Therapy Resources and Support for Your Mental Health

The Benefits of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the major tools used in psychotherapy. CBT assumes that the way that people perceive situations is more closely connected to their reaction than the situation itself.

Simply put, a therapist’s job when using CBT is to help clients identify the thoughts that pop up into their minds, evaluate, and respond to them. The assumption is that when clients are able to do this, they feel better and can act in accordance with their values and goals. One critical concept underlying all aspects of CBT is that just because you think something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

The Four Horsemen: How to Get Divorced in 4 Easy Missteps

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Learn how to recognize and counteract the harmful communication patterns that are common in failed relationships.

The Actual, Honest Truth About Personal Development and Change

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

One of the most important secrets I want you to know about is in how you think about yourself, your life, and those around you. How you view things matters more significantly than you could ever realize. I’m not talking about lying to yourself about your issues or your circumstances. Instead, I’m wanting you to simply be more realistic in your thinking.

How to Remove Conflict From Your Relationship

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional.

The truth is that conflict happens in every relationship. It’s a myth that in a happy relationship you’ll get along all the time. What matters is how you talk about issues more than what you fight about.

Mistakes When Rebuilding Trust

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

We all want to regain our trust in others. Sometimes, in our urgency to get rid of our uncomfortable feelings, we fall into a few mistakes that actually make things worse. Knowing about the key mistakes that are made when we work on rebuilding trust will save us unnecessary time and further disappointment.

Measure Your Baseline Happiness

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

If your goal is to be happy, it’s useful to know how far you’ve come.

As the old saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else. With happiness, it’s important to know what your current level of happiness is so that you can measure how effective therapy is over time.

6 Reasons Why We Don’t Implement Changes In Our Lives, and What Can Be Done About It

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Why is it so difficult to make changes in our lives? We all talk about it, and some of us will start work on it, but in the end we seem to get stuck in remaining the same. This happens even when we know that it would be best to make certain changes in our lives. Why is this?

8 Marriage Intuitive Clues To Catch a Cheating Spouse (and Save Your Marriage)

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Have you ever had a gut feeling that something in your marriage was amiss, but it would take some time for all to sink in right? Well, intuition has always been our best friend. In these days when the internet is rife with all sorts of dating services and adulterous spouses roam about looking to strike down marriages in order to supplement their home life with another partner, if we have doubts about our partner’s fidelity then we should pay attention, because infidelity can destroy a relationship.

How Not to be Blocked When Doing an Intervention

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

A.K.A, “Handling Questions Designed to Put You On the Spot and Them Out of the Spot”.

Interventions are extremely uncomfortable to do. Your main job is to try to help them to see that they can no longer continue to live in “the denial of the present reality.” Chances are they will get upset and object – this is designed to put you on the defensive and to take the focus off of themselves. Remember, the person you are confronting has had years of practice in avoiding dealing with their problems. A few ideas might help you in this process.

Trust Problems in Dysfunctional Families

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Why do some adults have more struggles in life than others? Many times it relates to how dysfunction “entered” their childhood family. Such problems can arise from abuse, neglect, psychological abuse, immature parents, secrets in the family that impact others or an overwhelming sense of insecurity in the home environment. Understanding a few things might help in clarifying this tricky situation.

Why Emotionally-Based Reasoning Fails

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

The reason that many people don’t solve problems is that they “personalize” everything that is said to them. They relate what is happening to some fear, some event, past memory, problem, or so forth, from the past that is “evoked” in the present by what another person says. As a result, discussions with people like this are never easy as they are always personalized based on fears and emotions, without any real future focus.

How to want what you can’t have and keep getting what you don’t want

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

We tend to have expectations that others should meet our needs or treat us in a certain way. Yet we act surprised when they continually disappoint us. The reality is we need to start paying attention to other people’s patterns of behavior. Acknowledge that everyone has limitations.

How to Make Sure That No One Can Ever Get Close to You

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Why do some people verbally “attack” others in a relationship? When someone’s behavior changes like this to the irrational and bizarre, it is often not due to some unexplained physical or emotional cause. In fact, the real reason is more surprising than you’d think.

How to Keep Yourself So Busy That There is no Time Left to Face Your Problems

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable and safe in life. However, when we find ourselves devoting much of our efforts into finding ways to avoid our feelings or to always be comfortable, then something may be wrong. Understanding a few issues might be of some help.

How to Spend Your Life with the Wrong Person by Being Afraid to be Alone

Dave Lechnyr, LCSW · Gottman Certified Therapist · Eugene, Oregon

Have you ever wondered why you seem to make “poor choices” in relationships? Why your life is not working out the best? In order to have a healthy and more positive romance with someone, it’s urgent that you learn some critical relationship concepts regarding quick solutions, dependency and the fear of “being alone”.

“Before starting therapy, our relationship felt toxic and hopeless. It seemed like no matter what I tried, nothing changed, and the fate of our marriage was out of my control. Dave saw the love we still had for each other and believed that with the right skills and tools, we could turn things around. During our sessions, I noticed my partner putting in genuine effort, even if consistently applying what we learned outside of therapy was a challenge. I better identified some things I did (and could try to stop doing) that contributed to our couple challenges and learned some strategies of how to create more space for my partner to process and share. As a result, we rediscovered moments of humor and lightness, which helped put our issues into perspective. I realized that my partner deeply wanted to improve our relationship and had a rich inner world of thoughts and feelings, even if expressing them out loud was difficult. This realization alone was a significant step forward.”

Get Started Now