Happy Valentine’s Day

Celebrate your relationship on this Valentines Day and make it meaningful. It might take some effort sometimes to work out the glitches and endure the ups and downs. If you are needing any type of relationship support, be it dating, in a live in situation, premarital or marriage support.

Please call Northwest Arkansas Marriage and Family Therapy Office at 479-225-0055, leave a voice message and I will return your call. Flexible appointment times to fit all schedules. Look forward to speaking soon about your situation. Serving NWA specifically and all of Arkansas both virtually and in person Thank you.

New Years Tribute, NWA Marriage & Family Therapy

 

Happy New Year’s 2019.  Reflecting on  2018 I was thinking some times it is good to take a look back  to remember those folks who lived and came before us.  Way before us.  We are here because they survived and had the strength to carry on even in very difficult circumstances, often facing situations that in their time seemed impossible to  overcome or endure.  We as people, are stronger and more resilient  than we believe to face our situations.

Please call NWA Marriage & Family Therapy @ 479-225-0055 to set an appointment for couples or individual counseling, at your convenience.  If you need my services, in Fayetteville, Bella Vista, or Ft. Smith.please leave a voice message and I will call back.

Thank you  and I look forward  to hearing from you.

Happy 2019 New Year’s to all as we head forward.

Carmen

Link

Counseling, Therapy in the age of AI – Erica

Watching this you tube video of Erica an AI android, was eye opening as far as the speed at which AI is progressing and developing as a technology.  These “machines” at first seemed clumsy and slow.  Now they seem realistic and life like, with a better command of  language and a good sense of humor, complete with facial gestures.  Now Erica has her own face book account, and channel.  Soon,  I think humans will have  the option as far as doing therapy with AI versus a human being. The military is already experimenting with  AI’s for therapy.  It is  an interesting choice.

Counseling Research 

The dilemma is research on counseling for the last forty years shows that its not about techniques or theories used by the therapists that determine outcomes of clients,, but the relationship developed with your clients in session that helps them heal.  Will AI’s be able to mimic this situation? Will the create new ways to do therapy?

Basically,  what makes us fundamentally human is how we connect with each other, and share our experience, with others.  These interactions are all part of that human experience, hat helps us heal., and connects us to each other.

We are watching how  the AI phenomenon is developing at great speed and with surprisingly little social discourse.  You tube clip, stated that one AI received citizenship and that we needed to make space for new entities,, not human, not machine.  The  android needed its own space and place.   Wondering how this will all play out ? Any way thought I would share this clip today about Erica.  Still want to talk with a human being?

NWA Marriage and  Family Therapy

I am a licensed  Counselor and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist  available for individual or relationship therapy.,   Call for an appointment at  479-225-0055 and leave a voice message.  Evening and week end hours are available, serving  the North West Arkansas (NWA )area.

Thank you.

Carmen

“Get your facts first, ….”

“Get your facts first, ….then you can distort them as you please.”- Mark Twain

A great quote from the great social humorist and writer Mark Twain.  Using a little humor and not taking yourself too seriously at times can be a very powerful self preservation strategy for your mental health.

People get stuck in their attempts to prove themselves right and their partner wrong when fighting especially in couples situations. This in the end leads to resentments and feelings of being judged, undervalued, disrespected and over all unloved.

How about hanging up the usual factual argument by refusing to engage in the familiar back and forth dance that is so familiar?  Learn to manage your own frustration with a little calm humor and pick your battles wisely.   Please remember If you are in an emotionally manipulative or abusive relationship most general relationship strategies, may not apply.

I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Individual counselor, let me know if I can help  you or your couple  change your usual dance.

Call me at your convenience at 479-225-0055 and leave a voice message.  Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Pre Marital Counseling Benefits

Don’t wait till weeks before your marriage to plan your premarital counseling. Knowing your partner well before marriage gives you assurances that the commitment and expectations are right for both of you. Couples spend so much time preparing the ceremony and all that surrounds it, that sometimes this important aspect may be lost.

Pre-Marital Counseling benefits are many:

Learning to talk more effectively to each other, fighting in a  more fair manner, discussing your expectations and wishes, exploring financial issues, and anything that the couple might be avoiding that is a “hot topic” subject.  When one marries another person often times the families have a bigger influence than the couple had previously thought.  Also there can be other issues as well.

I offer premarital session for couples that  are tailor fit with focus on your needs.  I think that it’s good to have a positive experience with a Marriage and Family Therapists, so you
can know that you have the resources to support you in the long run.  I see so many couples use coming to couples therapy as a threat to their partner in the middle of a fight.  Marriage and Family Therapy can be proactive, healthy and an over all smart move for your couple from the start.

I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT) offering premarital counseling in the
NWA area as well as in Ft. Smith.  Call me direct at 479-225-0055 and leave a voice message if you would like to discuss your own situation.

Support, Self Improvement in Therapy

Finding Support for Self Improvement in a therapeutic environment is important.

How is support created in therapy?  Many times clients want to come in for one visit to make a variety of changes, often all at one time.  Self improvement happens at your own pace.  It’s usually best in small steps over the course  of your life time.

A variety of self empowering skill sets can be developed over s few sessions.  These skills will later be practiced  one your own with a continued focus on self improvement.   Having  a good  ongoing relationship with a therapist can pave the way to self sufficiency.   An occasional visit with some one who can support you can make your journey easier.

Support can come from many places, people, or even ideas and values.  Uncover who or what supports your integrity and authenticity,   One of my basic therapeutic goals is to self empower you.  Helping you to find a better way to support yourself emotionally as well as to enhance yourself to be your very best at this moment.

Call 479-225-0055 for a counseling appointment if you want help to self empower. NWA Marriage & Family Therapy is serving the Northwest Arkansas area and Ft. Smith.  Start transforming and self empowering your life.

The Four Way Test-Decision Making

 

 

“The Four Way Test” used by the Rotarian Club that I share below as a reprint of a simple four-part ethical guideline to use when exploring and making decisions in an ethical manner.  Credit to Web link below.

 

http://thefourwaytest.com/history-of-the-four-way-test/

The Four Way Test

1. Is it the TRUTH?

2. Is it FAIR to all Concerned?

3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

 

Good therapeutic questions to use and explore through life when communicating with your spouse, couple, friends and or family.

Call NWA Marriage and Family Therapy at 479-225-0055 for an individual marital or couples appointment for affordable licensed therapy. Thanks!

 

School Shooting Profiler Expert

https://schoolshooters.info/

This website is an informative resource to understand the various profiles of school shooters.  The author of the website is Peter Langman, Ph.D.  who is also the author of School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators and Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds Of School Shooters.

For any one who wants to learn more about this phenomenon, of school violence and school shooter profiles, these books and website are a good resource at this difficult time.

NWA Marriage & Family Therapy, Your intuitive voice

The mind is an interesting place to be when one becomes observant, some people call this practice being mindful or paying attention to your own thoughts and sensations or simply existing in a state of awakening.

What is your intuitive protective voice saying to you at times?

Does that voice serves to protect you in a possibly dangerous situation? Does it serve to protect  you or torment you?

Is it  giving you comfort or is it making you anxious?  Is  what you feel true or  false?

Is the voice different than your negative thinking?  Are they the same?

Is this part of or different than your rational thoughts perhaps are they more  a part of your judgmental mind?

Sometimes in relationships we have an internal voice that sees the situation more clearly.

Often times we might over ride this intuitive voice by attempting to be logical or telling ourselves we just want to think positive of a situation or a person and use visualization techniques to create the future we want.

So what is true and what to believe?

Is our ability to feels and experience clearly muddled by past trauma or negative experiences? Is our ability to fell and think clearly overridden by assertions and promise of  ones who claim to love us?

How do we know what part of our perceptions to trust?

This is especially important in relationships.

Sometimes situations are more complicated than at first glance. Sometimes our inner voices speak loudly to give us advanced notice of what’s to come?  Why is it that some people  have the ability to sense this early on even thought they might choose to ignore their intuition?

How do you know if you should follow your inner voice or not? There is so much confusing information on line.

Infidelity, Stay or go? How to Know?

Infidelity, Stay Go How to Know?

Infidelity can come in many forms and happens more often than couples are willing to admit.  Studies on infidelity are therefore hard to conduct due to lack of honest data.  Any one who has ever experienced infidelity can  share how difficult it was  go through the experience.

Stay, Go?

The question immediately asked that ruminates painfully in one’s head after an infidelity is, should I stay or go after the infidelity is discovered?  The answer often is, it depends on many factors.

The question on staying or going can be more complicated than a one size fits all answer. Your friends & family might tell you to leave  as soon as possible, when you would do better to stay.  Others may tell you to stay at any and all costs, when it might be safer and better for you to leave.  How to know?  My goal is to  educate people to make long term educated healing choices.

No matter what any book with sure fire “marriage savior” promises you, not all relationships after infidelity can be saved, nor should they be.

Not all relationships after an infidelity however should be terminated or abandoned. Instead, some are very worth fighting for and will grow into a better more mature relationship that is still to come..

The critical question is therefore: How do you know when to stay and when to go after infidelity? What do you need to know to make the best informed choice as to your particular infidelity situation?

Your Informed Choice.

The choice to stay or go is always yours to make. Having an experienced therapists, who is not scared do explore and educate you about your own particular infidelity situation and all the emotions, may help you make a better informed choice.

Call 479-225-0055 to set an appointment for therapy in NWA.

NWA Marriage & Family Therapy to explore and understand your unique infidelity situation.

Thanks Carmen