Sam will continue to offer counseling services…we will keep you posted when Kerri returns!

Are you highly motivated for change, wanting an effective and efficient Christian counseling experience that saves you time and money? We offer several unique choices that provide a professional Christian counseling experience to meet your relational needs. Welcome to our website, we hope that the information you find here will guide you in your journey towards relational health.

Cotherapy is the simultaneous treatment of Couples and Families by two counselors working together. Research indicates that Cotherapy has been more successful in treating some couples and families than traditional marriage and family counseling, yet is frequently unavailable in private practice.

Cotherapy is energetic, exciting, dynamic and revolutionary. With cotherapy, you have two focused, professionally trained counselors working together to help you solve your relational problems.

Sam and Kerri Moehlenpah

Hi! We’re Sam and Kerri Moehlenpah, your Cotherapists. We are excited about the services we offer to help individuals, couples and families. We are two Licensed Marriage and Family therapists who desire to create the optimum environment that stimulates relational growth. We provide a therapeutic experience that is clinically sound and solidly based on Biblical truths. We believe as Christians we can invite God to participate in the therapeutic process and that he will give us wisdom and insight. We have a deep love and respect for God’s word and believe it contains principles that when followed, can bring true and lasting change to individuals’ lives.

We work primarily with couples and families on a broad range of issues that include:

• Marriage Counseling
• Premarital Counseling
• Family Counseling
• Parenting Issues with Young Adults, Teens and Children
• Family Crisis
• Communication
• Conflict Resolution
• Grief and Loss
• Depression/Suicidality
• Mixed Faith Relationships
• Personal Growth and Change
• Sexual Addiction/Substance Abuse
• Military Couples and Families (Sam and Kerri are individually Tricare Providers- Cotherapy is excluded)

Now that you know what we do, you may want to learn more about Who We Work With.

This is a powerful visual lesson that our actions speak louder than our words.

Sam Moehlenpah

There is a popular book that we recommend from time to time by Dr. Gary Chapman entitled The Five Love Languages. I will just say that reading is a great way to improve your relationships. Even if you don’t agree with all of a the content use it as a discussion starter with your spouse. It often has the power to create some interesting dialogue. Whenever I recommend this particular book or refer to the main concept in it I usually tell this story.

Let’s say you owned a big truck. One of those huge four door Ford F350′s. Let’s say your wife asks you to borrow your truck to run an errand and you agree on one condition. She must put gas in the truck. Later that day you go hop in the truck to take off and before you get a mile down the road you run out of gas. How do you feel? Mad! Ticked off! So you call your wife to “share your feelings.” You say, “Why didn’t you put gas in the truck?” And she says, “I did put gas in the truck. I put 200 gallons of gas in the bed of your truck.”

Why isn’t that helpful? Right, because it’s not where you need it. Gas in the bed of a truck will not do any good because you need gas in the gas tank. To oversimplify, this is the basic concept of this book. Often people try to give their partner “love” but because they don’t speak the right “Love Language” they are inadvertently wasting their effort by putting the wrong gas, in the wrong place.

So when you read the book you learn what your own love language is and what your spouse’s love language is which are usually not the same. It may help you understand why when we seem to be screaming “I Love You” in our own love language it goes unheard because it’s a foreign language to our spouse.

If you want more information on this book check out Dr. Chapman’s website. www.fivelovelanguages.com

I often hear couples talk about the exasperation they have with each other and their inability to communicate effectively. I don’t know of anything more frustrating in the world than not being able to express what is on one’s heart and mind. This process if it doesn’t occur leads to invalidation and from feelings of invalidation stem all kinds of marital dsyfunction. So I thought I’d write down a few tips that I often share with couples in counseling. A note of good news is that communication is a skill that is not “natural” or “genetic” and CAN be improved through disciplined effort!

Active Listening is an amazing gift that will improve anyone’s communicating ability. What does that look like? Check out this video for a few tips. Often people struggle to listen because they are trying to listen to two conversations at once. One conversation is the one happening with our spouse, the other is the conversation we are having with ourselves internally(usually prepping to interrupt and share our opinion). In large groups I attempt to demonstrate the futility of this by sitting a person in a chair with two strangers standing behind them. I instruct the two standing to begin talking simultaneously in sitting person’s ear. I follow this up by asking the sitting person what they heard? Basically, nothing.

Sadly, many couples find themselves in the same boat. After all the yelling, screaming, fighting, nagging and arguing what have they really heard, NOTHING! Why? Because they were trying to listen to two conversations at once, their own internal voice as well as the voice of their spouse. What a waste of time! How many couples then just wash, rinse and repeat this same useless sequence of events. If actual “communication” doesn’t occur then really this process is futile. Effective communication can only occur when one spouse speaks and the other listens, then the roles must change and the listening spouse speaks while the formerly speaking spouse now listens. If this level of reciprocation doesn’t occur, communication is not occurring.

Many people are misled to think communication stops at speaking. “I’m a good communicator, I talk all the time” they think. However speaking is only half of a communication. In order for communication to occur one must speak and then the same message spoken must be heard and received. Now this is a tall order. Many times what happens is that one thing is spoken and a different thing is heard. Sound familiar? We call this miscommunication, basically communication that misses. Miscommunication happens all the time for many different reasons. I could spend a lot of time talking about filters, assumptions, jumping to conclusions all of which get in the way of healthy communication but I don’t have the time to talk about that now. Here’s the simplest and best way I know to avoid miscommunication. Memorize this phrase, “This is what I heard you say, is that what you meant?” By adding that one phrase to your communication loop you may find and stop many miscommunications from becoming long-term fights and misunderstandings. To illustrate this I want you to imagine being in the military. Think of all the vital information that is communicated over radio. Now think of the words used like, “Do you Copy?”, “Roger?” or “Roger That.” or “Negative.” Why are these simple words used in the military’s language? They demonstrate with clarity whether or not the receiving party has truly heard what was said. Imagine if that didn’t occur. It would be truly horrible because without clear communication military resources would be sent to the wrong location. Literally everything that could break down would break down from rescue missions, to supply management, etc, etc, etc.

I guess I’m advocating for a similar strategy to begin the process of improving communication. If it comes to it say “Roger?” Am I being heard? Do you copy?

I still laugh hysterically when I think of Chris Rock and Jackie Chan in Rush Hour “Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?” and the response, “Man, nobody understands the words coming out of your mouth!” Sadly, this is the state of communication in many of our most vital relationships.

I need to make one additional point. Hearing is different than agreeing. The point here is not that we are coming to an agreement, but are we hearing one another accurately. Coming to an agreement MIGHT follow but if first you must hear accurately or you will never come to an agreement. “Do you Copy?”

So in the end we need two things to improve our communication. One, we need to communicate, which means both speaking and listening. Secondly, we need to avoid miscommunication. We need to make sure what is said is the same as what is being heard.

“Every moment you spend regretting who you used to be, you miss a moment you were created to be.”

Sam Moehlenpah

Sam Moehlenpah

We  are honored to have been asked to lead the presentation and continue the panel discussion on the subject Healthy Sex in Marriage at Skyline Church on July 1st, 2009 from 6:45-8PM. If you missed part one you can listen to it here. My Therapist Sez is a monthly panel discussion that allows a great interaction with therapists in our community. It really is a great group of people and plenty of fascinating discussion. If you can mark your calendars and join us there is no cost for this event.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at Alliant International University to a group of Marriage and Family Therapy students in a class on MFT Techniques. I was asked to talk about my experience in the field and specifically about working in private practice. Also, I got to share about the uniqueness of our Cotherapy practice. It’s always fun to share about what we do. Often people don’t understand the model at first or what the benefits are but when you get a chance to explain it you can really see the lights go on. One of the students asked a question about an example of a specific technique that we use in session. I told the story of when we were seeing a couple and the wife was really upset trying to share her thoughts and feelings with her husband who was unable to hear and process the information. As she became more frustrated in the session, Sam was able to literally switch places with her husband and ask her to share again as if he were her husband. After a little bit of awkwardness, the client was able to share and talk openly while I listened and took notes. Her husband was observing the interaction. After this exercise, all four of us processed what was heard and seen. The magic is that the wife was able to feel heard by Sam without him getting defensive which met her need. The husband was able to observe new behavior modeled and was a witness as to how Sam’s intervention kept the situation from escalating even more. Finally, I was able to speak to the style in which the wife was attempting to communicate with her husband and point out some areas for growth. This is just one way in which Cotherapy is unique and can be very beneficial to couples and families.

• First Base: Give her your full physical attention.
• Second Base: Give her you full mental attention.
• Third Base: Listen for the right things- how she FEELS about the problem.
• Home Plate: Acknowledge and affirm her feelings about the problem.

Tips from For Men Only – by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn