News and Insights

We have a new intern at Basic Steps Mental Health, and I thought it would be helpful to write out the basic steps of being a therapist for them. Then it dawned on me that writing an article on this would be helpful for anybody interested in the healing arts. For those who do not want to go into the field but suffer from mental health and substance-related problems, this article can also be...

If you’ve tried counseling before, gotten nowhere, and feel nothing out there works, let me introduce you to something different called Spiritual Psychology. I had gone through many different types of counseling, as well as seminars and lectures, to improve myself, but when I studied this approach in school, I was amazed with the results. Since 2001, I have used Spiritual Psychology at the...

I realized I have been trying to spread the news of Spiritual Psychology for 32 years. For the past 10 years, I have been writing these articles, now numbering in the hundreds. It is exciting to share something that drastically impacted my life, and because of it, I transformed from a drug addict to owning my own mental health clinic. The tools I present aren’t new to the industry, with...

Yes, not one but two people this week entered therapy and blurted out, “I don’t believe in therapy, but my spouse made me.” I chuckled. This wasn’t the first time I had heard this, nor probably will it be the last, but this reminded me of me in 1989 when I attended my first counseling session. For me, I went to therapy due to debilitating anxiety and not wanting to take the medication...

“What’s the point?” said a client to me the other day. How about you? How many times have you felt like giving up? I have found that people with a history of things not going their way assume that everything in their life will go bad. But this doesn’t have to be the case. What is the point? Life may come down to this question: Do you give up, or do you keep pushing forward? This is what...

Thirty-two years. That’s how long I have been in this industry. It is hard to believe I lasted so long. You either sink or swim. I remember being fired for healing the clients too quickly at one facility in Malibu. Strange but true. Fortunately, it inspired me, and I vowed to open up my own residential treatment facility that, instead of blaming the clients for relapsing, I took an honest...

You’ve heard the statement, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Instead, why not focus on the best thing that can happen? You see, when we focus on the worst things, we create the worst things. The flip side can bring to you your dreams — and it sure did for me. At Basic Steps Mental Health, we teach our participants how to focus on what they want. These “Ideal Scenes” help people...

Relationships take a lot of work to keep alive, fresh, and upbeat. You would think that falling in love was all that is needed, but to be honest, when two people connect, they bring with them their doubts, fears, and unresolved issues. Maneuvering through this can bring heartache if one doesn’t know the proper tools. For myself, relationships are complex. Since I have made all of the...

It had been 15 years since I was reunited with my paperwork from school. Like an ancient treasure that I vaguely remembered, all of the handouts we used at the University of Santa Monica lay before my grubby hands! I was over the moon with excitement because what lay before me changed me from a little boy to a man! I had a vacation home in the desert outside of Joshua Tree National Park and...

From time to time, I ask myself why I am withholding a lot of valuable information that was taught at the University of Santa Monica. Many of these techniques are ones I use daily in my practice and have helped thousands of people. Being in an almost trance-like state while counseling others has helped me survive an industry I have worked in for over 30 years, many of those years spent at...