Liz Seitz - Psychotherapist / Individuals and Couples

Liz Seitz - Psychotherapist / Individuals and Couples Helping individuals and couples achieve healthy, sustainable relationships and live with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. Liz Seitz, LMSW-ACP, LMFT

When I meet with couples, I often hear about things each partner does that bother the other. We all have annoyances, pet...
08/10/2026

When I meet with couples, I often hear about things each partner does that bother the other. We all have annoyances, pet peeves, or biases about how things should be done. We’re all entitled to our opinions, but sometimes the things we judge, criticize, or find fault with in a partner are the very things we’ve been taught to disown in ourselves. Or things that our family may have judged in us or others.

We owe it to our partners to ask ourselves whether their habits, quirks, or idiosyncrasies are getting in the way of meeting our needs, or if they’re just not our preference or something we would do ourselves? Or is this our need to control or manage their behavior? Or are we just being picky or judgy?

If whatever your partner does is standing in the way of you getting your needs met by them, then of course, it deserves attention and warrants a conversation. But if not, it might be better to learn to manage your frustration rather than their behavior.
Differences are inevitable. We don’t attract our clone. But differences, in and of themselves, are not deal breakers.

If you had abusive, neglectful or highly dysfunctional parents, you can’t change them but you can choose not to let them...
08/03/2026

If you had abusive, neglectful or highly dysfunctional parents, you can’t change them but you can choose not to let them define you. We don’t get to choose who are parents are but we can choose who we will be moving forward.

We can be intentional in our efforts to heal the past so we don’t repeat it. We can learn how to give ourselves what we didn’t get. We can break the legacy of trauma so we don’t carry it into future generations.

By discovering who you are separate from your parents, you can form an image of yourself that allows you to reclaim your inherent right to safety, love and connection.

You can attract others who will reflect that love back to you. By establishing healthy relationships with others, you can begin the process of healing childhood pain.

When deciding if someone is the right partner for you, ask yourself, “Is this someone with whom I can safely and respect...
07/28/2026

When deciding if someone is the right partner for you, ask yourself, “Is this someone with whom I can safely and respectfully address and resolve issues?”“Are they willing to hang in there when things are off between us?” “Do they say they’re sorry when they cause hurt?” “Do they make a genuine attempt to repair the hurt?”

Being happy in a relationship requires so much more than just chemistry and compatibility. It requires emotional maturity and willingness to hold steady during the more challenging times.

It’s easy to be happy with someone when things are good. It’s a lot more difficult when feelings get hurt or trust gets broken.

Feeling safe enough to say what you really think and express how you really feel is an essential part of making a relationship work.

What truly makes you compatible is not that you agree on everything but that you respect the differences between you.

What allows love to last is not the absence of conflict but the presence of repair.

If each of you is willing to move towards the other, genuinely apologize when hurt is caused, attempt to repair the rupture between you and lovingly receive and accept those repair attempts, your relationship can be a safe space for you to grow, heal and flourish.

Have you ever considered the fact that some of your fears might not even be your own?So often we carry fears that we’ve ...
07/21/2026

Have you ever considered the fact that some of your fears might not even be your own?

So often we carry fears that we’ve inherited from our parents or that have been passed down from previous generations.

When we’re younger, we absorb the fears of our parents and they often become our own.
It might be helpful to examine your fears and try to recall if they originated with you or if they were learned or inherited.

Ask yourself if the fear makes sense for you today or if maybe, it doesn’t feel relevant anymore.

Instead of letting your fears paralyze you, you can use them to mobilize you.

Instead of seeing your fears as threats to avoid, you can see them as goals to achieve.

Facing your fears can divest them of their power.

The physiological response to fear and to excitement are exactly the same so if there’s a fear you’d like to conquer, you can tell yourself, “I’m excited to face this challenge” which moves you away from a threat mindset to a goal mindset.

If you’re afraid of a presentation you have to give or an exam you have to take, you can use your fear as a guide pointing to more preparation you need so that you’ll feel armed and ready for the challenge ahead.

Writing out your fears is another way to better understand them and figure out ways to tackle them.
Take the time to determine if your fears are your own, if they still make sense, and what you can do today to make them less daunting.

Chronic people-pleasing can be a sign of a deeper issue. While it’s lovely to be helpful and caring, people who experien...
07/13/2026

Chronic people-pleasing can be a sign of a deeper issue. While it’s lovely to be helpful and caring, people who experienced trauma in childhood often learned to shut off their own needs and instead focus all their attention on trying to please their caregivers.

Many children learn that their feelings are too much for their parents, so they suppress them to avoid punishment, shame or abandonment. This can develop into a nervous system response called “fawning,” in which they try to please, flatter, or appease to avoid conflict and maintain safety.

While this is protective in childhood, it often becomes maladaptive in adulthood. Chronic people-pleasers often abandon their own needs in order to accommodate others. People-pleasers also struggle to set boundaries or say “no,” so they end up abandoning themselves in the process.

If you tend to be hypervigilant regarding other people’s moods, mirror others’ opinions instead of expressing your own, or struggle to set boundaries or say no to people, your people-pleasing tendencies may be tied to past trauma.

Unlearning the fawning response takes time and often trauma-informed therapy, but here are some things that could help:
1) Learn to pause and breathe before being so quick to say “yes” or agree to something. It’s okay to say you’ll get back to someone. No need to rush to give an answer.

2) Remind yourself that you’re safe now and that it’s okay to do what feels right or good to you.

3) Practice saying no to small things that don’t feel as scary or threatening so you can become more comfortable with it.

4) Learn ways to self-soothe when you feel anxious or stressed so you can respond from a place of groundedness and calm. #

It can be very stressful to be someone who is insecurely attached or to be their partner. As much as we all want connect...
07/07/2026

It can be very stressful to be someone who is insecurely attached or to be their partner. As much as we all want connection and intimacy, the insecurely attached struggle with both needing it and fearing it.

The anxiously attached can be overly needy and require lots of reassurance and validation which for some partners can be overwhelming at times. Because they fear abandonment, they often become hyperattuned to subtle changes in their partner’s tone or body language which can cause them to perceive problems, even when there aren’t any to be found.

The insecurely attached tend to personalize their interactions with others and things are often skewed negatively towards themselves.

The avoidantly attached often prefer alone time as it feels safer and less stressful than risking rejection or pain. The avoidantly attached also can be easily overwhelmed by their partner’s expectations of them.
On a deep unconscious level they don’t feel worthy of love so they may withdraw, lash out or become hypercritical of their partner when intimacy feels too threatening.

Since the avoidant often feels that they can’t live up to the expectations of their partner, they push the partner away before subjecting themselves to what they perceive will be the partner’s eventual rejection of them.

The good news is that anyone can learn how to become more securely attached. The first step is identifying your attachment style and then understanding that it’s simply the lens through which you see yourself and what you have come to expect from those whose love and attention you seek.

It is not objective reality. Your self concept and your experience in relationships can improve dramatically with intentional effort and healing. Anyone can learn how to have healthier relationships with others and experience what it feels like to have a secure attachment.

When we experience trauma, it impacts our nervous system and brain structure. It affects our brain’s wiring and neural p...
06/23/2026

When we experience trauma, it impacts our nervous system and brain structure. It affects our brain’s wiring and neural pathways.

Survivors of trauma often get stuck at the age or stage at which the trauma occurred. Even though this arrested development is most common among survivors of childhood trauma, it can also apply to anyone at any age who experiences trauma.

For some, it’s as though they stopped growing emotionally or developmentally beyond that traumatic event. It’s at that time that their nervous system went into survival mode.

When triggered, adults may exhibit childlike emotional or behavioral responses like temper tantrums and have a really hard time regulating their emotions.

When they feel activated, their body responds in the same way it did when the trauma occurred.

The good news is that we have several different types of therapeutic interventions that have proven to be extremely helpful in rewiring those neural pathways to significantly reduce triggers and manage the brain’s response.

Through various types of trauma therapy, somatic work and emotional regulation skills, anyone can learn, over time, to integrate the trauma and learn healthier and more age-appropriate coping strategies.

It’s very common for people to have specific roles within their family system. These unconscious roles serve a purpose i...
06/16/2026

It’s very common for people to have specific roles within their family system. These unconscious roles serve a purpose in the family. They shape one’s identity within the family and are often used to gain love and approval or to protect oneself or other family members. They may also be a way to deflect attention from or draw attention to something going on in the family.

Some common family roles are the overachiever, the hero, the rebel, the scapegoat, and the peacemaker.
Without realizing it, people often play those same roles in their work environment that they did in their families.

To break this cycle, you first need to identify the role you played in your family and how it may or may not have served you. Do this with curiosity, not judgment.

We often default to these roles at work, especially in stressful environments. Your boss may subconsciously remind you of an intimidating or overly critical parent. Or you may find yourself always trying to smooth things over between colleagues. Or perhaps, you often take on way more work than you need to or continually pick up the slack for others.

Pause before you act and ask yourself which questions apply: Is this extra work necessary for me to do, or am I just trying to prove my value here? Is my behavior serving me, or is it causing me undue stress or anxiety? Does this person remind me of someone in my past?

Practicing some mindful breathing can help calm you and center you. You can learn to act from a conscious place versus an unconscious one. You can establish healthy boundaries that remind you of your agency and release you from old patterns.

Most of all, exercise self-compassion and grace. You assumed the role you did for a reason. It served you at one time, but it may not be serving you now.

Children who felt they had to earn their parents’ love, often grow up to be people pleasers, overachievers, or perfectio...
06/11/2026

Children who felt they had to earn their parents’ love, often grow up to be people pleasers, overachievers, or perfectionists. They may constantly feel that they need to prove their worth and value.

They may settle for feeling needed rather than loved. They think that if they go out of their way to accommodate others, their usefulness will help secure a connection and provide a sense of safety.

If this sounds like you, remind yourself that you come by this honestly. You can gently tell that little child part that lives inside of you that what felt true back then is not what’s true today.

Allow that part of you to sit with the divine truth that you were born with inherent worth and that healthy love is not transactional.

You can remind yourself daily that you deserve love simply for who you are, not for what you do.

You can begin to pay attention to your triggers like when you’re overextending yourself from a place of anxiety rather than generosity.

You can catch yourself when you’re being useful as a way of influencing how someone feels about you.

Slowly, over time, you can learn to separate usefulness from worthiness. You can begin to attract people whose love or attention you don’t have to work to obtain.

Securely attached people tend to attract people with whom they feel safe and who show up for them in a loving and respec...
06/05/2026

Securely attached people tend to attract people with whom they feel safe and who show up for them in a loving and respectful way.

Even if you wouldn’t describe yourself as securely attached, you can behave as though you are.

You can tell yourself that you deserve to not question whether someone you’re with actually likes you.

You can tell yourself that you deserve to be valued and respected.

You can tell yourself that it only makes sense to be around people who make you feel good about yourself.

You can look for people who acknowledge when they’ve hurt you, show genuine remorse and work at repairing the hurt. And then, they’re intentional about not hurting you again.

You can tell yourself people should respect your boundaries and not mock, shame or pressure you to betray yourself.

You can look for people who celebrate your wins and comfort you through your losses. Securely attached people express their needs and feelings clearly and don’t expect others to read their minds.

Securely attached people set healthy expectations for how others should treat them.

Securely attached people learn how to self-regulate and know it is not their job to regulate others.

Anyone can learn how to become more securely attached but it helps to attract others who are modeling the behaviors you wish to possess.
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