What an awesome conversation we had with Justin Little, who is the Clinical Director at Forage Wellness Collective in Sisters, Oregon.

Justin is a creative soul and it comes out in our conversation that he loves bringing creativity into his life and work. We cover his beautiful journey to Restoration Therapy and the corresponding journey of forgiveness that he was also meandering down. While sharing his own story, Justin walks us through the Restoration Therapy model of forgiveness.

Justin also loves TV and film and music, and we had some fun talking about some movies where he see the model of Restoration Therapy coming to life. We also talked about his idea of launching a new RT podcast called Therapy in the Wild, where he explores the intersection of the big screen and RT. We can't wait to hear that first episode and follow that journey.

Restoration Therapy Forgiveness Handout:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

We were excited to finally get Restoration Therapist Clint Davis on the podcast. Clint has a large practice in Louisiana called Clint Davis Counseling and Integrative Wellness where they provide a wide range of services.

It was great to hear his personal story and journey to Restoration Therapy during his time at Fuller Theological Seminary. We cover a variety of topics in this episode, but really went in deep on his passion around equipping parents to help their kids navigate some of life's most difficult challenges.

Clint is the host of the Asking Why Podcast, popular speaker, and author of the book, Building Better Bridges: A Guidebook to Having Difficult Discussions That Can Save Our Children.

Check out his TEDx talk, The Sex Talks We Never Had, That Can Save Our Kids.

"Anxiety is something you do in response to emotional dysregulation...Anxiety is ruminating on fear to the point where a person trains the brain to continue ruminating, that actually injures their identity and sense of safety." -- Terry Hargrave

Anxiety is such an important topic as the number of people diagnosed with anxiety each year is on the increase, and the public conversation around it is at an all time high.

We feel that Restoration Therapy has a unique voice in this conversation as we see anxiety as something we do -- a coping behavior -- rather than a feeling. That being said you will hear in this conversation that "anxiety is a choice", and how we can position ourselves in such a way to help empower our clients to make radical interventions in regards to anxiety.

The Roundtable Panel

In this conversation, our podcasts hosts Lance Ahl and Rhett Smith welcomed Terry Hargrave, Meghan Eaken, Tanner Hargrove and Nicole Zasowski to discuss a wide ranging discussion about anxiety.

Rhett Smith is a therapist and author, writing the The Anxious Christian back in 2012 -- and in 2016 delivering the lecture on anxiety and fear at the RT Summit, which led him to delve more into the topic of anxiety and how RT can bring about healing. In 2019 he began co-creating the Turning from Anxiety RT intensive model, co-leading its initial pilot intensives, and training other RT therapists in the model. Rhett is currently working on an RT book about anxiety.

Lance Ahl is a therapist and director of the Restoration Therapy Center in Southern California. Lance wrote his doctoral dissertation "Arresting Anxiety: Experiential Training Model for Utilizing Intensive Restoration Therapy", which has become a valuable resource for the ongoing development of the RT Intensive model. Lance has been leading anxiety intensives and working on continuing interventions around anxiety.

Terry Hargrave is of course the founder of Restoration Therapy and the author of many therapy books. It is his valuable insight into anxiety that led him on this journey to begin the development of the anxiety intensive model. His insight around anxiety as a coping strategy and the powerful role that rumination plays in perpetuating the problem, has helped him develop new interventions like Stop, Turn, Slow.

Meghan Eaken has been leading the way in the development of the Restoration Coaching Model , leading anxiety intensives, and been developing a powerful online model to help people break free from their anxiety -- check out her program, Your Grown Up Voice.

Nicole Zasowski is a therapist and author of several best selling books like From Lost to Found and What if it's Wonderful? She also co-authored the Restoration Therapy book Advance Techniques in Restoration Therapy and co-authored another book with Terry Hargrave, Families in Forgiveness. Nicole has been helping thousands of people navigate their anxiety through the help of Restoration Therapy in her weekly Therapy Thursdays on her Instagram.

Tanner Hargrove is a therapist and professor, as well as the clinical director of the marriage intensive, The Hideaway Experience. He helped develop the Restoration Therapy intensive model and co-led the initial pilot intensives and anxiety model trainings. Tanner's expertise in mindfulness practices and practical interventions helped develop a lot of the tools that are instrumental in the intervention of anxiety.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Turning from Anxiety Intensives

Relate Strong anxiety resources

Restoration Therapy: Understanding and Guiding Healing in Marriage and Family Therapy

Advances and Techniques in Restoration Therapy

This was such a fun and rich conversation on this week's episode with Michael Piciucco, as we explored territory around the idea of embodying truth in the Restoration Therapy model.

Michael is a Level II Restoration Therapy therapist in practice in Glendale, AZ at Arrowhead Family Systems, as well as an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Phoenix, AZ.

We hope you really enjoy this episode and that you learn some new ideas about interventions with clients around embodying truth.

Mentioned in the Episode:

The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich

The Stewardship of Pain by Frederick Buechner

This was such a great time talking with Stephenie as she helped us think through how we navigate safety in a world that is often not safe.

One of the challenges many therapists face in working with clients is how to empower clients to find safety in the midst of difficult circumstances. We appreciate Stephenie's willingness and vulnerability in helping us find our way forward.

And we are so thankful for her ongoing engagement and contributions to the RT community.

Stephenie is the founder and director of La Canada Family Therapy, adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and Level II Certified Restoration Therapist.

It was so great to have Meghan on the RT Dialogue podcast, as it has been a conversation we have been looking to for a long time. Meghan is very active in the RT community, and has been trained as an RT Therapist and Restoration Coach.

In this episode we explore what Restoration Coaching is, and the differences between therapy and coaching. The the heart of both her love of therapy and coaching is the RT model.

We look forward to having Meghan back on to explore more this growing world of Restoration Coaching.

Meghan's Links

Meghan's Coaching Program: Anxiety Break Up Bootcamp

Restoration Coaches Training

Therapy Website

If there is any episode to date that I would describe as a riffing conversation, it would be this one. In this episode we explore the topic of self-regulation versus co-regulation.

As we look at the field of psychology and the practice of therapy, many models are moving in one of these directions -- towards co-regulation, or towards self-regulation.

One of the differentiating aspects of Restoration Therapy is its emphasis on self-regulation. And through we have learned much from a wide variety of models that move in the direction of co-regulation, we talk through the importance of self-regulation, especially in work with couples.

In this episode we also explore theological and literary examples of self-regulation, some of which are linked below.

We consider this to be an evolving conversation with a lot of nuance. And so we are interested in your thoughts on this divergence of regulation practices, and how it shows up in your own life and practice.

Literary links from the episode:

Section quoted from Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet

Section quoted from Kahlil Gibran, On Marriage, from The Prophet

We had such a fun and deep conversation with Ron Deal, who many know in the Restoration Therapy community. Ron is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, podcaster, speaker, and is highly sought after for his work with blended families and marriage enrichment.

Ron and his wife Nan, along with Terry and Sharon Hargrave are the authors of The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself.

We talked to Ron about working with blended families, dove deep into the importance of humility in marriage, and how significant that is in the work of Restoration Therapy. And how the RT model is essentially discipleship.

Check out this episode as I hope you learn something of use for your own therapy and ministry work, as well as the personal application to your own life.

And don't forget to register for the virtual Smart Stepfamily Therapy Training -- May 22 and 23.

Check out Ron's links:

Ron Deal

Smart Stepfamilies

Family Life Blended podcast

Blended and Blessed

We are so excited to welcome Restoration Therapist Monica DiCristina to Episode 6 of the RT Dialogue Podcast.

We had such a fun and meaningful conversation with Monica, covering a wide array of topics, and so we are thankful to be able to share this with you.

Monica is a therapist in private practice in Atlanta, and she is the author of the new book, Your Pain Has a Name: A Therapist's Invitation to Understanding Your Story and Sorting Out Who You Are From What Hurts. She is also the podcast host of her show Still Becoming.

You can find out more about Monica and her work by visiting her website.

Welcome back to RT Dialogue, Season 1, Episode 5. On this episode we talk about Lance receiving his doctorate this week, which was focused on anxiety intensives. We discuss how the Restoration Therapy anxiety intensives developed, and ongoing research, development and practice of the intensive model underway.

We also dive into the Stop, Turn, Slow intervention developed by Terry Hargrave during the anxiety intensive pilot.

It was good a fun conversation to have and we look forward to having more guests on the episode after the RT Conference at the end of February 2025.

If you are interested in Anxiety Intensives, you can stay up to date at the Turning from Anxiety website.