in a mechanistic, circular march that results in exhaustion, and eventually, death, from dehydration and starvation. Sadly, nature offers several such examples of how different species can engage in… -
Reconnecting With Your Inner Child Through Hobbies
A few years ago, I received a model rocket kit as a gift. This wasn’t a random present. As a kid, building and launching model rockets was one of my favorite hobbies, and it brought me a lot of joy. I loved taking a pile of parts and turning them… -
How Do I Know If I’m In A Cult?
Recognizing when a group you are part of maybe a cult is not always easy to identify. The word “cult” can evoke images of extremism and isolated communities but exist anywhere; sometimes even presenting as harmless organizations, spiritual communities, or self-help groups. If you are questioning your involvement with a… -
Self-forgiveness
Self-forgiveness is a process that many people find deeply challenging, yet profoundly healing. It is often far easier to extend compassion, patience, and understanding to others than it is to offer those same qualities to ourselves. When expectations are not met or choices lead to outcomes different than hoped for,… -
The Preoccupied Mind – “You Left Your Shoes at the TSA Checkpoint”
My wife and I were traveling over the holidays and while in the airport we heard this announcement: “If you LEFT YOUR SHOES at the TSA checkpoint, we have them for you.” It gave us both a chuckle, which only increased when the announcement was made a second time with… -
Loneliness Sucks
Loneliness sucks. It hits quietly at first—an ache, a heaviness, a moment where we realize we are sitting with ourselves, wishing someone else were beside us. Feeling lonely isn’t a sign that something is wrong with us. It reflects a longing for connection,… -
How Stress and Trauma Become Physical: The Mind-Body Connection
Many people think of stress as something that happens in the mind – racing thoughts,worry and emotional overwhelm. But the body is listening to everything, and when itcomes to trauma or chronic stress, the body doesn’t just listen, it remembers and holdson.When something overwhelming happens, your nervous system responds. Your… -
Thinking About Thoughts
Why are we in our own heads so much? And what can we do about it? We think about ourselves frequently, don’t we? Sometimes incessantly. We think about our lives—our situations, our actions, our relationships—and then we think about the thoughts we’re having about what we’re thinking about. It’s no… -
Managing the Holidays with an Eating Disorder
Whether you may partake in diet culture from time to time or have been struggling with an eating disorder (ED) for years, the holidays can be a difficult time for many of us when it comes to disordered eating and issues related to body image. It can also be a…
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