"Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue." – Zeno Many words have lost their essential meaning in American culture. Everything is “awesome”. Any negative experience is quickly and carelessly labeled “traumatic”. If someone does or says something you don’t like, they’re “toxic". In the counseling business, words are incredibly useful and meaningful. I don’t know what counseling would look like without them. About five to seven years ago, I began to notice a subtle s

“I strongly recommend you take that black.” I had just ordered a pour over [1] at a local coffee shop. The barista who said this looks like she had just been popped out of the hipster mold they make every other barista in: randomly colored hair, covered in tattoos and facial piercings, aimlessly dressed. She’s looking back at me with a cheap self-righteous smile. The type of smile that you’d expect to see if you could buy them in packs of 50 at the local dollar store. I smil

Years ago, when I first started my career, I worked in the child and adolescent wing of a large psychiatric hospital. One of the patients I was tasked with supervising was a 12-year-old young boy named Michael. He was part of the half-day treatment program. Michael thought he was a dragon. This idea took hold of him when he was 6, and he quickly became completely convinced of it. Through years of imaginative mental creation and psychological gymnastics, he’d constructed an en