Mental Health Insights

How to Talk To Your Child About Self Harm

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:50:00 -0400

In this episode we discuss how to approach and engage in a conversation with your child about self harming behavior.. The key is to be able to engage in the conversation in a productive way and engage our curiosity. I hope you find this episode helpful!

How to Talk to Your Child About Suicide?

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 14 May 2025 16:06:00 -0400

In this episode we talk specifically about how to start the conversation with your child about suicide. More episodes about this will follow!

How to Parent a Child With Depression

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:21:00 -0400

In this episode we discuss your role in helping your child with depression. We first want to get a confirmed diagnosis from a clinician or physician. We also want to get a full blood panel to help discern if their is a physical cause.

Our primary role needs to be one of support an encouragement and I talk in this episode about what that looks like. I hope you find this helpful!

How Do You Parent A Child With Anxiety?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 09:45:00 -0400

In this episode we focus on how to parent a child that has anxiety. These are good skills to develop since even if your child does not develop a disorder, they will have anxiety in general at some point or another.

Remember, if you have specific request for strategies for a specific mental health issue your child is facing, then please email me at Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com. This will help me know which mental health issues to focus on!

How Do You Parent A Child That Is Struggling With Their Mental Health?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:33:00 -0400

In this episode we start to go through a general process of how to help a child that is struggling with their mental health. In this series we will get more specific when we go through various mental health related issues but this episode will set the framework!

Framework:

Deal with the emotion first by validating and using repetition
Comfort child in a way that is effective for them
allow them to make a decision about the situation now or at a later time.

If you have a specific situation you wish to hear me speak on, please email me at craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

Emotions Series Overview

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:43:00 -0400

In this episode I give an overview and some final thoughts about how to use emotions. I hope you all find this helpful!

What Do I Need To Know About Anger To Help Someone That Is Angry? Part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:00:00 -0400

This episode continues with talking about anger and how to engage with it. The focus today is trying to understand and discern why anger may be coming up in someone else to help us know how to engage!

How Do You Calm Down Someone That is Very Angry? Part 1

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 09:00:00 -0400

In this episode we focus on how to engage with someone that is very angry to help them in that emotional experience. As a warning, using these moves in an abusive relationship is not recommended, especially when alone with an angry abuser.

A secondary warning is that sometimes the anger response is a plea for space or for you (if the anger is due to conflict with you) to disengage. If that is a case, notice that pattern and consider giving space part of what you do after the validation attempts and making that known that you are giving space purposefully and we can re-engage on this later.

While a lot of anger can be engaged with in the moment, there are times where we have to recognize it needs to be addressed after everyone is in a more calm space. Then as we discuss the conflict, and the anger (protection) rises again we may be more able to use these techniques to help then when it is not as intense.

I hope this is helpful!

How To Help A Very Emotional Person

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:15:00 -0400

In this episode we move our focus to helping someone else with their emotional experiences. Here are some quick notes of the conversation:

Assess if you care enough about this person to actually help in this moment
Acknowledge your own emotional bandwidth right now and the capacity you have
validate 3-5 times what this person is experiencing
offer a deeper or more vulnerable possibility occurring in their emotional experience right now as well
Allow the person to choose what part of their experience to focus on and stick with them using validation, simple open ended questions, curiosity, and a willingness to just be there with them as long as it takes
you can test if they want a resolution by offering a possible solution and seeing if they engage or shoot it down. If they shoot it down, take it as a signal they are not emotionally ready to move to problem solving in this moment

I hope this episode is helpful and more to come in this series!

What Do You Say About Yourself When Things Are Emotionally Difficult?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 09:00:00 -0400

In this episode we explore how to tap into view of self or core belief about yourself. This helps use understand a common thread emotional events play into and how you make sense of them. Knowing this gives us more opportunity to do something about it, and more ability to do something about how this can affect our mental health.

During the episode I discuss one of the interventions for a new emotional experience that I personally use is to lean into my relationship with Jesus. As a believer this is what I use. I discuss other methods that can be used if you are not. For those that are curious about how to use a relationship with God and Jesus feel free to look into my other podcast Handing it to Jesus that goes more in depth with this. Links are below!

https://feeds.captivate.fm/handing-it-to-jesus/

What Activates Your Emotional Protection?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we continue to build upon the last one in discerning what activates or triggers your protection. This is often a message we get from another person or event that we are reacting to. This is all to help emotional regulation and use in real world situations.

Is Your Emotional Protection Healthy?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Your emotional protection a key part of social interactions. In this episode we are going to explore how to tell what your emotional protection is and discern if it is healthy or not.

What Does Fishing and Understanding Our Own Emotions Have In Common?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0400

In this episode we talk about using somatic (body urges) to explore depth and actions, or inactions, emotions point to. This is all part of our series on understanding our emotions more in order to improve our mental health.

I hope you find this episode helpful!

How to Sooth Your Own Emotions

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0400

In today's episode we continue the series of talking about emotions. We focus on soothing and a way to go about that using your body and the emotional experience that comes up during that exploration.

Remember, this is part of a series and this episode builds off the last and will continue to develop. I hope you find it helpful!

How Can Understanding Emotions Improve Your Mental Health?

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0400

In this episode we kick off a series to talk about emotions and how to successfully engage with your own emotions and with others emotions.

In this episode we are going to specifically focus on how acknowledging and exploring your own emotion can help your mental health. This is a concept we will build upon as we travel through these episodes!

It is good to be back. If you are curious what projects I have been working on, then check out my other podcast Handing It to Jesus. Below are some links to that podcast.

For iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/handing-it-to-jesus/id1763662684

For Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5i31zcg5TMghJAVX7qXJL1

What Can Redwood Trees Teach You About Mental Health?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:44:00 -0400

Redwood Trees are amazing and can shed some light on some helpful mental health concepts!

What Can Tree Pruning Teach Us About Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 14:22:00 -0400

In this episode we talk about pruning to benefit our mental health. I hope you find this helpful!

Are We Our Own Worst Enemy?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 07:00:00 -0400

Often we see ourselves as one of the biggest obsticles we face. Is this true or is there more to it than that. Are we really our worst enemy? Let's start to find out.

Feel free to reach out and offer episode suggestions or just to say hi. I read and respond to every email! Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

Is People Pleasing a Bad Thing?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:48:00 -0400

People pleasing is seen as such a bad thing that we should take some time to think of if that is true or not. Join me in exploring people pleasing, its function, and if it is really a bad thing.

Feel free to reach out at Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com if you have episode suggestions or just to say Hi! I respond to every email!

Do You Have A Mental Health Issue or is Your Brain Just Wired Different?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 13:42:00 -0400

In this episode we explore how long lasting issues or challenging could be less mental health related issues and more a possibility of how your brain just is. Our brains operate differently and their is a fairly significant variance as more and more people are born. This leads us to question if the different ways our brains think is actually a mental illness or is it just wired to operate and be used differently? We explore this idea in this episode, I hope you enjoy!

Addiction Series: Porn

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 07:01:00 -0400

In this episode, I talk about how porn use can impact our mental health. This is important because of how prevalent porn use is and how it can impact our body and relationships deeply. I hope you find it helpful!

If you want to reach out for questions or episode suggestions, please email me at Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

What is the Most Harmful Thing We Can do to Harm Our Mental Health?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 25 May 2023 07:00:00 -0400

This question was asked by a friend and I took some time to think it over and I believe you will resonate with the answer. Thinking of your own life, you will likely be able to pick out how you may do this very thing we discuss to harm your own mental health without meaning to.

If you have any questions or suggestions for topics you would like to share, please feel free to email me at Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

How To Increase Your Brain’s Processing Power

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 18 May 2023 12:00:00 -0400

More processing power equals more ability to decrease the emotional volatility of an experience. Today we talk about how to increase you brain's processing power several times over to help you though tough experiences.

Remember to give our other podcast a listen to, Mental Health Insights In the Bible! You can find some of those episodes on all major podcast apps and at: https://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm/mentalhealthinsightsinthebible

If you want to reach out to me, my email is craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

Take care!

A Relationship Ruptured In Eden

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 12 May 2023 08:31:00 -0400

Here is an episode from our other podcast, Mental Health Insights In The Bible. This episode will be posted for a short while so feel free to listen as long as it is up. To listen more more episodes, please subscribe by following the link: https://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm/mentalhealthinsightsinthebible

Here are the show notes:

Thank you for joining us on this journey! We go over Genesis one and start to unpack some of the biblical lessons from before the fall occurs in the biblical narrative. This is one of the most powerful examples of what life as a human would look like before sin and exile from the Garden of Eden occurs.

Lessons to Ponder

We are an image of God
Mental health issues caused by conflict with identity and purpose
We are not meant to go through life alone
The disconnecting damage of guilt and shame
Communication issues at the very start of the biblical story

We hope you enjoyed the session! If you would like to reach out for questions, episode requests, or encouragement then please feel free to email us at mentalhealthinsightsinthebible@gmail.com

We love you very much!

How To Create Small Wins to Improve Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 11 May 2023 13:01:54 -0400

Small wins can take us so much further in our mental health journey because they normally come more frequently than larger ones. In this episode I talk about leveraging habits to create these small wins that yield big results.

If you would like to check out our other podcast, Mental Health Insights in the Bible then here is a link: https://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm/mentalhealthinsightsinthebiblehttps://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm

If you would like to reach out, my email is Craig@lifecarecounselintslt.com

Take care!

What To Do When You Are Suffering

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 05 May 2023 14:37:50 -0400

In this episode we go over the steps to take when you are suffering and go through several examples to demonstrate them. The truth is, we have to do something because suffering is something we all experience or will experience.

It has been almost a year since I have published anything while I worked on my other podcast Mental Health Insights In The Bible. Now that we have that off the ground I am happy to be back recording for this one again as well. If you want to check that other podcast out (we have some great things on that one too) then here is a link to some of the episodes: https://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm/mentalhealthinsightsinthebiblehttps://mental-health-insights.captivate.fm

I look forward to sharing more next time!

Understanding Relationships Part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 26 May 2022 12:00:00 -0400

In this episode we talk about distance in the relationship. Often when we feel distance (emotional rather than physical in this case) we will react in several ways. I break this down in the episode and start to give some ways of considering and talking about distance in your relationship.

This episode is part of a series and is another building block so we can continue to more complex topics. We like to keep it simple so breaking it down and taking it slow is something we hope will help really soak in the understanding and ability to take action on some of what we are discussing!

Understanding Relationships Part 1

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 19 May 2022 13:58:58 -0400

We are created to bond and connect with others. In this episode we talk about human attachment and responsiveness to give us a foundation to build upon as we further explore relationships and how they impact our mental health.

In this episode I do not really talk about attachment styles as I feel like sometimes labels can restrict ways we think about ourselves. If labels help you more then I recommend you look some up since we all learn differently!

What To Do About Burnout

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 12 May 2022 13:32:01 -0400

Burnout is a challenging feeling to contend with. Most of us will have to face it at some point or another and we need a strategy to get out of it and a more clear idea of what burnout actually is. Thank you for listening and I am glad to be back!

Does Time Heal All Wounds?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:23:40 -0400

Emotional wounds can last a long time. With enough time, do they go away? In this episode, we explore this question and how we can work on helping emotional wounds heal.

How Validation Can Improve You Relationships

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 14:19:19 -0400

In this episode we break down validation and how central it is to building understanding and empathy in relationships. Validation is the key to communicating understanding of what someone is communicating and in this episode we talk about how this is done. After this episode, you will be able practice validating and experience the change it can bring!

Using Personal Narratives to Improve Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 12:45:38 -0400

In this episode we explore how we naturally create our own narratives or stories about ourselves in our day to day life. This can be a bad things if we are not really happy with how we are living our life. This can also be a great opportunity to use a powerful tool to actually help our mental health by crafting and pursuing narratives we want about our life. As with all things, awareness helps and it is action from awareness that will create change!

Using mind over matter to improve your mental health part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 12:06:00 -0400

In this episode we continue to explore the concept of mind over matter in relation to willpower.

Using mind over matter to improve your mental health part 1

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 15:05:59 -0400

In this episode we talk about the concept of mind over matter and how it can impact your mental health.

Don‘t Fight Thoughts With Thoughts

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 16:34:24 -0400

When we have anxiety, it can be common to try and think our way out of our problems. That may not be the right approach, fighting thoughts with thoughts. How about we try a different way.

How a Short Rest Can Improve Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 12:31:29 -0400

A short rest or break can do wonders to develop great mental health. In this episode I break down why that is and how we can use this technique to help improve your mental health!

Using Hope to Improve Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:14:55 -0400

Hope is foundational to help keep us moving forward. In this episode I will talk about some functions of hope and how to use them to help improve your mental health. Mental health issues like depression will make this difficult, so make sure you set realistic expectations of yourself and keep that in you mind as you listen!

Hope can be a powerful tool if harnessed purposefully. I hope you enjoy the episode!

Understanding Suicide and How You Can Help

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:32:05 -0400

In this episode I talk to Paula Fontenelle about suicide. Paula is a mental health clinician and expert in working with all aspects of suicide. Paula shares with us signs, interventions, and mindsets to be aware of when helping someone that is suicidal.

Paula helps us understand that anyone can help someone with suicidal thoughts. Paula has great resources available at her website, understandsuicide.com where you can look at her book, online course, and podcast.

I enjoyed my conversation with Paula and know you will find her knowledge and insight helpful!

How Does Technology Impact Our Mental Health Part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:31:39 -0400

As humans, we have amazing capacity to grow and learn. In this episode we will explore how technology can impact our attention and our propensity to avoid unpleasantness in life. We will also discuss how to star to think about striking that balance to help improve your mental health!

How Does Technology Impact Our Mental Health Part 1

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:24:20 -0400

In this episode we start to unpack some of the ways our use of technology can impact our mental health. Technology is here to stay, so understanding the relationship between our mental health and technology use is critical!

How Does Mental Health Impact Thinking About The Future and What To Do About It

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:59:48 -0400

Have you ever had a hard time thinking about the future? Maybe you know someone who has trouble with this now? In this episode we will explore how mental health impacts our thinking about the future. We will also talk about day by day planning and what functions that serve for our mental health.

Breaking Down Depression and What To Do About It

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 11:32:21 -0400

In this episode I break down depression and the various ways it can work. This episode will also explore what you can do to help your or someone else's depression. I hope you find this helpful!

Calming A Racing Mind and Our Nervous System Part 3

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 14:56:54 -0400

Does your mind get flooded with thoughts that you can't seem to shake? Does your racing mind make it hard to focus or difficult to get anything done? In this episode, Pete Sandoval, LPC will explore with us what causes a racing mind and what we can do in order to calm ourselves in these moments.

This episode is part of the Calming A Racing Mind series but we go more in depth this episode to really drive home what you can do to help calm yourself in these tough moments. We hope you enjoy!

How Sex Affects Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 15:01:17 -0400

In this episode I start the conversation about how sex affects our mental health. First, we have to talk about both physical and emotional components that make up sex. I hope you enjoy!

How Physical Touch Can Help Our Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 21 May 2021 12:56:06 -0400

In this episode, Sarah Sanburn, LPC helps us to understand how physical touch impacts our mental health. Sarah also helps use to understand how to use touch to help improve behaviors and connection to our children (young and old)! We hope you find this episode helpful!

Understanding OCD and What To Do About It

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 03 May 2021 14:37:49 -0400

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder that can be complicated. Today we have Dr. Jeremy Shuman help simplify OCD and guide us towards what treatment of OCD looks like. We hope you find this helpful!

How Tracking Your Mood and Behavior Can Improve Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 14:40:25 -0400

Improving our mental health is important. This is an easy idea and tool to help you start the path to understanding what you can actually do to help your mental health. We hope you enjoy!

How Sleeping Affects Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 12:42:32 -0400

In this episode, I talk to Stephanie Korpal, a therapist in Saint Louis Missouri that helps us understand how sleep helps our mental health. We hope you enjoy!

How Your Relationship With Food Impacts Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:36:38 -0400

Join Reshaunda Thornton and myself as we explore how the foods you eat can impact your mental health. We will also explore how you can transform your relationship with food and why a diet may not be the right direction for you. We hope you enjoy!

How Describing Our Experiences Can Help Our Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:40:56 -0400

In this episode we explore how language, words, and description help our brain deepen its understanding of an experience we have. This is a crucial process in helping us process emotional events and helps us to better be able to communicate our experiences.

Being able to express your experiences is a great way to help yourself and others understand you. In this episode I will also talk about a process of helping you talk about your feelings and experiences in a deeper way with those around you. I hope you enjoy!

How to Become More Introspective and Why It Matters

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:39:00 -0400

In this episode I talk about introspection and how to go about being more reflective of your own life experiences. I also talk about how important this is for our own personal growth. I provide personal examples to help you with your own journey as well!

Why Does Counseling Help?

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 16:34:00 -0400

In this episode I start to talk about the science of some of what happens during counseling. This episode is great for understanding how counseling starts to produce change!

Why You May Want To Switch the Labels on How Your Brain Thinks

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 12:45:00 -0400

Our brain creates labels as short cuts for helping us make logical leaps and conserve energy. The problem is, sometimes these labels are wrong or cause more issues for us. Today we explore how to look at and start the process of changing the way we use labels in the world around us!

How You Learn To Live Differently In Recovery

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 12:19:00 -0400

Today Matt Bauersachs from Learn To Live Recovery joins us to talk about recovery from substance abuse and how the transformation takes place. We talk about how how recovery is a process that helps addicts learn to live differently and feel differently about themselves. We hope you enjoy this episode!

How To Adjust Your Mindset

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 12:08:00 -0400

In this episode I talk about mindsets and how they form and impact your way of thinking and experiences life. We also start to talk about how to adjust a mindset you want to change and what that process looks like. I hope you find this helpful!

Emotional Toll of Preparing for and Starting College

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 12:47:00 -0400

For those that decide to go to college, it is a stressful process and many times and very emotional one. Not only that but even getting to college can be create a very difficulty environment for a student to thrive. Join me as I explore these challenges with a college counselor, Joann Elliott, LPC. We hope you enjoy!

Three Mistakes That Keep Couples From Being Close

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 15:44:00 -0400

In this episode I talk about common mistakes I see in couples I work with. Being aware of these mistakes can give you the opportunity to creating a closer relationship with your significant other! I hope you enjoy this episode!

How Functional Medicine Can Help Improve Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 11:47:00 -0400

In this episode, I talk to Dr. Roland about functional medicine and the relationship that exists between physical and mental health. We explore how environment and illness can play a role in contributing or even causing different mental health issues. I hope you find this helpful!

How To Calm A Racing Mind Part 3, Be Experimental

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:42:00 -0400

A continuation of our Calming A Racing Mind series. In this episode I talk about how experimenting is one of the best ways to discover what works for you and give you real life examples and practical ways to get into this mindset. I hope you enjoy!

The Journey To Find Purpose

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 11:36:00 -0400

In this episode I talk to Kim McGuiness, LPC about how she helps people find purpose and the importance that can have to our mental health. We hope you enjoy!

Deep Therapy and How It Reveals Why We Do What We Do

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:21:00 -0400

In this episode we start to explore a type of therapy called Psychodynamic Therapy with Gabi Black. This type of therapy is what we may call a deep therapy that is designed to help create understanding around deep rooted issues and behaviors.

We also start a conversation about dreams and how they can have psychological significance. We hope you enjoy!

Protecting Your Mental Bandwidth

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 14:52:00 -0400

How can you make everything you do a little easier? Just try to protect your mental bandwidth and learn what drains it! Today I talk about what this mental bandwidth is and why protecting it is so important.

How A Little Drama Can Be Therapeutic

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 12:40:00 -0400

Today I talk with Paula Heller, a Drama Therapist. We talk about how acting, role play, and storytelling elements can help in therapy and really take "talk" therapy to another level.

We also talk about how movement and role playing can help you get unstuck from difficult anxieties or trauma. We hope you find this helpful!

Attachment and Why It Matters For Your Relationships

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 12:31:00 -0400

We finally talk about attachment. We have touched on this topic in several episodes but today I talk with Shirley Crenshaw, LCSW, a specialist in attachment related issues and trauma. If you are wondering how childhood relationships can have big impacts on people later in life, then you will enjoy this episode. I hope you enjoy!

What Goes Into Our Identity and How to Reshape It

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 09:56:00 -0400

Today Stephanie Barbee and I start to explore how our experiences shape our identity, attachment needs/responses, and how to work on becoming who you want to be. We talk about messages different people get at different times of their life as examples to help you start to think about your own identity and what helped form you into who you are today. The wonderful part of being human is we can change our identity over time and we also discuss how Stephanie helps people do so! We hope you enjoy!

Talk Less and Overcome Blocks With Brainspotting Therapy

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:39:00 -0400

Many times we think about sitting on the couch and talking to someone when we think of therapy. This is because most therapy consists of that. However, Brainspotting is a therapy that can help with a variety of issues with very little speaking. In this episode, I talk to Brittany Bagy about Brainspotting. This type of therapy was developed by Dr. David Grand, and is very unique type of therapy.

If you are curious about the brain and different ways therapy can engage in change in the brain/body then you will love this episode!

Why Is Therapy Hard For Most Guys

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 18:16:00 -0400

Men face a cultural stigma in therapy and today, we start to explore why. If you are a guy thinking about therapy or a therapist that works with guys, this will be most helpful for you. We hope you enjoy!

Calming A Racing Mind

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 14:06:16 -0400

Slow that racing mind down! Here is how to do it.

How Self Awareness Makes Your Life Better

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 22 May 2020 16:08:00 -0400

Self awareness is something that helps us be who we want to be and understand why we do the things we do. It is an attribute healthy, successful, and many great leaders share. Maybe, self awareness is the key ingredient to big mental health changes! Join Craig Foust, Nicole Oliver, and Pete Sandoval for this episode. We hope you enjoy!

How To Have Tough Conversations With Your Kids

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:21:00 -0400

When is it the right time to talk about sex, emotions, the future, and any other tough topic with your child? We explore this question and how to have these tough conversations in this episode. We hope you enjoy!

Surviving Vs Thriving During A Crisis

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 20:53:00 -0400

Thriving during a crisis is challenging so we explore some ways to help you thrive. We also talk about our own experience struggling during this time and how we are handling it. We hope you find this helpful!

Clean Your Home To Help Your Mental Health

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 16:14:00 -0400

You can take a great step towards better mental health by doing some house cleaning! If you have been staying home lately, consider clean up a little to help feel better! This episode talks about why mental health and cleanliness is related and how to go about taking these steps to improve your mental health.

More Self Awareness Will Make Your Life Better

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:00:00 -0400

Learn more about yourself and use that to help make your life better. Self awareness is a perspective and reality we work towards and I will talk to you about how to do it in this episode. I hope you enjoy!

Dealing With Stress and Social Isolation

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 12:51:00 -0400

Learn how to mange stress when you don't have easy access to social supports you may normally use. I hope you find this helpful!

How To Handle Anxiety and Stress Part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:04:00 -0400

In light of the high anxiety time we are in, I wanted to share some simple tips to keep your stress and anxiety from getting too high. Keep in mind, our stress and anxiety directly impact our immune system. This means we have to keep working to keep our stress and anxiety in check! I hope you find this helpful!

What Do Therapist Mean By Healthy Relationships?

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:06:00 -0400

Join Craig Foust, Nicole Oliver, Pete Sandoval, and Kristen Craren as we explore what healthy relationships look like. All of us look at relationships from different angles and give our own view on what "healthy relationships" look like and how to work towards them. We hope you enjoy!

Why Is It Hard For You To Talk To People You Care About

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:04:00 -0400

Talking to people you care about is hard. How do we get better at it? Kristen Craren joins me in answering this question and helping you understand a little about the importance of relationships. We hope you enjoy!

Helping Veterans and Finding Purpose

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:03:00 -0400

During this episode, I talk to Chad Welch about how important mental health work is with active and retired military. We also start to explore purpose and meaning in our life and how that propels different issues therapist treat!

One Simple Way To Improve Your Marriage

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:00:00 -0400

This one skill will help you have a better marriage. Imagine reducing fighting, arguing, disagreements, and tension by just having make sure you do this one thing. This will be part 1 in a series to help you improve your relationships!

How To Improve Your Memory

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:32:13 -0400

Forgetting important things is awful.

We have all been in that gut wrenching moment when we realize we forgot something important. Today, Nicole, Sheila, and myself talk about how to improve your memory so you don't get into those situations as often. I hope you enjoy the episode!

5 Steps to Handle Big Emotions

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 15:14:00 -0400

5 Steps to Handle Big Emotions

Do you feel like your emotions overwhelm and take over when situations get tough in your life? You are not alone. Anyone can get overwhelmed from strong emotional tides and sometimes it may even feel like our life is ruled by our emotions. In this podcast episode, I talk about 5 ways to help you start to break down those big emotions and stop those overwhelming feelings from taking over. I hope you enjoy!

Making Your Resolutions Stick

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 21:25:00 -0400

Making Your Resolutions Stick

It is hard to stick to goals and resolutions. The sense of defeat from trying to improve can be devastating. In this episode we talk about how to make habits, resolutions, and goals easier to be successful with.

This is a topic Pete, Nicole, and myself really enjoy talking about and I hope that you find it helpful for your own pursuits as well!

Defeating Social Anxiety

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 16:57:00 -0400

The Crushing Loneliness of Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is an isolating condition that can be overcome. You can be confident when walking into a social situation when you address your social anxiety. This condition makes avoiding any social situation normal. Learning social skills and being more comfortable in talking to others can go a long way in helping you develop lasting relationships. Social anxiety is the condition that promotes loneliness and avoidance. Learn how to address your social anxiety and visit My first dungeons and dragons group for those that suffer from social anxiety is aimed at starting in January! I still have some age groups open for 17-20 year old and 21 and older if any of you have any people in mind. Addressing social anxiety is best done in a group setting, which is the most frightening thing for someone that suffers from this issue. Here is a link with more information if you know anyone that may be interested and they are free to email or call me with any more questions! https://www.lifecarecounselingstl.com/role-playing-therapy-group/ to learn more and find a group today!

You Can Recover From Psychosis

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 14:37:00 -0400

Psychosis is a scary experience, and it is largely unknown why it occurs in some and not others. We do know early warning signs, how reduce chances of psychosis, and how to start the road to recovery.

Jennifer Gerlach with True Story Counseling talks to us about psychosis and how to help recovery. She also talks to us about warning signs and some factors that influence if someone will experience psychosis. We hope you enjoy!

Therapist Talk About How You Can Handle The Holidays

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 17:19:45 -0400

Surviving The Holidays

The holidays can be a hard time for many people due to the high time demands, stressful family encounters, and tugging expectations. We unpack these difficulties and start to talk about how to address each issue to help you get through the holidays. This will help you enjoy the holidays instead of dreading them!

Addiction Series: Nicotine

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 14:53:55 -0400

How Does Nicotine Affect Mental Health?

Nicotine is a drug that has been around for many years and the cravings and withdrawals from it are well known. How bad is nicotine for you, what does it do, is it that hard to stop and what are the different forms of nicotine use are all questions I will talk about in this episode.

I will also share some of my experience working with adolescent that use nicotine regularly in the newer vape devices that are gaining popularity. I hope you find this episode helpful!

Addiction Series- Opiates

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 13:59:00 -0400

Understanding Opiates and Addiction

Opiates are some of the most powerful and deadly drugs and there is good reason. They affect our brain and body in a powerful way by tapping into natural internal systems we have. Learn how opiates impact the body and brain and how to help with opiate addiction. I hope you enjoy this episode and find it helpful!

Trauma Basics Part 3

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 13:57:00 -0400

How Do Therapist Resolve Trauma?

Join Craig Foust, Nicole Oliver, and Pete Sandoval as we talk about how therapist approach working with trauma and helping healing occur around traumatic experiences. Trauma therapists use several techniques such as EMDR, somatic experiencing, accelerated resolution therapy, and couples therapy to help with trauma. Each of these methods taps into natural ways the brain is able to heal from trauma and many of them work in similar fashion.

Join us as we explore some of the techniques and how they work to heal trauma! We hope you enjoy!

Trauma Basics Part 2 Rebroadcast

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 14:42:00 -0400

Due to an error with the the original episode, a good portion was cut out. This episode is a solo episode to go over some of the key areas we covered to make sure the information is still available and to help with a smooth transition to the next trauma episode in the series! I hope you enjoy!

How Do Therapist Relocate

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 17:45:32 -0400

Sometimes moving from place to place is a part of life. Sometimes we move because we want to and other times not so much.

Join me as I talk to Christina with Mindful Coping Solutions and Lauren with Venture Wellness about their recent move to St. Louis.

As mental health professionals, these two have a different take on how to make moving a little easier! I hope you enjoy!

Addiction Series: Cocaine

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:24:10 -0400

I go over how cocaine affects the body and brain and some of the ramifications of its use. I also talk about some signs to spot possible cocaine use, I hope this is helpful!

Addiction Part 2

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 14:17:00 -0400

This episode is to help you understand depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens/dissociatives. I also talk about how these drugs can impact mental health on a basic scale and will go more in depth when we start talking about specific drugs. I hope you enjoy!

Addiction and Alcohol

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 15:44:00 -0400

A continuation of our addiction series where I talk about how alcohol use affects mental health. This episode also talks about benzodiazapines since they are similar in how they work. I hope you enjoy!

Dogs are Relationship Experts

mentalhealthinsights — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 16:54:00 -0400

Today we talk to Sarah Wilson about her work with dogs and how that informs her some of the family dynamics. While Sarah focuses on altering unwanted behavior of the dog, she talks to us about how dogs are reactive to the dynamics in the home. This is a fascinating episode that has me looking at my dogs and wondering how their behavior can inform me about how I am at home with my family. I also have Kristen Craren with me to lend some of her own observations and experiences to the conversation. I hope you enjoy!

How Our History Impacts Our Present (Trauma series)

mentalhealthinsights — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 20:35:00 -0400

Join Craig Foust, Nicole Oliver, and Kristen Craren as we talk about how our past experiences impact us today. While the context is with trauma in mind, our own past experiences have deep impacts on our feelings and behaviors presently. We hope you enjoy our exploration of this topic!

Trauma basics part 1

mentalhealthinsights — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:40:00 -0400

Join Craig Foust, Nicole Oliver, Kristen Craren, and Pete Sandoval as we talk about what trauma is, how it occurs, different types of trauma, and how trauma affects people. We hope you enjoy!

How to Reduce Anxiety and Stress

mentalhealthinsights — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 14:05:00 -0400

Join a few therapist as they talk about ways to manage your stress and anxiety. They share their own ways of managing stress and some ways their clients have found to be helpful. In this episode, Craig Foust with Life Care Counseling, Nicole Oliver with Integrative Neurocounseling, and Kristen Craren with Craren Family Services. I hope you enjoy it!

Addiction and Marijuana

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 15:09:00 -0400

This talk from the addiction series, will focus on marijuana. In this episode I will talk about how marijuana works in the body and brain and what effects can occur due to ongoing marijuana use. I will also talk about the difference between THC and CBD. I hope you find this helpful!

Your Stress response

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 10:29:00 -0400

Your stress response is a beautiful thing in the right circumstances. Just like many parts of ourselves, the stress response is something that can adapt to our experiences and our genetics.

In this episode, Nicole and I talk about the stress response, how it works, and signs of what it may look like if the stress response is over active. We hope you find this helpful!

Addiction Basics

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 15:08:00 -0400

Join me in this solo episode as I talk about addiction and habit loops. These pieces are a part of all of us and starting to understand the basics can help us alter our own behavior. I hope you enjoy!

Brain Basics

mentalhealthinsights — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 14:39:00 -0400

Join us for our first episode on Mental Health Insights. Here we talk about the basics of the brain to build an understand for our later talks on mental health. We hope you enjoy!