March 24, 2023

By Ash Compton, MA, LMFT, LPC, EMDR-Certified

Psychotherapeutic training generally includes something called Universality as a healing technique. It stems from Irvin Yalom’s germinal Therapeutic Factors for facilitating group therapy. It basically means that when humans get to hear and witness another human facing something similar to their own experience, this communality engenders a sense of validation and fosters healing. Universality, with its relational delivery, inherently addresses the isolation any human can feel amidst a problem that had felt singular.

April 7, 2022

By Ash Compton, MA, LMFT, LPC, EMDR-Certified

Often I am consulting clinically about how best to handle screen time expectations and tech boundaries in terms of both consumption and content. Online pornography is a subset of media that consistently comes up, not only with adults and couples I work with but also with parents and teens. Often, parents regard this topic with fear or uncertainty, so I wanted to share some resources to help create empowered and open communication around media and porn literacy. This feels ever-important during a time where curricula and state law seem to be pushing censorship or shame.

March 18, 2021

By Ash Compton, MA, LMFT, LPC, EMDR-Certified

As we approach this harrowing year-long anniversary of the pandemic, or at least of the collective awareness and general quarantine period of it, it feels important to honor thehorrorwe have witnessed. You might be experiencing the pandemic personally via loss of a loved one, shifting or lost work, social isolation, or perhaps your role has been more of a distant observer, or even seeing it through the lens of survivor’s guilt. Regardless of role or impact, we are currently living inside of an ongoing, slow-rolling, ever-unfolding collective trauma. Using imaginal tools can create some underworld and overworld understanding that is digestible while making personal meaning of this era. While many possible gifts have emerged, of note: the reconsideration of our shrine dedicated to “busy,” and a questioning of our ever-quickening pace; it is fair to say we are living in terrible times. Both Joseph Campbell and T.S. Eliot noted the world as a possible “wasteland,” yet used narrative and imaginal tools as a framework to withstand and even deepen psychological capacity. Campbell duly noted that by using myth we can vitalize ourselves, thereby creating vitality in the world around us (1988).