I see a lot of couples for marriage counseling, and one of the top requests is to get help with communication. Apologizing is a necessary part of effective communication. What often happens is that communication breaks down even before a conversation starts. This can happen because your spouse has an idea of how you’re going […]
Category: Individual Counseling
While counseling a young man with a tendency toward self-doubt, we discussed how we tend to view events that occur to us through certain filters, which in turn affects our self-esteem. If you have low self confidence, you tend to dismiss genuine compliments from others as “just trying to be nice”or trying to make us […]
Below is an article written by a married woman who caught herself criticizing her husband over trivial things rather than focusing on his positive qualities. It was ruining her relationship. She realized her attitude toward him was causing him to feel unloved, unvalued, and basically treated like a child. In her case, her husband had […]
When I counsel people in my Grand Rapids office, they often make progress for a time, then have a day or two when things don’t go as planned. Life stress gets in the way temporarily. For some, they view these momentary setbacks as some kind of failure, or proof that they “always” screw things up. We […]
As a counselor for teenagers and college students, I often see clients who struggle with personal identity. They need counseling for self-esteem and to develop a personal sense of identify. High school students, college students, and young adults often have trouble figuring out who they are and exactly how they should navigate their world. This […]