Seeing red when a driver cuts in front of you or steals a parking slot you already have. Raising your voice when talking to a particularly insensitive customer service agent. Getting irritated when you get a prank call at 3 a.m. We all have felt the full range of anger – from mild annoyance to intense rage. It’s normal to feel angry. Anger, after all, is one of the emotions in our bag of human feelings and expressed properly, it is healthy. Anger is sometimes the body’s way to respond to attacks and threats, it enables us to defend ourselves against such threats.

However, there are “proper” ways to express your anger and there are ways that are not. You can suppress anger, express it or manage it. The best way to manage your anger is to express your feelings in an assertive (and not aggressive) manner. This allows you to make your feelings and needs known (and possibly have these met) without hurting others.

Anger may also be expressed in unhealthy manners. You may blow up and physically or emotionally hurt the people around you. Another way to express anger in an unhealthy manner is to try to suppress it or turn it inward. You can try to ignore your angry feelings, but in doing so, it may result in high blood pressure, tension or depression. It can also lead towards behaviors that display hostility and bitterness, or perhaps, passive-aggressiveness. Angry people who aren’t able to express their emotions well tend to be hypercritical, cynical and have a tendency to put others down.

When Anger takes the Better of You

How do you know if you have a problem managing your anger? Here are some symptoms to look out for:

–  An attitude of being constantly critical, short-tempered and easily provoked

– Tendency to want things done his way

– Uncontrollable outbursts that are often triggered by seemingly trivial matters and are manifested by throwing things or hitting people

– Tendency towards threats or acts of violence. Tendency to get into trouble with the law.

– Easily gets into a fight

– Tendency to abuse substances such as drugs or alcohol

– Vulnerability towards depression and anxiety

Anger Management

You may have to go for counseling in Utah when you feel that your angry feelings are going out of control. This will help you thresh out the root causes of your anger and provide you with tools to effectively express these feelings. Anger management Provo family counseling can help you identify the triggers that cause the anger, develop healthy reactions towards these triggers and give us tools to solve our anger management issues.

An anger management counselor will provide you with strategies to effectively manage anger:

– Relaxation techniques. This is one way to calm yourself and keep angry feelings at bay. You can imagine yourself as a cube of ice that is slowly melting. You can take deep breaths and slowly count from one to ten (or even a hundred!). Other relaxation techniques include yoga exercises and calming yourself down by repeating a word or phrase such as “calm down” or “relax”.

– Try to keep perspective. It is easy for you to be swept away by the angry emotions and feel that the world is conspiring to make life difficult for you. In your anger you might exaggerate the true nature of the situation. Keeping the proper perspective will help you keep your anger at bay when you realize that that anger isn’t warranted. It can also help you more easily answer the question, “Is this matter worth getting angry about?”

–  Learning to communicate. Anger may be caused by a mismatch of your and the other party’s expectations and behaviors. When you fail to communicate your expectations and also jump to conclusions about the other party’s behavior, anger can erupt. In learning better communication skills, you are able to express your feelings and also listen to what the other party has to say.

– Getting solutions. Sometimes anger is caused by a real problem that needs a solution. Rather than chafe at the situation, you can explore ways to solve the problem or get around it. When trying to find solutions, anger can be a positive force to change things for the better. However, it is vital that you know which problems can be solved and which issues are out of your control.

– Laugh it out. Keeping a good sense of humor can keep the edge of the angry feelings. Instead of raging at a situation, you can choose to find the humor in things. Remember, though, that sarcasm will not also work.

– Sweat it out. One other outlet for anger is some exercise – such as jogging or going for a quick walk. Exercise produces “happy” endorphins that loosen up the anger and relax you.

– Express your anger when you’re calm enough. This way, you are less emotional and confrontational and will not hurt others with your words.

– Let go of grudges and forgive. They say that forgiveness is actually releasing a prisoner – you. As long as you hold a grudge, feelings of anger swell up every time you remember the incident or the person that did you wrong.

– Change your environment. If you are able to identify some things that trigger your anger, it is sometimes best to avoid the aggravation. If going through a certain road at a certain time causes the traffic that so angers you, try to drive through another route or drive earlier in the day. If your child’s room particularly upsets you, close his room so you don’t see it. Avoid discussing important matters when you are tired or hungry.

Remember, anger management therapy is not about doing away with anger but with how you can positively and healthily express this anger. There are therapists that hold individual and group therapy sessions. If your anger issues may be affecting your relationship with your spouse, you can also go for Provo couples counseling.

Do you feel trapped in a relationship where the normal range of emotions includes fear, humiliation and the feeling of being trapped? Do you feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner and have to deal with insults, intimidation and manipulation? Are you constantly being belittled and your opinions rejected, even scoffed at?  Are you struggling with your own self worth and feel the constant need for validation? You may be in an emotionally abusive relationship.

Emotional abuse deals with eroding a person’s sense of self-worth and self confidence. Remember the sayings, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.”? Well, in an emotionally abusive relationship, this is far from the truth. Although it dwells mostly on the emotions and does not leave any visible wounds, the scars that come from years of emotional abuse may be harder to heal than physical ones.

Emotional abuse may be marked by aggression (constant criticisms, blaming, insulting and name calling), denial (seeks to deny a reality i.e. “That never happened.” “No one ever said or did that to you.” or giving the silent treatment as punishment) and minimizing (reducing the victim’s feelings as something trivial, where the victim is just overreacting). Emotional abuse seeks to marginalize one’s strengths while magnifying one’s weaknesses.

The result is that the victim feels not just hurt and angry, but also powerless and lacking in confidence. The victim may start accepting the emotional abuse as the norm and may have failed to give value to their own opinions, perceptions and feelings.  Over time, the abuse can produce serious psychological damage to the victim and can turn into an anxiety disorder or depression. The victim may also turn to substances such as alcohol or drugs to deal with the situation and may need the help of a Utah substance abuse counselor.

Usually, the one doing the emotional abuse is himself or herself a victim of such abuse. He or she may also have a low level of self-worth and may feel the need to put others down to feel good about himself or herself.

How do you know that you are in an abusive relationship?

Here are some marks of an emotionally abusive relationship:

–          Use of words that demean and insult, even if there are other people who are witnesses to it

–          Making baseless accusations

–          Denying something ever happened or if it did, that the victim is just exaggerating or being too sensitive about it

–          Arguments where only one party is doing the talking and never the listening

–          Insulting, demeaning or belittling the other even when the victim becomes upset and vulnerable to the abuse. Even as the victim starts crying or asks for a time out, the abuser continues with the behavior.

–          Refusal to be pleased by anything the other partner does or says

–          May also be sometimes accompanied by other forms of abuse (i.e. physical abuse or sexual abuse)

–          May blame the other partner for his or her infidelities

–          The victim may become increasingly isolated from loved ones and friends.

Please note also that the role of victim and abuser may switch, depending on the type of relationship. An individual who is a victim of emotional abuse with his or her spouse may be the abuser when he or she is with friends or loved ones.

Getting help for emotional abuse

One does not have to settle with a life marked by feelings of helplessness and humiliation. You can start to see your worth as a person and learn not to accept abuse but to assert yourself. One good way to begin is by going into therapy in Utah. If you are the victim of emotional abuse, it may be best for you to get counseling first as an individual rather than dragging your partner to go for couples counseling. With individual therapy, the victim may start the journey of rediscovery towards his or her sense of self-worth and self-esteem and learn how to assert himself or herself in the relationship.

Going for marriage counseling in Provo may work if both partners are willing to admit to the problem and to change. They can start by trying to identify the root causes of the abusive behavior and then learn communication techniques that do away with abusive language. However, that is usually not the case as the abuser may try to use the couples therapy sessions as a way to point the responsibility of the problem to the other party.

The comfort is that one can get out of an emotionally abusive relationship. A marriage should be a relationship that brings you joy, peace and comfort. If you feel otherwise, if you feel that you are being demeaned, belittled and if your self-worth is being battered, then it is time for you to seek professional help through counseling. If you know of someone who is in an emotionally abusive relationship, chances are, he or she may be hesitant to go for help. You may have to help by accompanying him or her to the counseling session and by supporting him or her throughout.

For those who are seeking help for emotional abuse in the Provo, Utah area, do try to contact Dr. Triston Morgan. Dr. Morgan is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a Ph. D of the same from Brigham Young University. Through his years of practice in the state of Utah, he has helped individuals and couples first discover who they are and how their relationships can be strengthened.

 

Like a storm that uncontrollably washes wave after wave and threatens to drown you, sorrow and grief may engulf you and devastate you so that you are no longer able to function as you should. This is particularly true if the sorrow is combined with other similarly debilitating emotions – anger, guilt, bitterness and shock. Feelings of sorrow and grief may be caused by the loss of a loved one, dealing with a divorce, receiving news of a terminal illness, losing a home to foreclosure, the death of a pet, irreparable damage to an important relationship or friendship.

Although it seems like one will never fully recover from the grief and pain of loss, going through the grieving process is necessary for one to heal. Although everyone grieves in their own way, there are common reactions to grief.  These include:

– Denial or shock. The first reaction would either be shock or denial. “That’s not true.” “I can’t believe this is happening.” “This is all a dream.” People who have lost a loved one sometimes feel that he can go home and see his lost loved one waiting there, safe and sound. As the shock of the moment fades, the grieving person will start to take in the reality of the loss.

– Despair. During the early stages of grieving, the sadness may weigh too heavily that it seems too hard to bear. This is natural. When left unmanaged, though, this sadness may turn into depression. Although the sadness will never quite go away, over time, it will lessen in intensity.

– Bitterness and anger.  Grief may cause you to feel angry or bitter and question the unfairness of what happened, why bad things happen to good people. The grieving person may look for someone to blame – God, the person who caused the accident that killed your loved one, or even the person who died.

– Guilt. “The last words we exchanged were angry ones.””I never even got a chance to say goodbye.” Guilt over the grief may be doubly debilitating. You may also blame yourself somehow. The grieving person may go over the things he should have done while the person is alive.

– Acceptance. Reality will start to set in that the loss is permanent and that there is nothing to be done but to accept it. Accepting the loss will help the person move on and heal.

When the negative feelings are left uncontrolled, it may result in some negative and hurtful behaviors. It may also result in physical symptoms. These include nausea, the inability to sleep, heaviness of the body, a tendency to overeat or to starve yourself.

Grief can be hard to bear but it can be managed. Here are some ways you can cope with your loss:

– Surround yourself with friends and loved ones who support you. There is a time when you want to be alone with your grief. But it is important to find people who share your loss and who can grieve with you. These people will be invaluable as you deal with the arrangements necessary immediately after the loss (scheduling funeral services, arranging for the burial, packing your ex-spouse’s things, etc.).

– Don’t disregard your physical needs. Grief will take its toll on you physically. It will make you more susceptible to illness. In order for you to heal and cope with your grief, make sure that you get the sleep and food you need.

– Go get help. If as parents, you have to cope with the loss of a child, it is good to visit a couples counselor for you to be able to deal with the loss as spouses. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to get professional help. When the grief is particularly overwhelming that it negatively affects how you relate with other people and how you get on with your life, it may be time for grief counseling. Getting grief counseling will help you through the healing process. It is better to get help before it is too late and you find yourself getting depressed, develop severe anxiety or other psychological disorders.

– Find other outlets for your grief. Use a journal, start a scrapbook project, learn pottery or painting or do something that will memorialize your lost loved one in a special way. Honoring your lost loved one’s memory creatively will help speed up the healing. That is why grief and loss counselors may use various kinds of therapy involving art, music or writing to help you. Avoid negative outlets such as alcohol and drugs. Go to a Provo substance abuse counselor when you find yourself seeking a drug high or alcoholic oblivion as a way to “forget”.

– Be patient. There is no set time limit for grief. So don’t rush things for yourself.

Be comforted in the fact that you can survive a tragic loss. You will heal and find happiness in life even without someone you hold precious. Dr. Triston Morgan, who has a practice in Provo, Utah, can help you come to terms with your loss in a healthy manner. Dr. Morgan is a licensed Utah marriage and family therapist who has extensive experience helping couples and families establish stronger bonds and experience healing even in the face of a tragic loss.

 

 

Getting into a drinking binge at a party. Craving that constant high. A teen who starts having discipline problems at school and puts on a rebellious attitude at home. Someone who loses a job or plays the truant in school because he’s always sick due to a hangover. These may be signs of substance abuse.

Substance abuse can be defined as the pathological use of a substance – alcohol, drugs, prescription medication or tobacco. Although a person who has a substance abuse problem may not yet be considered an addict (and there are no issues with withdrawal symptoms), there will be undesirable consequences that will affect an individual’s family life, social life and work life. A person who has substance abuse issues may perform poorly in school or work, have problems with the legal system and may act negligently or carelessly so as to cause harm to themselves and others.

There is also the tendency that substance abuse can devolve into addictions, where people have this uncontrollable compulsion to indulge in his addiction of choice. Over time, there is a feeling of helplessness and lack of self-worth. What they are focused on is how to get the next fix.

It is especially sad for parents to see this happening to their children. Having a child who has substance abuse problems may be one of a parent’s worst fears. That is why it is important for parents to nurture a caring and supportive environment where children feel loved and are less vulnerable to turning to drugs and alcohol. Parents should also be on the lookout for possible substance abuse and act accordingly to help their child win over the temptation to indulge in substance abuse.

Parents should be on the lookout for:

– Change in behavior. A teen who is into substance abuse may be suddenly sullen and rebellious and be more insistent about “privacy” and may withdraw from family events. You may notice a change in attitude as the teen becomes more hostile and sullen and may also be caught lying at times. As the substance abuse worsens, you may see increased conflicts with your teen, where he is becoming more and more out of control.

– Have alcohol or tobacco in their breath. Or, they may try to mask it by going straight to their rooms to “freshen up”.

– Declining performance in school. Grades may start to suffer and there may be complaints about delinquency and truancy, as well as discipline issues in school

– Change of peer group. Your teen may start minimizing contact with friends who don’t share the substance abuse problem and may spend more time with other peers who are also substance abusers.

– Change in activities. The sports and extra-curricular activities your teen used to enjoy may be dropped. Your teen may also be always “out with friends”.

– Mysterious loss of valuables and money. Things may suddenly go missing around the house. Or, your teen may start borrowing money from you, their siblings, other relatives and friends.

Dealing with Substance Abuse

Substance abuse is oftentimes caused by underlying issues the teen feels he has no control over or that he is unable to deal with. That is why going for Utah substance abuse counseling is one important component in treating this problem. It is also most effective when counseling is also coupled with medical treatment.

Going to a substance abuse counselor in Provo will help the teen deal with the underlying cause of the substance abuse. It is also vital in helping them recover their healthy functioning and build healthy relationships with others. Counseling will also help provide essential tools on how to manage this problem and prevent relapses from occurring.

Substance abuse therapy may focus on the emotions and thoughts that lead to the problem. It helps the teens to look into their feelings and identify situations that lead them to the temptation to take on drugs and alcohol – and how these situations can be avoided. Other tools include relaxation techniques to help the individual resist the temptation, manage the stress or anxiety they feel at this time and explore healthy outlets for pent up emotions and anger.

Teens may also feel anger (at their families, friends and even themselves) and therapy will help delve into the root causes of this anger. Through therapy, they are given tools on how they can express this anger in a healthy manner and deal with it constructively.

Families who have a teen who is into substance abuse could also do well to have Utah family therapy. It is important to foster an environment where the teen can see his family and friends support him and make efforts to get him back on track. Family therapy will be helpful to identify if there are any behaviors by family members that “enable” a teen’s substance abuse problems. Family members (especially parents) are also provided with communication tools and how they can effectively resolve any conflicts within the family that may have contributed to the substance abuse problem.

When in Provo, Utah, be sure to look up Dr. Triston Morgan. He is a highly experienced substance abuse counselor in Utah and has treated teens in various settings.

 

Tragedy strikes when we least expect it and the loss may turn your world (and your family’s) upside-down. This is particularly true with the loss of a loved one. Pain and grief comes to the family and hits hard, especially to children. Children often feel it more intensely and may have a harder time recovering from the loss. How do you deal with the grief and the pain? How will you help your children who are looking to you for stability and security?

Dealing with Grief and Loss

Here are some reminders to help you as you deal with grief yourself and also try to muster up the comfort that your children may need during this difficult time.

Make time for your grief. The process of grieving takes time – there may be even some instances when you feel that the grief will just not let up. The time immediately after the death of a loved one may be a busy one – there is the funeral and burial to be arranged, well-wishers and mourners to be looked after. However, you should give yourself and your family time to sit down and grieve. Acknowledge your feelings – don’t suppress them.

Grieve in your own way. People grieve in different ways. As long as you are not doing anything hurtful or harmful to you or to others, you can choose to grieve in your own way. Don’t allow anyone to set a timetable for your grief or tell you how to feel. In the same way, don’t push children to overcome their grief within a certain timetable.

Realize that it’s normal to be angry. Anger is a part of the process of grieving. Your children may go through a period where they express anger at what has happened that resulted in the tragic loss of a loved one. Don’t belittle or deny the child’s feelings but reassure him or her of your presence at this time.

Be alert for damaging behaviors.  Even though grief comes in different forms, there are healthy ways to grieve and there are ways that are not so healthy. Damaging behaviors include turning to substance abuse to numb the pain. In the same way, you should also be on the lookout for damaging behaviors or methods of grief that your children may try to employ.

Don’t go at it alone. Turn to the company of loved ones and friends and say yes to help when it is offered. Instead of avoiding offers of help from loved ones and friends, tell them what you need. Sometimes people want to help out but are not really sure about the best way to do it. You can also join a support group, which can be a healing experience as you share and relate with people who have gone through the loss of a loved one themselves.

Be there. Let your children know that you are there to help them.  Spend time talking to them every chance you get. Be gentle as you ask questions, probe their thoughts and help them put their feelings into words. Listen and validate their feelings. Accept their feelings. Reassure them of your presence and love.

Share how you cope. Discuss how you cope with your feelings of sadness, uncertainty and fear. If this means drawing comfort from your faith, involve your children in the mourning rituals that are followed by a certain faith. If this means trying to express your feelings using a creative or physical outlet, involve your kids as well. For instance, if you want to make an album about your lost loved one, encourage your children to help out.

Seek help. You and your family may need to seek family counseling to help process your grief and be equipped with tools to positively respond to your and other family members’ grief. Sometimes, unresolved grief can cause a family member to turn to alcohol and drugs. In this instance, it may also be wise to see a substance abuse counselor.

Avoid making big changes in your family life in the immediate future. As much as possible, try to provide a familiar environment for your child. Avoid major changes that your child will need to adjust to on top of the grief he is dealing with.

Family Therapy to Help Cope with Loss

Grieving over a loved one is a process that one has to go through in order to heal, move on and be happy again. This time in the family’s life may be stressful – and the emotional and mental stress it brings may also take a toll on one’s health. Family therapy may help grieving family members cope with the loss.

Oftentimes, when family members are focused on dealing with their own hurts, it is hard to “be there” for others who may need their reassurance and support. A good family therapist or counselor will help families deal with loss, anger and grief. He will map out a strategy as to how the family can move forward along the process of mourning and help the family utilize positive memories and emotions to heal and move forward.

One such therapist is Triston Morgan in Provo, Utah, who has extensive experience in helping families heal from tragic losses. He has also served as a Utah substance abuse counselor, dealing primarily with troubled teens. He is a licensed marriage and family therapist who provides a non-confrontational atmosphere by which people can deal with their grief and other issues.

Often adults think that they’re the only ones experiencing stress. But really, children and teenagers get stressed, too. And the stress may be all the more pronounced for teenagers, at the time when they are especially vulnerable. As adolescents struggle to establish their identity, these stressors can sometimes feel more overwhelming. It’s not easy to be a teenager these days!

Parents can be particularly helpful in providing their child with the tools to cope positively with stress. As Hodding Carger Jr. once said, “There are two lasting bequests we can give our children.  One is roots.  The other is wings.” When our children have the tools to positively deal with the stress, we actually prepare them for future life, helping them become more resilient, stronger and more able to face the challenges that life has in store for them.

There are times when the stress your teen is experiencing is a bit overwhelming that it eventually becomes a serious problem. You may have to turn to the help of family counseling.

Here are some of the common stressors teens nowadays have to deal with:

1. Body Image pressures. Magazines, movies and even the internet parade sexy women and well-toned, well-muscled men. Teenagers may feel the pressure to look a particular way. They may become vulnerable to pressures to be “thin enough” or “sexy enough”. They may start developing an eating disorder, exercise excessively and be more preoccupied with how one looks and weighs.
2. 2.       Pressure from peers. One of a teenager’s pressing needs is the need to belong, the need to be with the “in crowd”. Peer pressure may come in the form of being able to dress or behave a certain way or belonging to a certain group of friends. Peers may entice teenagers to join them in playing truant, having sex, drink alocohol or try other addictive substances.
3. Relationships. One teenager was crying her eyes out. When asked by a parent, the teen laments, “I love Leonardo di Caprio, and I am just sad that he doesn’t even know that I exist!”. The teenage years is a period of discovery and teens start to feel attraction for the opposite sex (and in some cases the same sex). They may feel the pressure of getting noticed by the person they like. The stress becomes more pronounced when the teenager already has a boyfriend/girlfriend. Fights and breakups take on a large amount of emotional energy.
4. Changes in their bodies. Puberty is a time when hormones are running amuck and when the body undergoes a lot of changes. These changes may feel overwhelming and sometimes frightening. Teenage girls may feel anxiety about getting her period or boys may feel awkward about their changing voices.
5. School stress. The teenager may stress about getting good grades, balancing academics with his or her social life, deal with conflicts with teachers and other persons of authority or having too many activities on top of his academic life.
6. Family stress. As teenagers start to explore boundaries, they may start questioning (or even testing) rules that parents may impose. Parents and teens may not also see eye to eye with many matters such as the teen’s schedule, his curfew, chores, phone and computer usage, friends, choice of college and so on. Siblings also add to the stress, as you can expect siblings to have spats from time to time. Family-related stress can also come in the form of parents divorcing, changes in the family’s finances, the sickness or death of a family member or the need to move to another location.

Helping our teens handle stress

Robert Heinlein reminds parents: “Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.” As parents, though, we can help our child cope with the stress positively and appropriately. Remember, the teenage years are a particularly challenging phase in any person’s life. The feelings and changes as well as the stress they have to deal with make them vulnerable to depression, drugs and alcohol use.

Be there for them. At this stage, it is important for a teenager to have someone he or she can talk to. Chances are, if he can’t talk to his parents, he will turn to peers for advice (and you’re not really sure what kind of advice his friends will give). Make your teenager understand that when he or she needs to talk, you are there to listen. Carve out time for one-on-one “dates”, as well as “group dates” with the family. Laugh and play together as a family. Make sure that you also have regular dinners together in your home and outside. This way, your teen knows that he can approach you anytime to discuss problems that have been bothering him.

Encourage your child to have a wide circle of friends. There are many areas where a child can meet friends such as school, the community center, your church or the local sports team.

Build your child’s sense of self and confidence. The teenage years is a time of doubt – about who they are, how they look. Make sure that you build your child and not tear him down. Find opportunities to praise him, point out his good qualities. A teenager with high self-esteem is more able to cope with stress than one who is riddled with self-doubt.

Encourage healthy outlets. This may come in the form of physical activity and sports. It may also be about hobbies and pasttimes. You can also encourage your child to express himself via a diary or journal. (Just make sure that you also respect your child’s privacy and resist the temptation to take a peek at what is written there.)

Finding help for our teens

Sometimes, it could also help to seek family therapy when family issues become a main source of teenage stress. Often, a teenager may need help expressing and processing his feelings and thoughts about a certain family situation. A licensed family therapist can help the teen thresh out the issues and the positive responses he can make.

There are also instances when problems with alcohol and drugs warrant the services of a substance abuse counselor to help the teen break out of his addictions. A family therapist that specializes and has experience handling teens would be a great help to teens as they try to learn to manage their stress.

Triston Morgan is one such therapist. He is licensed to practice marriage and family therapy in the state of Utah and he has had extensive experience treating adolescents, particularly in the area of substance use. Since starting his practice in Provo, Utah, Triston has been involved in wilderness therapy programs especially designed for teens. As a therapist in Utah, Triston is committed to helping local teens increase their emotional capacity and confidence.

 

A mariage wracked by infedility. Trouble with a rebellious teenager. Issues with sexual addiction, alcoholism or drug abuse. These issues have a considerable impact on a marriage or on a family. People may mistakenly hope that these problems are just a phase and that they will blow away sometime in the future. However, the wounds and scars caused by these issues often not just result in cracks in our relationships. They sometimes result in seriously deep crevices that may need more work, and perhaps the help of family counseling.

How Marriage or Family Therapy can Help

People often see a marriage or family therapist as a balm, a cure-all for the problems they are facing. Or, sometimes, people go into therapy at a point where the problems overwhelm the relationship and the couple is simply going through marriage counseling as the last nod off before getting a divorce.

The question is, why does family counseling or therapy do? Why should a couple or family go and seek therapy services? In what ways can family counseling help?

– Fostering open communications. Oftentimes, poor communications is the cause of conflict. And over time, as people fail to communicate feelings and simply gloss over the issues, the problems become too big to manage. There may be blow-ups that cause major fights. In addition, there are also family environments that prevent open communications. Family members may not feel comfortable talking about issues honestly. For instance, a spouse may feel awkward saying personal information in front of the spouse for fear of a negative reaction. Or, a child may feel reluctact to share his feelings for fear of a confrontation.

A good marriage or family counselor can help foster open and honest communications by providing an environment that is non-threatening and non-confrontational. When open communication flows (between family members and between the therapist and the clients), solutions can be discussed. The facilitator can also help family members become better communicators so that there are no further communication problems.

– Provide problem-solving skills. Family counselors can help equip family members with the necessary skills to deal with issues that cause conflict. This includes dealing with depression, developing self-confidence, anger management and dealing with loss or grief. Sometimes, if there is an issue with alcoholism or drug abuse, a substance abuse counselor can help the client break free from the addiction.

– Helps you deal with changes in life. As they say, life is a constant change and it never comes in smooth patterns. There are instances where the changes and the crises are too complicated or too heavy for you to bear. Even happy occasions such as the birth of a baby can cause an emotional upheaval. A therapist can help guide you through these upheavals so that you know how to respond to these.

– Helps individuals, couples and families deal with stress. The loss of a job. A serious sickness of a partner. The death of a loved one. When these strike, people are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with these stressful situations. And this can have a serious effect on relationships, depending on how each family member reacts. Some may deal with the stress by being aggressive. Some may handle it by pulling away from loved ones. Therapy can help people deal with stress in such a way that is relationships are built and strengthened, not destroyed.

– Help in overcoming the past. Past sins and mistakes have a tendency to haunt a relationship. A spouse may not easily get over a past bout of infidelity. Therapy can help mend the ridges so that the couple or family can move forward.

These are just some of the reasons why couples or families seek therapy. Once you realize the need for therapy, it is important that you don’t wait too long to get it. By that time, it may be too late. Don’t wait until things have seriously snowballed and heading downhill. Even if your partner or other family members refuse to go into therapy, going into it by yourself will still prove helpful.

Family Counselors in Provo, Utah

If you live in the Provo, Utah area, Triston Morgan is happy to help you with couples and family therapy services. Triston Morgan is licensed to practice marriage and family therapy in Utah and he has years of experience under his belt, particularly in the area of dealing with couples, teens and those with issues with regards to drugs or substance abuse.

Triston Morgan hilds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy, from Loma Linda University and Brigham Young University, respectively. Morgan is also certified to provide PREPARE/ENRICH courses. He has written books and for various journals and is an esteemed member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.