Things You Learn in Therapy

Send us Fan Mail Gratitude can sound like fluff until you’re the one stuck in a spiral of stress, negativity, or “I can’t handle one more thing.” We get real about why gratitude isn’t a forced smile, and why it can actually support mental health when you practice it in a grounded, specific way. Leslie Bolser sits down with psychologist Dr. Beth Trammell to unpack the art and science behind gratitu...

Send us Fan Mail When a conversation gets heated, it’s not just awkward, it’s biological. Your body gears up for threat, your thoughts get narrow, and suddenly you’re saying things you don’t mean or going quiet when you want to connect. Recording on location at a conference, I share a quick, practical framework I come back to again and again as a psychologist: CALM. CALM stands for Catch your brea...

Send us Fan Mail Grief can be loud, but it can also be quiet, practical, funny, angry, distracted, and all of it can still be real. I’m Dr. Beth Trammell, and I’m sharing a short, direct message for anyone trying to support a community after tragic loss. When people are hurting, especially after the death of a young person, the pressure to say the right thing and lead the right way can feel crushi...

Send us Fan Mail Your kid swears they didn’t take the sucker, even though you watched it happen, and suddenly you’re asking a much bigger question: how do I raise a person with integrity? We dig into integrity as a practical parenting value with my friends from CEV, defined simply as choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do, and we keep it grounded in real life rather than perfect-life s...

Send us Fan Mail Your teenager doesn’t need you to be a mind reader, a private investigator, or a walking grade portal. They need you to be a safe place. I’m Dr. Beth Trammell, and I’m unpacking what a group of teens directly asked their parents to do differently, plus the small communication shifts that make a big difference in connection, trust, and long-term influence. We talk about the pressur...

Send us Fan Mail “I don’t want to go to school” can sound like defiance, but it’s often a doorway into what your child cannot quite name yet. I’m Dr. Beth Trammell, and I walk through the most common versions of school refusal I hear from parents, from “I just want to stay home and play Minecraft” to morning tears that make drop-off feel unbearable. Instead of jumping straight to lectures, reassur...

Send us Fan Mail Burnout doesn’t always show up as collapse. Sometimes it shows up as competence that never turns off, a brain that can’t tolerate quiet, and a calendar packed with “necessary” things that somehow never end. Marie Sloane, LPC, joins us to name what so many people are living right now: life moves fast, but recovery moves slower, and that mismatch is exhausting. We talk about why tim...

Send us Fan Mail Friendship advice for kids is everywhere. The harder question is what our children learn from the friendships they see us live. In this CEV crossover episode, we dig into adult friendship as a parenting model: how we prioritize people, how we handle conflict or hurt, and how our everyday choices quietly teach kids what “healthy relationships” actually look like. We also get honest...

Send us Fan Mail A child wakes up terrified, your nervous system snaps online, and suddenly everyone is exhausted. In this throwback episode from Kids These Days!, we sit down with Australian psychologist Krysten Taprell, known as The Therapist Parent, to share practical, evidence-based tools you can use right in your living room to help kids with nightmares, big feelings, and the daily stress tha...

Send us Fan Mail You ever hit the point where you’re ready to delete every social app, then somehow end up back on Instagram or TikTok a few days later? We get honest about that social media push pull, including the part that feels most frustrating: even when you understand what’s happening in your brain, you can still get pulled in.  We walk through how reinforcement works, why variable rewards k...

Send us Fan Mail The hardest part of teaching kids honesty is that we want truth and we also want peace, and those two don’t always arrive together. In this crossover episode with Core Essentials, we explore integrity, and we define it in the most practical way possible: being truthful in your words and in your actions. Leslie Bolser and psychologist Dr. Beth Trammell talk through what that looks...

Send us Fan Mail Two days before Mya leaves for college, the countdown gets real. We sit down as mom and daughter and try to say what’s actually true under all the logistics: stress, hope, anxiety, and that weird denial that shows up when you still haven’t packed. Using a feelings wheel sounds simple, but it changes the tone fast because you can’t problem-solve what you won’t name. Then we go prac...

Send us Fan Mail College transition advice usually starts with boxes and bedding, but the bigger shift is emotional. Mya and I talk about what it really feels like to leave for college: the grief of changing high school friendships, the fear of disappointing people you love, and the guilt that can creep in when you start building new relationships on campus. If you’ve ever worried that moving forw...

Send us Fan Mail Homesickness can hit like a wave, but it rarely means only one thing. When we call every hard moment “I miss home,” we miss what’s really happening underneath: exhaustion that turns everything darker, insecurity that makes you doubt yourself, overwhelm from a packed schedule, or that sharp feeling of being the new person who doesn’t quite belong yet.  Beth talks with her daughter...

Send us Fan Mail Dorm life has a way of turning tiny things into huge feelings. One light left on, one late-night study session, one unexpected snore, and suddenly you’re exhausted, irritated, and wondering how you’re supposed to live with a stranger in a shoebox-sized room. Maya and I talk honestly about that reality as she gets ready for college, with a focus on the everyday roommate conflicts t...

Send us Fan Mail The college countdown can feel like one long shopping trip, but we know the real transition is way messier and far more meaningful. I sit down with my daughter, Mya, as she gets ready to leave for college and play volleyball, and we talk through the parts people don’t always say out loud: what it’s like to share a tiny dorm, how a roommate dynamic can shift from “teammate” to “coh...

Send us Fan Mail OCD in kids can hide in plain sight and it rarely looks like the stereotypes. If you’ve ever watched your child get stuck on a “not right” feeling, repeat a question for reassurance, or redo a routine until it clicks, you already know how confusing and exhausting it can be for the whole family. We sit down with licensed clinical social worker Sierra Dator to translate what’s reall...

Send us Fan Mail The hardest part of being a helper isn’t learning the tools. It’s living them when your own life is loud, crowded, and messy. Beth sits down with psychologist and coach Dr. Gerry “Dr. Sunshine” Novak for a real conversation about why competent therapists, coaches, and high-achievers can still feel stuck in self-sabotage, overcommitment, and a constant hum of chaos.  We dig into th...

Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to turn pickup time into a power struggle is to start with a checklist: seatbelt, behavior report, homework, chores, questions, questions, questions. If you’ve ever watched your kid shut down the second they get in the car, we get it and there’s a better first move. I’m Dr. Beth Trammell, a licensed psychologist, and I’m sharing one of my favorite tools for improvi...

Send us Fan Mail Your feed can make you feel like everyone else has parenting figured out and your brain treats those images like facts. That is where the spiral starts: comparison, pressure, overstimulation, and the quiet sense that you are failing at something that is already hard. We sit down with licensed professional counselor Nicole McNelis, a perinatal mental health clinician and leading vo...

Send us Fan Mail The moment you ask for something small a knock before entering, a little privacy, a basic respect and the conversation somehow ends with you apologizing, you are not “too sensitive.” We dig into why interactions with emotionally immature parents and other emotionally immature people can feel so disorienting, especially for adult children of dysfunctional families carrying complex...

Send us Fan Mail Therapy is “just listening” the way surgery is “just holding a scalpel.” Barbara Sheehan Zeidler joins me to name the thing many clinicians feel but rarely say out loud: our presence is the intervention. Barbara is a licensed professional counselor, an EMDR approved trainer and consultant, IFS Level 3 certified, and a proud polyvagal nerd, and she breaks down why grounded attuneme...

Send us Fan Mail Trauma doesn’t have to be catastrophic to be real and “it wasn’t bad enough” might be the most common thought that keeps people from getting help. We sit down with Scott E. Stolarick, LCPC, CCTP, a trauma-informed therapist and the owner of Mosaic Pathway Counseling, to unpack why trauma isn’t a competition and why two people can live through the same moment and walk away with com...

Send us Fan Mail Summer doesn’t need to be a “go with the flow” free-for-all to be fun. I’m Dr. Beth Trammell, and I’m sharing a simple, therapy-informed way to plan a season that actually matches your life: your work schedule, your home projects, your relationships, and the kind of rest you want to feel when fall arrives. We start with practical goal setting that works. If your goals sound like “...

Send us Fan Mail Most conflict doesn’t end a relationship. The lack of repair does. I’m joined by Paula Yost, a rare blend of attorney and licensed clinical mental health therapy supervisor, to talk about what she sees when people walk into a law office on the worst day of their lives and why legal training often misses the trauma, grief, anxiety, and mental illness sitting right in front of it. W...