Carrollton Marriage and Family Therapy, LLC

Good new year wishes to all! Treasure your family relationships. Keep working at those that are rough or distant. Detach with love from those that are so toxic that they cannot change. Embrace positive change in any form, including with yourself. I look forward to seeing you in 2020.

Don’t miss the blessing that summer brings to be closer to the life and beauty of nature. Whatever the heartache, bitterness, or depression, allowing yourself some time to reflect on the thoughtful peace that can come from nature is a gift.

The media, politics, the economy, divorce, difficult teenagers, aging parents job change or loss bombard us with stress and crises. Rely on your own best values to see you through. You know what they are.

This season of family and spiritual expectations can leave us more stressed and exhausted. We take in those expectations and think of them as demands, instead of new opportunities to make healthy choices. The hope of the season can be seen when we take the risk to do what is safe and loving, and not feel bound by what we see as complicated demands which add more stress. Think of your options to show healthy loving and make good choices. Peace for the holidays.

Thank you to all friends and colleagues who have liked my page. We all do better work when we are connected and respect the different skills we have to offer. We are one human family, and we want to offer the best we can to make us all better, more loving humans.

Welcome to the New Year almost. Let it be one of courageous beginnings, of ending grieving, of celebrating the love connections we have, and of speaking out for justice and peace.

In the holiday season, stress is usually greater, along with the pleasures of reconnecting with family and friends. All families have conflicts and even cutoffs that may bring more sadness and pain. Please remember, personal family issues are probably not going to be resolved during this time, so try to enjoy what connections are there, and be at peace about the insolvable problems of personality, bad behavior, or mental illness. We are not in charge of everyone's lives--only our own, so choose to love in peace. If you feel you or your family may need help with these issues or any other crisis, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Life is filled with hurts, pains, injustices, cruelty, mistreatment, abuses and unfairness. Some of these traumas we think we can never overcome; but if we can think of these difficulties as issues that can never be resolved, we can grow beyond them. We can use the bad to create the good. We can use the pain to produce opportunity to learn. We can grow beyond pain that can never be resolved.

At a recent conference, Cardwell Nuckols spoke about an important issue related to addictions. He made the distinction between rehabilitation and habilitation.... The meaning here is that if one has come from a fairly stable and drug-free home setting, one can be rehabilitated with regular counseling, abstinence, and help from the natural environment and from therapy. If one has never had stability and sobriety in their family history, then habilitation is more in order. This process involves learning about an entirely new way of life. It requires more ongoing focus on new ways of being that can sustain sobriety, including help with education, social, and job supports. These continued supports help the brain to change to adjust to the healthy new context of support for abstinence. So, a new habilitation to a new self in a healthier environment is the result. If you feel you or your family may need help with these issues or any other crisis, please do not hesitate to contact me. At a recent conference, Cardwell Nuckols spoke about an important issue related to addictions. He made the distinction between rehabilitation and habilitation. The meaning here is that if one has come from a fairly stable and drug-free home setting, one can be rehabilitated with regular counseling, abstinence, and help from the natural environment and from therapy. If one has never had stability and sobriety in their family history, then habilitation is more in order. This process involves learning about an entirely new way of life. It requires more ongoing focus on new ways of being that can sustain sobriety, including help with education, social, and job supports. These continued supports help the brain to change to adjust to the healthy new context of support for abstinence. So, a new habilitation to a new self in a healthier environment is the result. If you feel you or your family may need help with these issues or any other crisis, please do not hesitate to contact me. See more