Just because grief is part of the human experience, doesn’t mean we have to cope with it alone, or reign in how we express it. In this post, we’ll explore different kinds of loss and grief, and how to know when it’s time to seek therapy for grief.
Collaboration, Connection, and Community: Q&A with ECC Therapist Peter Beer
Not all therapists start out knowing they want to be therapists. Some, like ECC Affiliate Therapist Peter Beer, start out in an entirely different field and realize that human relationships are what they want to dedicate their careers to. In his Q&A for our blog today, Peter shares about what led him to therapy and the approaches he finds beneficial in working with clients. And with June being Men’s Mental Health Month, he shares about the most common issue he sees among young men seeking therapy for the first time—loneliness—and how he coaches them through it.
Somatic Experiencing Therapy for Neurodivergent People: Why It Helps
What Is A Systems Therapist? Q&A with ECC Intern Therapist Riley Brennan
“I don’t believe in anything being a ‘personal problem,’” says Riley Brennan, our current graduate intern therapist who is completing her Master’s in Couple and Family Therapy at Adler University. In her Q&A on our blog today, Riley shares what it means to be a systems therapist: someone who works with clients to consider the system influences that impact their mental health, from family and friends, to workplace dynamics, religion, and politics. Keep reading to find out why she finds this framework helpful for connecting with clients.
Do You & Your Partner(s) Need Relationship Therapy?
February and Valentine’s Day focus our collective attention on romantic love. Gifts, quality time with romantic dates or getaways, and public declarations of commitment are the most common expressions of romance we see in modern culture around Valentine’s Day, and they’re all wonderful ways to shower your partner(s) with love and affection. Yet at the same time, they can also be distractions or band-aids for relationship issues that need attention and work. If you’re looking for a deeper connection with your partner(s) this Valentine’s Day, there are some therapy approaches that might be right for you.
Managing Loneliness During the Holidays: Four Tips from a Therapist
5 Therapy Tips for Connecting with Your Family This Holiday Season
With the holidays just around the corner, it’s normal to feel anxious about making plans with your family, especially if you have a history of conflict. Holidays might have been more fun when you were a kid when you could just play with your siblings and cousins, eat delicious food, and tune out the adult conversation. But now that you’re an adult with your own values and opinions, family togetherness during the holidays might feel more stressful, with lots of potential for disagreement and friction. Roast turkey with a side of resentment, anyone? 🙃
We can’t control how other people in our families act, but we have the agency to make healthier choices that help us navigate complex family dynamics. Here are five tips for connecting with family this holiday season.
What is Emotionally Focused Therapy?
Maybe you’re familiar with this scenario: you and your partner (or parent, sibling, or friend) are both home after a long day at work, eating dinner together, when the conversation veers off-course into an argument. It could be about family plans for the holidays, or money, or household tasks that need to get done, but the fight feels too familiar. You’ve had this same fight before, even if it was technically about a different issue, and you and your loved one have reverted to the same feelings and reactions. You feel stuck. Why would something as innocuous as a family holiday gathering or a sink full of dishes trigger such intense feelings? Why can't you seem to react differently whenever the topic comes up? Something has to change, but you don’t know how to make it happen.
Feeling stuck in your emotions and relational patterns is common, and it’s exactly the kind of issue that Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is designed to help.