Erin Helleso MSW, LISW, LCSW, LICSW

06/14/2025

Today was my youngest daughters dance recital. We were early and the studio has more than one recital time due to keeping shows short for younger kids and to accommodate attendees. When walking across the parking lot to the door, the prior show was still releasing and families were congratulating young aspiring dancers with flowers and toys.

I walked by a young family. The daughter, maybe three to four years old still in her costume was hugging her mother tightly around the neck. Several adults were standing around including the girls father. It seemed peaceful at first glance.

Suddenly the father started screaming in the parking lot in front of all of the other parents. To "give him his f*&^*%g daughter right now! It's my parenting time!" He continued to scream louder and get in the mother's face in the parking lot. Other family members were trying to reason with him and the girls mother was in tears shaking as her daughter hugged her, not letting go.

He began grabbing her from her mother and it was quite violent. Flowers broke off and fell in the parking lot from him insisting and pulling at her continuing to scream. The entire parking lot full of people saw. Eventually mom let go and handed her over. The dad taking off angrily with the young child. The mother sat there crying and shaking saying "it's just her first dance recital."

I guarantee this child has been severely impacted. I stood and I watched, and made sure my presence was known as a witness to this event. I don't know who these people were, but I hope all is better for the rest of the day.

This is what domestic abuse post divorce looks like.

05/09/2025

Things to know about therapy:

1) Yes, sometimes it only takes 2-4 sessions. Not everyone needs “years” of drawn out work. Others may require much slower more extensive support. It’s about readiness, insight, and most importantly: timing. Most people can see relief and significant improvement in 10-20 sessions.

2) I can’t force anything. Each client has free will and agency. It is ultimately the clients choice to make the changes. I don’t have a magic wand or keep a pet unicorn in my spare office for wish granting.

3) If a child’s in therapy, their parents or caretakers must be integrated in some manner either separately with feedback or in sessions from time to time.

4) There is such a thing as “bad therapy”. And we have a lot of it today. Therapy has become over saturated in some areas, while remaining sparse in others. But overall, we have many professionals who do not seek proper consultation and ongoing training to remain objective and up to date.

5) A very controversial opinion that many seasoned professionals know but never say out outside of small circles: All therapy interventions are the same, just a different set of tools and perspective. EMDR, Narrative,IFS, Drama, CBT, etc. all use the exact same processes and goals but a different way to do it. One is NOT better than the other. It’s up to the client and clinicians training. Don’t get sucked in to an intervention because it’s the new fad or someone else said so. We just keep reinventing the wheel, not because the current tools don’t work- because we are humans and we need different ways to do the work.

6) Not everything requires therapy. We are too therapy oriented today. Dog died? You child is going to be fine in most cases and will recover without extensive processing. We focus too much on mental health in the wrong ways and may be doing more harm than good.

04/03/2025

There are phases in our relationship journey.

Attachment is our primary and initial phase. It's what children do prior to birth, and immediately after. It is something infants and children are working on for the rest of their lives. Attachment is not emotional bonding. It is safety for survival. In healthy families attachment is "secure" when infants and children are cared for and feel safe with their person or people.

Detachment is also an important phase. This begins as we grow and once we hit the teen/young adult years we learn to detach and become our own person. This is where our sense of self shifts from our attached people to peers and social needs.

Connecting is the process of integrating the two together. We are learning and negotiating this with boundaries, independence, and failures. How to understand and appreciate our safe people that expands over time to partners and friends, and how to detach from them for our own sense of self and autonomy.

Our parenting approaches of "helicopter" parenting, over protection, and our need to track and monitor every move our children make is disrupting this cycle. It is one of (but not the only) root causes of estrangement in our relationships as we get older.

Therapy with a trained provider can make a difference and help learn these new boundaries and uphold ownership over mistakes we can't change to move on.

Call now to connect with business.

03/14/2025

by Joshua Coleman

09/04/2024

Something I deal with on a regular basis. So important to educate in the right ways courts, individual therapists, and child advocates. There are many predatory groups and harmful methods created to profit off desperate families.

09/02/2024

I tell my clients this all the time. It’s a mistake I made in my prior marriage and at times after the divorce.

There’s a difference between disparagement and letting a child see that other parent for who they really are… without your opinion included.

We think we are protecting kids because the truth is too painful. But this is the reality of this parent and the child needs to learn boundaries and how to have a relationship with the good and bad of that parent.

If you cover, over encourage, put that person on a pedestal to the kids when their actions are damaging, hurtful, and for some abusive; you are actually setting yourself up for failure.

If you stop doing this, the abusive partner will use this against you. And it works.

Endorsing that parent to be more important or perfect means when they speak about and act badly towards you, the kids believe it. This is how abusers win with alleging “Alienation”.

It dismisses reality and the child feels lied to. They blame you and may be abusive toward you or cut you off. Or they may see what’s happening and sometimes they cut the other parent off.

But either way, the child loses, and often the healthier parent.

It means when you let the fake facade fall, the kids view this as you dishonoring that parent.

It bites back and sometimes is too late and too much for kids to handle. You are perpetuating the abuse.

Unless you engage with trained professionals, the children are often blindly doomed to repeat this in adulthood.

07/11/2024

With my short time working in housing and apprenticeship hating the work the efforts if Emily Osweiler with Greater Des Moines Housing are working towards; this inspires opportunity.

Amazing Idea