Category Archives: Personal Reflections

Cool Counseling, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, mental health, Personal Reflections, Therapy with Adolescents, Tough Kids, Tough Kids Cool Counseling, Writing

Chapter 3 — Resistance Busters (from Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, 2nd ed.)

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The chapter linked below is from the book, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling: User-Friendly Strategies for Working with Challenging Youth. The book was published in 2007, so the language is outdated and some ways we talk about youth have changed. For example, we’re no longer comfortable with the term “Tough Kids” because referring to youth as “tough” centers the problem in them, which isn’t fair and can make change more difficult. We have a different philosophy now (please excuse the language as I make my point):

In the beginning, we thought our “tough kids” book title was clever. Sometimes Rita and I argued about who came up with our ingeniously clever title. But now we’re uncomfortable with message embedded in the title. We believe we were wrong to label youth as “tough.” There are no tough kids. There are only kids in tough situations. And one, among many tough situations young people face, is counseling. When they roll their eyes, tell us to fuck off, or refuse to talk, we shouldn’t blame them; we shouldn’t call them difficult, disturbed, or tough. Blaming young people for behaving in ways that appear defensive, obnoxious, or resistant contributes to the problem. Too often we make the mistake of thinking we’re special (we’re not) and that young people should automatically respect us (they won’t) or that they should bow to the alter of our guidance (which is as flawed as we are). Working with youth requires humility, acceptance, creativity, and compassion. We should seek to communicate to all young people who enter our space that there is no other place we’d rather be than in the room with them—without ever directly saying that there is no other place we’d rather be than in the room with them. We call that radical interest. But we’re not talking about radical interest in helping or radical interest in being competent or radical interest in social justice (all of which are great things). We’re talking about radical interest in another living, breathing, person who in this present moment, is experiencing a challenging life, part of which involves being in the room with a fucking counselor.

Not long ago, a friend called me and wanted to read me a quote from the book, “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman. He said the quote made him think of me. He read it. I loved it.

Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don’t think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans (p. 1).

I’m honored my friend thought of me when he read this passage. I wish all teens could automatically sense that I think they’re the best humans. But unfortunately, adults are so often so dismissive and demeaning of teenagers that teenagers typically assume the opposite is true. That translates into the sad fact that if we’re going to convince teenagers we think they’re the best humans, we must do the direct and indirect work, which is not easy because we’ve been so effective—as individuals and as a society—to make teenagers think they’re the worst humans.

Here’s a link to the chapter. I hope it helps you convince teenagers they’re the best humans.

C03 Resistance Busters Tough KidsDownload

Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

The MHA Suicide Prevention Summit is Free (up to 20 CEUs) and Coming Soon!

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Why should you know about the Mental Health Academy’s annual Suicide Prevention summit?

It’s big. There are luminaries (e.g., David Jobes, Stacey Freedenthal, and Rory O’Connor). It’s free. And the MHA is an amazing Australian-based organization that gives as good as it gets. On their website, they report:

Supporting local initiatives
Through partnering with leading organizations around the world, we’ve been able to support local initiatives we’re passionate about, including helping prevent child abuse and suicide, expanding mental health services to communities in need, and more.
$1.7M given since 2009

As a part of the annual Suicide Prevention Summit, this coming Sunday, at 10:30am Eastern, August 23, 2026, I’ll be presenting. My talk is titled: “The Bad News Brain: Five Psychological Truths on Why It’s So Damn Hard to Focus on the Positive.”

Did I mention that this whole summit is free? You can get up to 20 CEUs. You can also pay $20 to have access to session recordings until October 18.

Here’s a link to the whole schedule, which begins Wednesday, August 19 at 7pm Eastern, with a presentation by David Jobes. In case you don’t know, Jobes is awesome.
https://d9hv9sikl36u8.cloudfront.net/documents/MHA-USA-SPS-2026-Schedule-V1.pdf

Not only is the live version of this event free, all the presenters also present for free.

Sometimes, when presenting online to large groups, like the Summit, it’s hard to know how the presentation is being received. This is especially true for webinar-style presentations where there’s no interaction other than the “chat feed.” The problem with using the chat feed for feedback is that it’s overwhelming. Trying to split my attention between doing my talk and reading participant comments requires repeated figure-ground shifts that render my brain dysfunctional. Consequently, I only focus on talking, ignore the feed, and wait for the illustrious Pedro Gondim to facilitate Q&R during the final 10 minutes.

Last time I presented at the Summit, a very kind, smart, and talented mental health professional I know happened to be in attendance. She wrote me a very short Dear John email:

See attached!
I have never seen anything close to this in terms of the outpouring of appreciation for you. 

All by itself, her email made my day. But she also attached the chat feed. I opened it and found a gift of 449 amazing comments. I was stunned and humbled.

This blog post is a reminder that you can still sign up for the Summit. MHA will use a portion of the funds they generate from the $20 registrants to give back to local communities. I hope to see you there—even though I won’t really see you.

Just in case you’re curious, here’s a link to the whole 449 chat feed responses (with last names of commenters deleted).

JSF COMMENTS from MHA TALK AnonDownload


 

education, Group counseling, Happiness, Love, mental health, Parenting, Personal Reflections

Dead End Street: More Poetry with Pádraig Ó Tuama

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At the poetry retreat with Pádraig Ó Tuama, we experienced numerous prompts and poetry forms on Tuesday and Wednesday. One prompt was extraordinarily simple: This I Believe. So, while on my Wednesday morning slow run, I came up with the following poem. . .which is mostly about my mother and what she taught me to believe.

Dead End Street

Contrary to the sign, our street wasn’t dead.

And it did not end.

Maybe it was the confusing and tangled mass of Mormon, Italian, Catholic, Levite, Austrian roots that led to that rainy morning when, delayed by my longstanding personal relationship with toilets, I burst into the living room in my underwear, shouting.

I got it! 

My gaze met the neighborhood. Darrell, Rosa, Matt.

My Mother’s explanation was weak.

“Now you’ve all missed the bus. I can drive you to school.”

I might’ve known sooner when my Catholic mother growled about wanting to shout down Matt’s Evangelical mother for wondering whether my father, the only Jew on the dead-end street, could make his way past Saint Peter.

I might have known in 1973, when I stumbled upon evidence of her infidelity.

She confessed. Yes, she had been repeatedly having coffee and cookies with Mario, Darrell’s younger brother—the only gay, black, teenager on our street, and probably the only gay, black teenager in our county.

I was justifiably concerned. “Why did you let Mario eat all the cookies?”

Years later, Darrell explained, “You were okay. But we really loved your mom. Some days we didn’t have food. Your mom fed us.”

Everyone was welcome at her table.

Everyone.

Even White Christian neighbors.

Even her son, who mistakenly thought he owned the cookies.

education, Happiness, Personal Reflections

Poem of the Day

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I’m on Day Two of our poetry retreat with Pádraig Ó Tuama (see photo above). He is truly a genius. With a background in theology, conflict mediation, group facilitation, and poetry his knowledge and experience is immense. He is host of Poetry Unbound on NPR. I have found his comments crystal clear and illuminating.

We wrote several poems today. The one I’m sharing came to me while on a slow morning jog. The others may not be ready for prime time. . .or even for blogging. Oddly, the one I’m sharing is the one that took the least time to write.

Running Away

I forgot to dance today.

I think it was the bombs

or the laser surgery.

Either way

I had to stay in and hold the baby.

I forgot to sing today.

My inner voice was hoarse from yelling at me for things

I should have

done

or said

or felt

I forgot to read today.

It’s funny how a tiny bit of saltwater

makes the letters blur

I forgot to pray today.

The gods have been so quiet lately

and my prayers are always the same

anyway.

I forgot today.

Just like my parents before me

and their parents before them.

Dates and heads arrange themselves

in order of age across the horizon.

Who goes first?

You tell me.

Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Personal Reflections, Writing

August is Upon Us

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Historically, August was the month when psychotherapists vacationed. In that spirit, this evening I find myself at a retreat center just south of Santa Fe. Rita and I are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary with a four-day poetry retreat.

Our retreat is with Pádraig Ó Tuama. I would have said “the amazing Pádraig Ó Tuama,” but this evening he let us know in no uncertain terms that he’s what might be called an adjective- and adverb-slayer. Meaning, he doesn’t like them and he’s inclined to kill them. He also doesn’t like repetition, which could spell trouble for me, being an academic type who likes to foreshadow what’s coming and then summarize what happened.

You can learn more about Pádraig Ó Tuama at: https://www.padraigotuama.com/

My favorite line from Pádraig’s opening comments this evening was (paraphrasing here):

If you’re projecting your resentment on me, you’re wasting your resentment.

He also said something about diagnosis and not putting lots of stock in it and suggested he didn’t much trust the solidity of identity anyway.

Tomorrow, we start at 7am. We also got a mini-lecture on punctuality. Oh my. I had no idea poetry was so disciplined. Although I’m inclined to preface the 7am start time with an adjective or two, I’ll keep this sparse, which allows you to formulate your own phenomenological projections of what my adjectives about a 7am poetry start time might have been.

It might be that this week I will also try to weave in some counseling and psychotherapy theories content into the poetry experience (and vice versa). For tonight, my thoughts turn to Chapter 1 in the brand-new 4th edition of Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice. Here’s a section on “A Plan for Maximizing Positive Outcomes” in counseling/psychotherapy. How does that relate to the beginning of a 4-day poetry retreat? It seems obvious to me, but you should let me know what you think. Here’s the excerpt:

***********************************

Below, we’ve listed six ideas for maximizing positive outcomes.

  1. Emphasize the therapy relationship (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2024). Intentionally try to be genuine, accept clients for who they are, and show empathy (see Chapter 6 for more details). Consistent with Bordin’s (1979) tripartite working alliance, you should (a) establish an emotional connection with clients; (b) set mutual goals; and (c) collaborate on therapy tasks linked to therapy goals (Budge et al., 2023; J. Sommers-Flanagan, 2015; Zagorscak et al., 2020).
  2. Use flexible and culturally sensitive assessment approaches to tailor treatment to clients and their problems. As you read each chapter, you’ll see that each theory includes recommended assessment strategies. Regardless of theory, therapeutic assessment should be collaborative, empathic, and practiced with cultural humility (Finn et al., 2012; Summers & Nelson, 2023).s.
  3. Engage clients in role induction. Role induction “involves educating clients about their role and what to expect in the assessment and treatment process. When implemented well, role induction not only educates clients but also facilitates an interactive discussion about client expectation” (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2024, p. 91). Clients will do better when you discuss therapy process openly and transparently, offer them a chance to ask questions, and explain the pros and cons of specific therapy techniques.
  4. Keep up with research. Educate yourself on evidence-based relationships (Parrow, 2023), empirically supported treatments (ESTs; Harrer et al., 2025), and research-supported skills and methods (Hill & Norcross, 2023). Given the multitude of ESTs, you should learn a few for working with specific populations (e.g., if you want to work with individuals suffering from trauma, learning trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and/or eye movement desensitization reprocessing would be useful).
  5. To avoid negative outcomes, you should (a) continually work on self-awareness using individual supervision and peer supervision; (b) individualize therapy approaches to fit clients—rather than expecting all clients to benefit from one approach; and (c) avoid using PHTs (Lilienfeld, 2007).
  6. Use practice-based evidence or progress monitoring (PM) to track therapy process and outcomes. Practice-based evidence (aka PM) involves collecting data, sometimes every session, pertaining to client symptoms and/or client satisfaction (Meier, 2015; Sun et al., 2021). This will allow you to make modifications in your approach as needed (Lambert, 2010).

Happiness, mental health, Personal Reflections, Research, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

More Thoughts on Suicide Prediction and Suicide Screening (from Craig Bryan, Ph.D.)

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Hi All,

Below, I’ve a pasted LinkedIn post from Dr. Craig Bryan, author of “Rethinking Suicide” and a leading suicide researcher. At the bottom of his comments there’s a link to the article of which he speaks.

Enjoy!

*****************

From Craig Bryan, LinkedIn – 6/29/2026

We keep trying to predict who will attempt suicide. A 15-year study suggests we’re asking the wrong question.

Researchers followed 2,060 Brazilian children from age 10 into their mid-twenties—one of the longest prospective suicide studies ever conducted outside a high-income country. They measured genetics, perinatal history, family psychiatric illness, childhood adversity, cognition, and clinical symptoms, then tested all of it together against who later attempted suicide.

The result: even with multiple domains of risk factors combined, prediction accuracy stayed modest (AUC 0.665), barely above the ceiling seen across 50 years of suicide research. More sophisticated machine learning models didn’t do any better than simple logistic regression.

Three factors stood out as consistent, actionable, and population-relevant: childhood threat exposure (especially bullying), caregiver history of suicide attempts, and childhood externalizing disorders. Bullying alone accounted for the largest share of preventable risk in the entire study.

The authors’ conclusion is blunt: distal childhood risk factors will likely never predict individual suicide attempts with precision, because suicide is driven by acute, fast-moving processes that a baseline assessment can’t capture. Trying to screen our way to safety has a ceiling. We hit it decades ago.

The better investment may not be sharper prediction. It may be quieter, structural prevention like anti-bullying programs, supporting parents with histories of suicidal behavior, and early identification of behavioral disorders, the kind of intervention that helps a population, whether or not we ever know which child needed it most.

**************************

Here’s the article link: https://lnkd.in/eRWtBiXK

I’m excited about Dr. Bryan’s post not because of the difficulties with prediction (which we’ve long know), but because of the idea of moving upstream toward structural prevention. I also feel this fits really well with what we’re trying to do with CAPE.

Obviously, I love this quotation: “Trying to screen our way to safety has a ceiling. We hit it decades ago.”

Have a great evening!

JSF

Happiness, mental health, Personal Reflections, Suicide Assessment and Intervention

How to Grow Wellbeing in Teachers and Schools

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I’m at the Office of Public Instruction Summer Institute in Bozeman today (and tomorrow), along with the Pirate and the Pusher. The Summer Institute is an annual four days of training for Montana educators.

Shortly after arriving, two women sitting at a table stared at me, looked away, and then stopped me as I walked by, saying, with enthusiasm, “We just took your class!”

They were, of course, referring to our Happiness for Educators course. Although completely online, I’m presenting in many of the videos, sometimes in my pajamas. We were all excited to meet in person.

They also got to meet Dylan Wright (who plays the role of a pirate in our Happiness for Educators course). I mean, how can you have a Happiness for Educators course without a pirate? They also met Tammy Tolleson Knee, the new and fabulous director of the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education at the University of Montana and high leverage “Pusher” of all things positive.

Tomorrow will be even more excitement. I have the honor of delivering the morning keynote. I’ll be opening with a make-believe scenario, with me as a candidate for governor. I’ve done this a few times previously during presentations for educators. It’s a method I use for emphasizing the central and foundational role that educators and education play in society.

My platform as a candidate for governor of Montana is education . . . education . . . and education . . . because. . .

The road to a good economy goes through education.

The road to a healthy enviroment goes through education.

The road to a civil society goes through education.

The road to excellence in health care goes through education.

The road to justice goes through education.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. As John Adams, founding father and our 2nd president once said (I’m paraphrasing), “It’s impossible to spend too much money on public education.”

And so, yes, there will be more excitement tomorrow because it doesn’t get much better than spending a day with 400 Montana educators who are dedicated to helping young people become educated citizens.

I’m posting ppts of my two presentations (keynote and workshop) below.

6 17 2026 MT OPI Happiness JSFDownload

2026 6 17 OPI on Suicide AssessmentDownload

Happiness, Love, mental health, Personal Reflections, Writing

Who is Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky?

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From Wikipedia: Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Russian-born American professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside and author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want.

And there’s so much more.

Not long ago, Tammy Tolleson Knee, the new Director of the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education, asked me if I thought she should attend the Western Positive Psychology Conference at Claremont Graduate University. I saw that Sonja Lyubomirsky was the featured keynote speaker and immediately said “Hell, Yes!” [I didn’t really swear at the time, but it sounded cooler for this blog post].

I also looked at my calendar and was bummed that I couldn’t attend. But then I said to Tammy that we should reach out to Dr. Sonja for a possible short meet-up at the conference.

So I did.

She responded within hours.

At the conference, Tammy got to meet her and talk–despite the fact that Dr. Sonja also was busily signing her new book for the masses. How cool!

And then, Tammy shared the following email with our whole CAPE staff upon her return.

Happy Friday,                                ,

In honor of my Sonja Lyubomirsky buzz, I thought I’d share some fun tidbits and resources from the WPPA conference!

  1. Her last name is pronounced Lou – Boe – Mere – Ski
  2. Here is a recent chapter she co-authored in the Handbook of Social Psychology(6th ed.) titled “Well-being” (though she prefers the term “happiness”). It’s long but comprehensive. 
  3. Here is a 5-minute Ted Talk teaser on her new book.
  4. Fun fact: She has been cited in academic publications more than 90,000 times. 
  5. She said the Big 3 PPIs are Gratitude, Kindness, and Social Interventions (or Acting Extraverted).
  6. Among the many fascinating findings she shared was a study from Brain, Behavior, and Immunity suggesting that intentionally engaging in more extroverted behavior can improve patterns of gene expression.
  7. She joked that part of her wishes they had never introduced the happiness pie. More on that later.
  8. Her final advice: Share deeply, listen and be curious.
  9. My overall takeaway: There is no end to what we can learn in positive psychology, and CAPE is very much on the right track.

In conclusion: Who is Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky? She’s a bad-ass academic researcher who’s also incredibly personable and who, in her spare time, writes books designed to help people live better lives. You can learn more about her here: https://sonjalyubomirsky.com/

education, Happiness, mental health, Personal Reflections, Writing

The Future of Mental Health Awareness (Month)

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I wrote my reflections on mental health awareness and prevention as an Op-Ed piece and pasted it below.

The Future of Mental Health Awareness

As we exit Mental Health Awareness Month version 2026, I’m already anticipating May 2027. It’s time to rethink, rebrand, and reboot mental health awareness and prevention.

Think about it. Can you name a single mental disorder that, in your lifetime, has decreased in significance?

Depression? Anxiety? ADHD? Bipolar? As a mental health professional for the past 45 years, I’ve watched mental disorders in America stubbornly increase, despite more national, state, and local mental health awareness and prevention programs than ever before.

Mental health awareness and prevention are failing for multiple reasons, none of which are the fault of all the compassionate, hard-working, and well-intended people involved with mental health prevention. More likely, our collective failure begins with confusion over how to define mental health. Most Americans use “mental health” to describe mental health problems, mental disorders, or mental illness. Mental health is supposed to be positive and include joy, happiness, meaning, and mutually supportive relationships.

Instead, even the term “mental health prevention” is awkwardly phrased. Wait. Does mental health prevention mean we’re preventing mental health? Ironically, that might be exactly what we’re doing.

Without a positive vision of mental health, we’re left trying to manage, eliminate, or run from negative symptoms. Mental health should be something positive to strive toward. How about we start with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of mental health? “A state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn and work well, and contribute to their community.”

Pretend for a moment that you’re a young person. You have two options. You can enroll in a program designed to reduce your anxiety and depression. Or you can enroll in a program designed to help you strive toward happiness, meaning, and realizing your abilities. Of course, this is a false dichotomy, but which direction do you find more hopeful and inspiring?

We also need to stop using unidimensional slogans to bludgeon community mental health from bad to better. Mental health awareness is a great example. Too much awareness of negative symptoms is not a good thing. More on this soon.

Research indicates that school-based mental health programs can adversely affect students. Providing prevention programming that simultaneously helps all students is a worthy, but unrealistic goal. Because preference is a powerful determinant of effective therapy, students might be better served by choosing from a menu of indirect mental health education activities.

Contemporary prevention programs also ignore several basic psychological principles.

When young people begin learning about mental disorders, a natural and powerful process begins. First, they learn about psychiatric symptoms. Then, they’re told these symptoms represent mental illnesses. Inevitably, they see these symptoms in themselves (or their friends) and begin self-diagnosing. Sometimes, the labels help explain their experiences and youth experience temporary relief. Who’s not reassured to learn that social anxiety is a thing? But, when the label gets too closely linked to identity, diagnosis becomes self-limiting. Students think: “I can’t pay attention because I have ADHD” or “My anxiety stops me from having fun and being around people.” And, because labels are sticky, it becomes difficult for young people (and adults) to shake the label and pursue their potential.

As you read these words, thousands of American youth are learning about their so-called mental disorders in at least two ways: on social media (via Tik-Tok, in particular) and through school-based mental health literacy/awareness workshops. More awareness and more information can make mental health worse—especially if the information is inaccurate or not applied with sensitivity and nuance.

Another psychological principle operates to sustain and deepen negative labeling. Like everyone, young people are inclined toward “confirmation bias.” They easily find evidence for their pre-existing beliefs while discarding evidence inconsistent with their pre-existing beliefs. If I believe I have anxiety and my anxiety limits my ability to participate in social activities, I will become skilled at noticing when my anxiety is adversely affecting me, while dismissing evidence that I’m strong and resilient enough to socialize with my peers.

What we pay attention to grows. Although my teenage clients would respond to this statement with “duh,” prevention programs ignore this concept by paying far too much attention to what’s wrong. We will not shrink problems by paying more attention to them. This is fundamental brain science. The more we focus on and talk about our problems, the better we become at focusing on and talking about our problems. The famous neuroscientist Donald Hebb put it this way: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” The more we think about our problems, the more we’re teaching our brain to think about our problems. Soon, it becomes automatic, and you’ll be thinking about your problems all day long.

For 2027, let’s reboot mental health. Let’s redefine mental health as a positive emotional, psychological, and relational state. Then, let’s help young (and older) people develop strengths, skills, empathic relationships, positive experiences, and resources to successfully pursue positive mental health.

Together, we can turn Mental Health Awareness Month into a collective experience of joy and wellbeing for everyone.

********************************************

John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and founding director of the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education at the University of Montana. He is coauthor of 10 books and many professional articles. The opinion expressed here is solely that of John Sommers-Flanagan and does not represent his current or former employers. You can email your thoughts to: john.sf@mso.umt.edu. For more information, go to https://johnsommersflanagan.com/ or https://www.umt.edu/education/cape

education, Happiness, Personal Reflections, Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Writing

The Secret Retreat

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Yesterday, Tammy Tolleson Knee (the new director of the Phyllis J. Washington Center for the Advancement of Positive Education) and I arrived in Kalispell, Montana for a 2+ day retreat with staff from the Nate Chute Foundation (NCF). Their mission: The Nate Chute Foundation supports, educates and empowers our community to promote mental wellness and reduce suicide. You can learn more about NCF’s fabulous work and staff right here: https://www.natechutefoundation.org/

Our retreat is top secret, but I’ll share it here anyway because I don’t like secrets.

Having grown weary with traditional, pathology-oriented approaches to “suicide prevention” we’re working together to create a new curriculum tentatively titled “Strengths-Based Suicide Education for Concerned Adults.” Our plan is to use this new curriculum to replace all the unhelpful and sometimes traumatizing approaches to suicide prevention.

Yes, we have big goals.

Today we’re breaking away from our retreat for a short presentation/consult with Immanuel Living of Kalispell.

In preparation for this short conversation, I pulled out an old slide about a thing called Stress Inoculation Training (thanks Don Meichenbaum!).

The point of SIT is to prepare for stressors or provocations in life that adversely affect us. For example, let’s say that you find ___________ stressful. (You can put anything in the blank. It could be exercise, talking with your boss, going to church, not going to church, speaking in public meetings, etc.). Then you create your own personalized stress inoculation plan.

Meichenbaum’s therapy approach is designed to prep or inoculate us from our usual and predictable stressors. He described three steps: (1) preparation for provocation, (2) coping with the provocative situation, and (3) reflection and self-reinforcement. Here’s a visual, with our stressors and responses organized into 7 dimensions:

If we all had rational brains and lived in a rational world, SIT would work perfectly for everyone. But like everything, it doesn’t always work. During today’s talk, I’m revealing the secrets of why our best laid plans often fail. Newsflash: it has to do with our quirky brains, which, although amazing, also automatically and regularly take us down into negative thinking rabbit holes.

TBH, IMHO, dipping into a negative thinking rabbit hole every once in a while can be fun, but if your intention was to avoid negative thinking rabbit holes, they’re considerably less fun.

Unfortunately, due to time limits and the need for mystery in marketing, this blog is ending without me sharing the five secrets of why our pesky brains often derail us from our positive intentions. Sorry about that. They’re in the pdf of the ppts linked below, and although you can find them there, it’s much more fun for us to talk about these in person . . . so I hope to see you at a presentation in the future.

5 2026 NCF Talk KalispellDownload