Dr. Coleman Responds to the Article

In July of 2024, a counselor named Patrick Teahan responded to the recent New York Times article on parent-child estrangement. Teahan works with estranged adult children, and appeared to take issue with quotes and behaviors attributed to him. Teahan has been a focal point for estranged parent ire in the wake of the article. His portrayal as […]

Are You TOXIC?

“Toxic” is commonly used in the EAC community when addressing or talking about estranged parents. So, what does it mean? *Spoiler alert* It means almost nothing. For starters, in spite of its popularity in Reddit estrangement forums and elsewhere among the pro-estrangement, it is not a clinical term. And though I have not memorized the Diagnostic […]

“What Mike Said”

My late father struggled with grief. From the loss of his mother and his best friend Red within weeks of each other in 1977 to losing another bestie, Mike, decades later, Dad could be waylaid by grief seemingly out of nowhere. Mike emerged as Dad’s best friend when I was off living my young adult […]

The Starfish

“Keep on saving the world, one person at a time.” One of my best friends often says this to me at the end of a conversation, and it occurs to me that this concept is at the heart of some of my discomfort around the NYT article. There’s a story in which the tides deposit thousands of […]

Salvation on a Bicycle

I’m nine, riding my bike at night along the rocky shoulder of Highway 35 in Angleton, Texas. I’ve dropped the food I was dispatched to fetch, and I’m panicking. The moments in which we learn may appear unremarkable to the casual observer. Along that dark highway, I don’t know if any passersby saw my predicament. […]

I spent hours reading the articles and studies in that list, and my takeaway was… validation. In the counseling field, our stock in trade is the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. If the studies concluded that we have a sweeping epidemic of, say, narcissistic personality disorder, our field would take that as marching orders. We […]

The Narrative Pivot

I had a growth moment last night. A friend of mine and I went to Fort Worth to see songwriter Steve Earle. We had a fantastic time, and if you like Americana/folk/songwriter material, he is highly recommended. The chair to my right sat unoccupied until a man and a woman arrived midway through the show. […]

Over and Under the Handlebars

An 11-year-old boy is frozen in the air for a moment. He has almost made it home, fleeing from a thug on a BMX bike. Thug began threatening 11yo from the first day they saw each other a few months ago. It started at the park. Thug asked 11yo a question about his bicycle, and […]

Time

TimeFlowing like a riverTimeBeckoning meWho knows when we shall meet againIf everBut timeKeeps flowing like a riverTo the sea “Time” by the Alan Parsons Project It’s November of 2022, and my family and I are leaving Conroe, Texas. I’ve just spoken at my aunt’s funeral, and in our otherwise quiet car, “Time” by the Alan […]

If a Lotus is to Grow…

How do we respond when we are at our worst? One evening in 2004, I bluffed my way out of a three-on-one fight in a parking lot. Afterwards, I called my best friend Whit, who runs a martial arts academy in Katy, Texas. I told him what happened, and as soon as I took a […]