Articles
Hopeful, practical guidance from our Utah therapists on betrayal trauma, addiction recovery, marriage, trauma healing, and getting started in therapy. Every article is clinically reviewed; care is available in Orem, Murray, and online across Utah.
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Articles by Therapists
Clinical writing from our own team — marriage and communication, anxiety and depression, trauma healing, parenting, and what therapy is actually like.
19 articlesGeneral Articles
Practice news, community events, and general guidance from Connections Counseling.
0 articlesAddiction Education
Understanding compulsive sexual behavior, betrayal trauma, and what recovery actually asks of you — for the person in it and the partner beside them.
16 articles
The 12 Steps and Trauma: Why Recovery Can Feel Worse Before It Feels Better
Many people find that sobriety gets harder, not easier, once they begin real recovery work. That is not a sign it is failing. It is usually a sign it is working.
Do I Have a Porn or Sex Addiction? Signs to Look For
If you have tried to stop and could not, you are not broken and you are not alone. Here are the signs clinicians actually look for, and what a first step toward help looks like.
When Your Partner Has a Sex Addiction: It Is Not Your Fault
The shock, the obsessive thinking, the urge to know everything — these are recognized trauma responses, not signs that something is wrong with you. Here is what partners need to know.
Parenting Young Adults: Moving From Control to Influence
The rules that worked when your child was twelve stop working at twenty-two. Here is how parents shift from managing a child to influencing an adult — without losing the relationship along the way.
A Parent's Guide to Porn: 5 Ways to Limit Its Effects on Your Kids
The question is no longer how to keep your child from ever seeing pornography. It is how to limit the exposure and protect them from its effects — and most of that comes down to how you talk to them.
Pornography Statistics: What the Research Actually Shows
Most pornography statistics online are recycled from the mid-2000s and were poorly sourced to begin with. Here is what peer-reviewed research actually supports — including the finding most articles leave out.
Recommended Reading & Recovery Resources
Books and support groups our clients have found genuinely useful — organized by who you are in this: the person struggling, the partner, the couple, or the parent.
Understanding Sex & Porn Addiction: How the Pattern Works
Compulsive sexual behavior is not a willpower problem or a moral failure. Understanding how the pattern actually forms — and what keeps it running — is where recovery starts.
Unresolved Trauma: Why Symptoms Return Until You Treat the Root
Most people who benefit from trauma therapy did not arrive believing they had any trauma. Here is why that is so common, and what complex trauma actually looks like.
Warning Signs of Betrayal Trauma — and How to Cope
Betrayal trauma can quietly reshape how you sleep, trust, and feel safe. Learn the warning signs, why they happen, and gentle first steps toward healing.
5 Ways to Improve Communication in Your Marriage
Communication is a skill couples can build, not a personality trait. Here are five practical, therapist-informed habits to help you and your spouse feel heard again.
EMDR Therapy for Trauma: How It Works
EMDR is a structured, evidence-based therapy that helps the brain reprocess painful memories so trauma loses its grip. Here's how it works, what to expect in a session, and how to start care in Orem, Murray, or online.
Mindfulness in Recovery: What It Is & How to Start
Mindfulness helps you notice cravings and hard emotions without being swept away by them. Here is what it is, why it supports recovery, and how to begin.
How to Choose the Best Therapist for You
Choosing a therapist is personal. Here's how to weigh fit, credentials, and approach, plus the questions to ask before you commit to the work.
Is There Hope for a Relationship After Betrayal?
Betrayal can feel like the end of a relationship, but it doesn't have to be. Here's an honest look at whether trust can be rebuilt, what therapy involves, and how healing actually begins in Orem, Murray, or online across Utah.
Take Control of Pornography or Sexual Addiction
Pornography and sexual addiction are treatable. Learn how CSAT-led therapy in Orem, Murray, and online across Utah helps many people interrupt compulsive patterns and rebuild trust.
Premarital Counseling: Building a Strong Foundation
Premarital counseling helps engaged couples build communication, set realistic expectations, and enter marriage prepared. Here's what to expect, what it covers, and how it can strengthen your relationship for the long haul.
Caring for Others Is Self-Care: The Helper's High
Helping others does not have to drain you, it can quietly steady you. Discover the helper's high, the brain science behind service, and how to make giving part of your wellbeing routine.
How Does Marriage Counseling Actually Work?
Marriage counseling is not about winning the argument. Here's how the process really works, what happens in sessions, and how it helps Utah couples reconnect in Orem, Murray, or online.
Do I Need Therapy? How to Know When to Seek Help
Not sure if your struggles are "bad enough" for therapy? Here are the honest signs it may be time to reach out, and what working with a counselor actually looks like.
Can I Be Happy? The If/Then Trap
If I had more money, then I would be happy. If I had a different relationship, then I could be happy. We can run that sentence for decades and never arrive.
Emotional Laundry: Who Handles the Feelings in Your Home?
Everyone has laundry, and everyone has feelings. In most homes one person ends up sorting both. Here is what happens when the emotional load is shared instead.
Finding Your Authentic Self
"I just don't feel like myself anymore" is one of the most common things people say in therapy. Usually the self was not lost recently — it was adapted away, a long time ago.
Marriage Mythbusters: "They Should Just Know"
The idea that a real soulmate would just know what you need sounds romantic. In practice it sets your partner an impossible test — and quietly sets your marriage up to fail it.
What Reality TV Gets Wrong About Love (and One Thing It Got Right)
Put twenty people in a house and have someone pick the best one. It makes compelling television and it is close to the worst possible way to begin a committed relationship.
The Parts of You That Scare You
We spend a lot of energy labeling the frightening parts of ourselves as bad, and very little listening to what they are trying to say. Te Kā was never the villain.
Excitement vs. Anxiety: Same Feeling, Different Story
A therapist on the roller coaster he refused to ride, the one he rode six times, and what changed in between. The physical sensation was identical both times.
Where to Point the Finger: Blame in Relationships
Blame is comfortable because it explains the pain and points it somewhere else. It is also the fastest way to hand another person control over your own words and behavior.
Life Behind the Curtain
Everyone has a life on stage and a life behind the curtain. A great deal of anxiety and low self-worth comes from believing you are the only one with a mess back there.
Recovery Reflections: Your Marriage While You Recover
What recovery asks of you inside a marriage you have damaged — hearing anger as pain rather than attack, the harm a well-aimed word does, and why "never again" kept failing.
Recovery Reflections: Emotions, Resentment, and Triggers
Sobriety does not remove difficult feelings — it hands them back to you. These reflections cover resentment, escape, hypersensitivity to slights, and what to do the moment a trigger lands.
Recovery Reflections: Faith, God, and a Higher Power
Honest notes on the spiritual side of recovery — resenting God for not healing you sooner, learning to pray again, forgiving yourself, and why your wife was never going to save you.
Recovery Reflections: Working the Steps
A collection of short notes written by a sponsor to men working the Steps — on inventory, honesty, phone calls, and the small commitments that turn into a program.
Bend, Don't Break: Lessons From an 85-Year Marriage
"Learning to bend, not break." Two lessons from the longest recorded marriage — and why a couple who can laugh together has an advantage most people underestimate.
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