"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

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” — Dr. Viktor Frankl Christmas is, on its surface, a story about joy — candles, chorales, and the warmth of reunion. But underneath that celebration lies a harder, older truth: hope entered the world through pain. The child was born in a stable, not a sanctuary. The King came wrapped in rags, not robes. From its very beginning, Christianity has insisted upon the same paradox Frankl uncovered centuri

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