According to the American Institute of Stress, about 33 percent of people report feeling extreme stress, 77 percent experience stress that affects their physical health, and 73 percent have stress that impacts their mental health. Sadly, for about half of all Americans, levels of stress are getting worse, not better. What is “chronic stress” and how can it be treated?

If you have had a good year and your relationships with family and friends are positive, this will be a time of sharing favorite memories and enjoying one another’s company. If you have lost a loved one this year, the holidays can intensify your grief, or if you have dysfunctional relationships in your family, the holidays can be a challenge. Whichever is the case for you, here are three suggestions to help you navigate the holidays.

Every counselor at SoulCare counseling would agree with me that developing a habit of gratitude contributes significantly to good mental health. An “attitude of gratitude” battles anxiety and depression. It makes marriages and families healthier. It’s “good medicine.” It’s also God’s will. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” But how? Here are three commitments you can make that will help you develop a habit of gratitude:

Your brain instantly assigns meaning to everything your significant relationships do or say and then tells you what to do to get or keep your connection safe and secure. These are called “Attachment Messages.” What are your attachment messages and are they right?

For over thirty years, people have been told that the cause of depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, specifically an imbalance of serotonin. If you suffer from depression, it is probably what you have been told and you were prescribed antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to boost your brain’s serotonin levels. But a bombshell new study shows that there is no clear evidence that serotonin levels are responsible for depression.

What’s the old rhyme? “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.” But that isn’t true. f you go to couples counseling, there will be homework. Hopefully, there will be no dirty looks, but part of your therapy will include homework assignments.

As vital as it is to meet your children’s needs and to give them a secure attachment bond with their parents, if you place the children at the center of your relationship, there will be unintentional negative consequences for you as a couple and also for your children.

My wife and I own two Christian counseling practices in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex: SoulCare Counseling in Colleyville and Christian Counseling Associates in Grapevine and Plano. Both practices do Christian counseling. But at a meeting of our counselors a few weeks ago, one of them asked, “What is it that makes counseling ‘Christian counseling’?” That is a great question that has different answers, depending on who you ask.

Have you ever bought an item of clothing that was “one-size-fits-all?” That’s quite a claim that the same pair of pants could fit both Pee Wee Herman and Andre the Giant. I’m sure those men bought different kinds of pants. In the same way, trauma is not one-size-fits-all. There are different kinds of trauma. This blog explores two different kinds of trauma, major trauma and developmental trauma.”

Anxiety makes it hard to be present and engaged with your spouse. Instead of being in the moment, you are worrying about the past or the future and on edge, which makes it nearly impossible to focus on your partner so you can get and stay close. Here are six strategies to help your relationship anxiety and save your marriage.

You love your partner, right? And it’s mutual, right? Yet, you fight. Sometimes you fight a lot and the fights can get intense and leave you wondering, “If we love one another, why do we fight so much?” The movies, TV shows, and books we read tell us that people in love don’t fight, and if you do, you must have fallen out of love. That’s the rationale for too many divorces. But it’s not true. You haven’t fallen out of love, but you have fallen into a negative cycle.

It struck me that a lot of couples could use a starter kit for Emotionally Focused Therapy. There is hope and there is help for your relationship distress. Through EFT, you can reconnect and have that close, intimate, fulfilling, long-lasting love that you both signed up for when you said, “I Do.”

In the 80’s there was a famous anti-drug commercial that showed an egg frying while the narrator said, “This is your brain on crack.” In this blog, I want to talk about your brain on love. Science shows a definite correlation between your brain and the quality of your relationships.

Every mother knows the pain of labor and childbirth. There are ladies who would give anything to experience that pain. Instead, they live with the pain of infertility. It is a quiet but constant pain that comes every time they see another minus sign on their pregnancy test, every time they go to a friend’s baby shower, every time they hold their new nephew or niece, and every time they hear that well-meaning but devastating question: “When are you two going to start a family?”

Of course, men are not all carbon copies of one another. There are exceptions, but typically because of biology and environment, boys and men tend to be withdrawers emotionally. Women can also be withdrawers, but it’s more common in men. And it drives the women in their lives crazy. Why do men check out emotionally? Here are some reasons why most men are not emotionally present:

Emotionally Focused Therapy is known for its effectiveness with couples, but did you know that EFT can help your family as well? Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) works with the negative conflict cycles that happen within family dynamics. It could be the help that your family is needing.

The state licensure exam determines whether counselor-associates will be licensed for the career they earned a master’s degree and served a 3000-hour internship for. Typically, to prepare for this exam, one will study for a couple of months. That’s a long time to study something, but Harvard University has been studying one subject for 75 years. What subject is that? Happiness.

There is a great book about marriage preparation titled, “Before You Say I Do.” This blog could be titled, “Before You Say I No longer Do.” If you are experiencing marital distress and considering divorce, there are some things to think through before you take that step.

The stereo-type is someone who has to knock on a door a certain number of times, have the towels folded a certain way, and is terrified of using public restrooms or touching surfaces. While ordering things and fears of contamination actually can be symptoms of OCD, that is just the tip of the iceberg of the kinds of obsessional thoughts that can plague those who suffer with this malady.

“My therapist told me the way to achieve inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today I’ve finished two bags of chips and a chocolate cake.” If you’re suffering from depression, maybe you can relate. These are things that people do to mask the symptoms of depression, but the underlying problem remains. If you’re struggling with depression, it’s important to understand what it is, what causes it, how it affects you, and how to treat it.