A Confessional 🪑 Tabitha sat across from me on a Tuesday afternoon, autumn light casting long shadows through my office windows. She was doing that thing—the one I’d learned to recognize over twenty-five years of sitting with wounded professionals. She […]
In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: Guilt, Emotional Framing, and the Weight of Uncomfortable Knowledge
A Confession in Three Parts 🪑 She arrived on a Tuesday afternoon with coffee that had gone cold somewhere between the parking lot and my office. Brooke—a marketing director at a mid-sized firm—sat on the edge of my couch the […]
Anxiety - Authenticity - Dating - In the Therapy Room - infidelity - Relationships - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: When Love Becomes a Cage
The Jealousy That Masquerades as Devotion 💔 I remember Tristan sitting across from me on a Tuesday afternoon, his leg bouncing with restless energy. His partner, Sophie, sat beside him but not with him—there was a distance of about eighteen […]
Breakups - codependency - Dating - Family Dynamics - healing - In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: The Complex Dance of Loyalty, Self-Erasure, and the Quest for Emotional Autonomy
A Brief Reflection Before We Begin 🪟 I remember the Tuesday afternoon Tabitha first walked into my office—the kind of gray February day when the world looks like it’s been drained of color. She moved carefully, as if navigating invisible […]
Authenticity - Dating - In the Therapy Room - Relationships - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: The Ultimatum
💭 The Sacred Territory of Bodily Autonomy Sometimes the deepest wounds wear the simplest masks. The woman sitting across from me was beautiful by any conventional standard, but her eyes held the fractured light of someone whose identity had been […]
Authenticity - Breakups - Christian Perspective - Heartbreak - In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: Ending a Relationship for the Sake of Self-Recovery
💔 When Love Remains But Growth Has Stopped There’s a particular kind of suffering that comes with ending a relationship not because love has died, but because you are dying within it. This was Tabitha’s struggle when she first came […]
codependency - Family Dynamics - In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell - Substance Abuse
In the Therapy Room: When Love Becomes Enabling
The Invisible Threads of Addiction and Family Love 🕸️ The serpent of addiction rarely strikes alone. It coils first around one victim, then stretches tendrils outward, ensnaring those who love too much, who help too much, who shield too much. […]
Dating - Family Dynamics - Identity - In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: Loving Against the Current of Social Expectation
The Widow and the Gardener 💕 I remember the afternoon Tessa first walked into my office. At 42, she had already weathered significant loss but had found her footing again. A successful business consultant and widow of three years, she […]
Breakups - Christian Perspectives - Heartbreak - In the Therapy Room - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: Parental Alienation and the Power of Divine Love
💔 When Love Meets Brokenness In the darkest valleys of human experience, where shadows of past betrayals stretch long across the present, God does not stand distant. He draws near. I’ve witnessed this truth unfold countless times in my therapy […]
Breakups - Christian Perspectives - In the Therapy Room - Relationships - Samuel Hartwell
In the Therapy Room: When Silence Speaks Volumes
🤐 The Void That Speaks The waiting had become a presence itself, filling the room between us. Bridget sat curled into herself on my office couch, her phone clutched in her hand like a talisman that had lost its power. […]