Travis Thompson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who practices in Middle Tennessee. He is a PhD candidate who works with clients from many backgrounds to find the deeper meaning of their struggles and embrace long-term recovery from the pains that they experienced. His work is focused on being healed from past hurt and toward future success. During our conversation, Travis shares his journey of wrestling with his own mental health as a teenager, his recovery and healing journey, and entering the world of becoming a mental health professional serving and helping others like those who served and helped him.

We'll talk today about the stigmas around mental health, counseling, and medication, particularly in Christian circles, and how to care for people struggling with addiction AND those walking through it with them. Travis has actually written a book specifically around that topic of understanding addiction and how it impacts those around an addict and it is called To Those Left Behind: Helping Partners and Families Understand and Heal from Addiction. He'll unpack many of the themes from his book, the effect and aftermath on mental health and addiction from the pandemic, where we see mental health in the Bible and he offers hope to those who may be suffering in the cycle of addiction as well as encouragement for those in the residual waves of it with someone they love.

Modern mental health issues and recovery can seem overwhelming and confusing. I hope this conversation can serve you wherever you are in your journey, and perhaps Travis' book might as well! No matter whether this journey is a part of your story, or someone you love, we are all wrestling with real issues bound up in these broken bodies. There is hope for all of us. As long as you're breathing, God is not finished with you. You matter, and your story matters.

Connecting with Travis:

Book

Twitter (X)

Website

Episode Sponsor: Tony Crabtree of Crabtree Homes with Exit Realty

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Scripture References:

Romans 8:28- God works all things together for good

Psalm 107:2- Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story

Psalm 142 (an example)King David struggling with mental health

Ephesians 4:17-32- Paul talks about putting off the old self, drunkenness for one

Job 16:2- Job's friends and their bad advice

Gensis 3- Eve misquotes God's word

Galatians 5:24-Paul talks about gnostic dualism

Matthew 17:20- Mustard seed

Psalm 19:1- The Heavens are declaring the glory of God

Psalm 112:1-9 Psalm 37:4-, God made us to know delight

Hebrews 4:12- The word of God is alive and active