Power is one of those words that can make people uncomfortable. We often associate it with domination. Control. Hierarchy. Privilege. Coercion. But power is not inherently destructive. A parent has power because a child needs protection. A therapist has power because the therapist possesses specialized knowledge. A teacher has power because they have responsibility for a learning environment. A partner may have power because they control access to resources, emotional connect

We tend to talk about the self as though it is a thing we possess. My personality. My identity. My values. My history. My preferences. My boundaries. My needs. There is a useful truth in this way of thinking. But there is another possibility. Perhaps the self is not only something we carry into relationships. Perhaps the self is also something relationships continually help create. Consider how differently we experience ourselves around different people. There is the version

Couples rarely enter therapy because they have run out of things to talk about. Usually, they have too many. Money. Sex. Parenting. Housework. In-laws. Work. Phones. Time. Infidelity. Communication. They can spend an entire session arguing about the dishwasher and never actually talk about the dishwasher. Because the dishwasher is often not the problem. It is the stage on which the problem appears. This is the difference between content and process. Content is what couples ar

Therapists are often taught an important principle: meet the client where they are. It sounds simple. It is not. Because before I can meet someone where they are, I have to ask an uncomfortable question: Where am I? Every therapist enters the room from somewhere. We arrive with training, personal history, values, relationships, experiences, assumptions, fears, preferences, and theories. We arrive with ideas about what healthy relationships look like. We have beliefs about par

There is a particular kind of power that enters a therapy room before the therapist says a word. It is not necessarily the power to control another person. It may be the power of expertise, of language, of professional authority, of knowing how the system works. The therapist knows what confidentiality means. The therapist understands diagnosis. The therapist knows how sessions are structured, when they begin and end, and what happens if treatment is terminated. The client en