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In the Writing
Here at Untangled Mind℠, you'll discover my deep passion and ongoing pursuit of rigorous, evidence-based mental health care. Through this blog, I share thoughtful insights, practical strategies, and reflections drawn from the Untangled Mind Pathway℠, my structured, measurement-based framework designed to move beyond subjectivity toward real, trackable progress. I love exploring ideas that elevate standards in therapy and empower both clients and clinicians. Most posts have a companion episode on the podcast, so be sure to check out both.
Welcome, let's untangle the mind together!
What It Feeds
I have been reading The Brothers Karamazov, which is either a novel or Dostoevsky’s attempt to put every question a human being has ever asked into one book. I haven’t decided yet. Early in the novel, Dostoevsky takes us to a Russian monastery, where people have traveled to seek the counsel of Father Zosima. Zosima is an elder, a monk entrusted not simply with religious authority but with something harder to define: wisdom. People seek him because they believe he may see some
Piper Harris, LPC
6 days ago13 min read
A Therapist’s Journal Entry
Today, a long-term client said something to me that I haven’t been able to shake. We’ve been doing some difficult work lately, although probably not the kind of “work” people imagine when they think about therapy. I’ve had to set harder boundaries. I’ve had to remind them that I am not the fix. Therapy is not the fix. The tools can help, but eventually they have to learn that they can carry what belongs to them without needing someone else to make it go away. Today, as we tal
Piper Harris, LPC
Sep 15 min read
The Kmart Effect: What Insurance Has Done to the Price of Therapy
Why your copay isn't the cost of therapy, a full calendar doesn't necessarily mean a thriving therapist, and the way we pay for care may be changing the care itself. I did something recently that made perfect sense clinically and considerably less sense financially. I started accepting insurance. My reasoning was pretty simple. I wanted to make treatment available to people who wanted to work with me but weren't able to pay my private-pay rate. I also believed I could keep pr
Piper Harris, LPC
Aug 289 min read
Resourcing for Internal Equilibrium and Mediatory Controls for Externalized Environmental Activation
Or...You Have to Practice Coping Skills (de-fancied) Therapy has developed a remarkable talent for making relatively straightforward things sound extraordinarily complicated. Maybe you are not learning how to notice that you are getting anxious and calm yourself down. You are developing state recognition and resourcing for autonomic regulation. Or you are not practicing tolerating an uncomfortable feeling without immediately escaping it. You are expanding your window of tole
Piper Harris, LPC
Aug 174 min read
Why I Won't Pick Your Scab (Even When You Ask Me To)
I turned away a client not long ago who had already done the work. I don't mean that loosely. This person could tell me exactly what happened to them. They understood why it had shaped the way they moved through relationships, why certain situations still triggered a reaction, where the belief had come from, and how it had calcified over time. They'd sat with the memory. They'd named the pattern. What they were asking me for now was more sessions to keep going back into it. A
Piper Harris, LPC
Aug 105 min read
The Test You've Already Been Taking (You Just Didn't Know It)
You know the night. Plans fell through, or you're homesick, or you're just lying in bed at 1 am with nowhere to be. Your body's still, but your mind isn't. It starts wandering, maybe toward a fight you're replaying, a version of your life you wish you had, a scroll through everyone else's highlight reel, a daydream about the promotion, the person, the applause. And for a few minutes, it feels good, almost like relief. Then it's over, and something in you feels worse than befo
Piper Harris, LPC
Aug 33 min read
When Hostility Arrives
Maybe it happened in session. Maybe it happens with your partner, your kids, a friend who's trying to help. You feel a wave of irritation (or worse) toward someone who hasn't actually done anything wrong. And right behind the anger comes the shame: “what is wrong with me?” Nothing is wrong with you. Anger is rarely traveling alone. Anger is usually a bodyguard Underneath most anger is something more vulnerable: fear, grief, humiliation, a sense of being powerless. Anger shows
Piper Harris, LPC
Jul 232 min read
Why "Trust Me, You're Getting Better" Isn't Enough Anymore
A look at Measurement-Based Care — what it is, why so many clinicians resist it, and why it might be the most client-centered thing you can do. Here's something most people don't realize about therapy: for all its rigor, our field has historically had a hard time answering a simple question: is this actually working? Most of us were trained to sense a client's progress. To feel it, to read the room, to trust the relationship. And the relationship truly does matter more than a
Piper Harris, LPC
Jul 153 min read
EMDR and Social Media Hype: What a Trauma Clinician Actually Thinks
EMDR is everywhere right now. TikTok videos promise relief in three sessions. Instagram reels of bilateral stimulation techniques you can do at home. Influencers without clinical credentials are calling it a miracle cure for everything from breakup grief to Monday morning anxiety. As a licensed professional counselor specializing in trauma and integrative CBT, this concerns me deeply. Not because EMDR isn't effective, it is. The research is clear and compelling. But because a
Piper Harris, LPC
Jun 35 min read
Stage 2 Trauma Healing: When You're Ready to Process What Happened
Healing from trauma is not a straight line, and it cannot be rushed. After establishing a foundation of safety (Stage 1), many people reach a point where they feel ready to face what happened. This is the beginning of Stage 2: Remembrance and Mourning, one of the most tender and courageous parts of the healing journey. This stage is not about reliving every painful detail or forcing yourself to “get over it.” It is about slowly, safely reconstructing your story so that the tr
Piper Harris, LPC
May 183 min read
Why Therapy TikTok Is Dangerous: What Therapy Influencers Get Wrong
As a licensed therapist with years in the trenches of clinical practice, I’ve watched the explosion of “therapy influencers” with growing alarm. You know the ones I mean: the psychologists, counselors, and self-proclaimed mental-health experts who dominate Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Substack. They distill complex psychological concepts into bite-sized, highly shareable nuggets, often saccharine affirmations, dramatic boundary-setting scripts, or sweeping cla
Piper Harris, LPC
May 1110 min read
The Real Cost of Trauma Recovery: 17 Things You Have to Be Willing to Give Up
Judith Herman, in her groundbreaking book Trauma and Recovery, writes: “Without freedom, there can be no safety and no recovery, but freedom is often achieved at a great cost. In order to gain their freedom, survivors may have to give up almost everything else… Rarely are the dimensions of this sacrifice fully recognized.” We talk a lot about the freedom that comes when we finally choose to stop living out of trauma, fear, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, or survival mode. Th
Piper Harris, LPC
May 44 min read
Cognitive Dissonance and Anxiety: Why Your Actions Don't Match Your Values
One of the most powerful and uncomfortable truths in therapy is this: real growth almost always lives in the tension between what we value and what we actually do. We see it every day in sessions. A client values connection but pulls away when vulnerability feels risky. Another values courage but stays in a job that slowly drains their spirit. They feel the gap. They feel like a fraud sometimes. And that very discomfort? It’s often the doorway to meaningful change. Psychology
Piper Harris, LPC
Apr 273 min read
How to Apologize Effectively: Why Trauma and Anxiety Make It So Hard
We have all been on both sides of a bad apology. You are the one who messed up. Maybe you snapped at a partner, ghosted a friend, or dropped the ball at work. The words tumble out wrong. Or worse, someone hurts you deeply and offers a half-hearted “sorry you feel that way” before changing the subject. A genuine apology is not just polite etiquette. It is one of the most powerful tools we have for repairing trust, reducing resentment, and strengthening relationships. But it is
Piper Harris, LPC
Apr 195 min read
What Is Trauma? What Counts as Trauma (and What Doesn't)
If you’ve ever felt like your body is still on high alert even when life feels calm, or wondered why certain triggers hit harder than they “should,” you’re not alone, and you’re not broken. Trauma touches far more lives than most people realize. According to the latest CDC data, about two-thirds of U.S. adults have experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), with roughly one in six reporting four or more. Among high school students, the numbers are even highe
Piper Harris, LPC
Apr 133 min read
How to Stop Feeling Like a Victim: Moving from Helplessness to Meaning After Trauma
One simple question in the first session can change how you see your entire story, and the one you're writing for those who come after you. Life has a way of happening to us. Challenges arrive uninvited: family patterns we never asked for, losses that reshape everything, or quiet struggles that leave us wondering if anything will ever feel different. For many people, these experiences pile up until they start to feel like the whole story. But what if your story isn't finished
Piper Harris, LPC
Apr 64 min read
Why You Get Easily Offended — and How CBT Can Help You Stop
I used to think getting offended was a sign of weakness. Now I see it as one of the most powerful tools we have; if we’re willing to pick it up and use it right. A few weeks ago, I finished a training for a group of counselors. The overall feedback was strong: people felt seen, equipped, and energized. But one response stood out. The participant said my delivery occasionally made them feel inadequate. They even added a note of self-awareness: “I recognize my own insecurities
Piper Harris, LPC
Mar 304 min read
The Sticky Filter: Why Old Negative Beliefs Linger Long After Therapy and How the Brain Keeps Them Alive
You’ve done the work. You’ve sat in the chair week after week, unpacked childhood wounds, named the automatic thoughts, practiced boundary-setting, and watched your life shift in meaningful ways. You’ve felt the relief of insight, the quiet power of new choices, the moments when you actually believed “I am enough.” Yet, in a quiet social gathering, a work meeting, or even a loving conversation, that old whisper returns: They’re just being polite. You don’t really belong here.
Piper Harris, LPC
Mar 235 min read
Orderly Life, Radical Healing
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” — Gustave Flaubert I wake at 5:00 a.m. sharp. Brew the first pot of coffee while the house is still dark and quiet. Spend forty-five minutes in prayer, then open Scripture and let whatever rises in my journal find its way onto the page. Get the family moving; breakfasts, lunches, goodbyes. Gym. Shower. Another cup of coffee on the way to the office. Once there, I light my three-wick c
Piper Harris, LPC
Mar 164 min read
How To Know You Identify as Broken
She walks into the room already braced. Shoulders slightly forward. Chin lowered just enough to signal expectation. Not fear exactly. More like resignation. When someone asks how she’s doing, the answer comes quickly. “I’m a mess.”“I’m just wired wrong.”“I don’t function like other people.” It sounds honest. Self-aware, even. She has language for her anxiety and for her trauma, for the ways her past shaped her present. At first, people lean in. They listen. They care. Then, o
Piper Harris, LPC
Mar 24 min read
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