Brett Hammond, LCSW

09/16/2022

I endeavor to be the type of father that would spend a year doing this sort of thing. Finding humor in the day-to-day is something all of us can work on, even if the end result isn’t something someone would feel thunderstruck by.

09/15/2022

“Children should be seen, not heard.” “Why are you crying?!” “Get over it!” “I’ll give you something to cry about!”

Odds are more than one of us have heard that phrase come out of a loved one’s mouth, aimed directly at our souls. I realize that parenting can be hard but I also know that children carry their scars throughout the rest of their lives. But if our goal, generally speaking, is to raise children to be successful citizens, then shouldn’t we raise them to be humble and admit when we’ve done them wrong?

09/14/2022

Here’s your daily reminder that you are loved and cared for and you have value in this world. Life beats us down enough—we don’t need to give it a helping hand.

09/13/2022

Life can beat us down and make us feel lonely and isolated from our loved ones. We can even lose track of our true worth as human beings. In my work, I’ve helped many individuals who feel like no one cares about them or who harm themselves to feel something. When we’re disconnected from our true, God-given right to exist and be the person we were created to be, we can experience all sorts of challenges.

But I do know that we’re broken in relationships and that we’re healed in them too. Talking with a therapist is inherently awkward—hey, let’s go to talk to a stranger about my deepest, darkest secrets? Right?! Sounds bizarre to me too and I make a living out of it. Yet I have seen clients adapt and grow in the midst of the trust and respect inherent in a positive therapeutic relationship. The strangest thing is that the research backs that up: it’s not the intervention that helps people, it’s the relationship.

09/12/2022

I don’t believe any of us escape life without experiencing trauma. Yet some types of trauma are more pernicious—they stick around and we hear its voice in our head. That’s especially the case when it comes from our parents or other loved ones. I’ve walked on a journey towards healing with many clients, where the individual who hurt them is long gone but they continue to carry the scars.

I’m not going to lie and say that healing is easy or simple. It’s just not. But I’ve witnessed intense joy from clients that are able to move beyond the toxic messages they heard when they were younger and not pass it on to their own loved ones. I suppose that’s a big part of life, right? Moving beyond the wounds we carry and trying to leave the world better than what we found it.

09/10/2022

September is National Su***de Prevention Month. We can all help prevent su***de.

If you or someone you know may be considering su***de, calling or texting 988 will connect you with the National Su***de Prevention Line and trained mental health counselors who can help.

09/08/2022

09/01/2022

The people that we have around us in our lives can either drain us or enliven us. That’s one huge reason why I’m a fan of curating our relationships; there are too many people out there that bring us down or cause stress. Working in the recovery world for 11 years has taught me the truth of the adage, “show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are.”

Keep track of the friendships you maintain and who you allow to emotionally affect you. Are your friends on the same life track that you are? Do they lift you up or bring you down? How do you feel after you spend time with them? These are important questions to ask yourself, no matter what stage of life you’re in.

08/25/2022

In my professional experience, one of the hardest things about trauma is that it can feel like it takes over your life. You can try so hard to forget about it or focus your attention elsewhere, but intrusive thoughts and nightmares can still happen. 60% of men and 50% of women experience at least one traumatic event during their lifetime. That’s a lot of people and, for some of them, their thoughts, behaviors, and memories about the trauma can turn into Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The good thing is that there are evidence-based trauma therapies that work. Therapies like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure (PE), and Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) are all great options. They’re all about learning how to manage your emotions and your memories. The trauma becomes a part of your life that you can have some sense of control over and, while it can remain stressful, it doesn’t have to dominate your life anymore.

In the end, learning to manage what life throws at us is a big part of the learning curve on how to be a human, right? None of us are perfect at it, even if we all thought we knew everything when we were teenagers. Be kind to yourself and remember that everyone has their own cross to bear.

08/22/2022

Far too many of us think that avoiding conflict just makes things so much simpler. Yet in reality, avoiding problems makes them come back stronger. Our brains don’t know if it’s dangerous unless we tell them—and when we avoid, we are strengthening the circuits in our brains that make us feel frightened.

I believe that we are hurt in relationships and we can grow in them too. In good therapy, you should have the chance to take part in an open, honest, and affirming partnership that is focused on your goals and your needs. But that doesn’t mean that therapy will be easy; sometimes a relationship pushes us in a direction where we need to grow.

04/11/2022

Anyone noticed this in their lives?⁠

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