After a recent Wall Street Journal article questioned whether therapists contribute to family estrangement, this article explores what therapists actually do, how influence works in therapy, and why client autonomy remains central to ethical practice.

Why does my child lie? Learn four research-backed reasons children lie and practical parenting strategies to encourage honesty and build trust.

The conflict usually isn't about whether someone is going to be late or whether they really needed the new purchase. It's about feeling left in the dark.

…Grief doesn’t then become something we feel we have to do in the privacy, away from others so that we do not feel we are in error because we didn’t immediately feel healed when someone tells us, “everything happens for a reason”. As with any and all emotions, they are absolutely okay to feel…

Purpose, destiny, fate, predestined plans. All of these feel great if we feel we have them. But how do we reconcile this if we do not? As a therapist, I often hear from clients that they do not have a purpose. My answer is generally simplistic: why do you feel you need one?

I was fortunate to have loving parents, but I can look back and recall times that even when they were showing their love, I could not feel it. Our first response as parents and guardians when teenagers get ‘moody’ or show ‘attitude’ is to punish or correct them. We feel that we must put our foot down so we don’t raise disrespectful children.