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Adult Children, Parents, and Family Responsibility When Help Becomes Enabling
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist One of the more difficult areas of family boundaries is the relationship between parents and adult children. When children are young, they are meant to depend on their parents. Parents do all of the feeding, protecting,...
Enmeshed, Rigid, and Balanced Families Understanding Healthy and Unhealthy Family Boundaries
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Do you want your family to be healthy and each member happy? As part of this series on Boundaries, we turn our attention to the types of boundaries found in families. If we understand these concepts, it could help us to build...
Practical Strategies to Set Boundaries When Abuse Is Present
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist In the previous article I looked at boundaries and abuse. We continue this conversation with practical strategies for setting limits. Setting boundaries in an abusive relationship is different from setting boundaries in an...
Boundaries and Abuse: When Safety, Truth, and Love Must Work Together
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologis When we speak about boundaries, we usually think about preferences, responsibilities, communication, time, emotional space, and how people treat one another. In a healthy relationship, boundaries help love to function properly....
Boundaries in Families: Why Love Needs Both Closeness and Space
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Family is one of the most beautiful gifts God has given us, but it is also one of the places where boundaries can become the most confusing. It is easy to understand where your boundaries lie with a co-worker, a neighbour, or...
Practising Boundaries in Marriage: Speaking Honestly Without Attacking or Withdrawing – Part 2
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist It is one thing to understand that boundaries are important in marriage. It is another thing to actually practise them. Most couples who struggle with boundaries do so not because they do not know the theory. They struggle...
Practising Boundaries in Marriage: Why Love Needs Freedom, Responsibility, and Truth – Part 1
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist When people first hear the word boundaries, it can sound strange. We understand boundaries between countries. We understand boundaries between neighbours. We understand the wall, the fence, the gate, the electric fencing, the...
Understanding Boundaries: A Biblical and Psychological Perspective
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Introduction Boundaries are a foundational component of psychological health and relational stability. Yet, they are often misunderstood, misapplied, or entirely absent in people’s lives. From both a clinical and biblical...
When Conflict Happens: Learning to “Fight Fairly” in Marriage
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Conflict in marriage is inevitable. When two people share their lives, with different personalities, expectations, and sensitivities, moments of tension will arise. This is not a failure of the relationship. It is part of the...
Communication Is the Relationship
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Do you want a relationship that is close, works well and is full of understanding, support and fun? Let’s look at one of the key components to this – communication. It is one of the most spoken about topics in relationships....
How to Respond to Depression: Practical Steps – Part 2
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Introduction Understanding depression is an important starting point. However, understanding alone is not enough. The next question is practical: how should one respond to it? Depression affects motivation, energy, thinking,...
What Causes Depression? A Clinical and Christian Perspective – Part 1
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Introduction Depression is one of the most widely experienced, yet often misunderstood, human struggles. Most people have some awareness of what depression looks like. We recognise it in others. We may have experienced aspects...
When Life Feels Too Heavy: Understanding Suicide, Despair, and Hope
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Introduction Suicide is one of the most difficult and painful realities to face. It is not a distant issue. It touches families, churches, leaders, and individuals in deeply personal ways. Many people, at some point in their...
When Christians Experience Suffering
A Christian perspective on suffering, faith, and emotional resilience By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Trauma is one of the most difficult experiences a person can endure. It overwhelms our normal coping mechanisms and often shakes many of the assumptions we...
Understanding Traumatic Experiences
By Erich Schoeman | Clinical Psychologist Trauma is something most of us will encounter in some form during our lifetime. Not every day. Not constantly. But at some point in our lives, something happens that shakes us, something that unsettles our sense of safety,...
10 Thoughts on Christian Marriage and Sexual Intimacy
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist | Trainer | Speaker) Matters of the Soul Sex is one of the most powerful and misunderstood aspects of Christian marriage. Culturally, we are fed two dominant narratives. The first says that passionate, exciting sex belongs to...
Steps for healing after an affair
written by Christian Clinical Psychologist Erich Schoeman A Step-by-Step Guide for Christian Couples Infidelity is a devastating breach of trust, but it doesn’t have to be the end of a marriage. With humility, truth, and grace, couples can walk a path of healing. This...
Restoration after an affair
RESTORATION AFTER AN AFFAIR A Christian Psychology Perspective By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul/Sake van die Siel (www.mattersofthesoul.org) “Sandy is still shaken up. It feels like her world has turned upside down....
Grief and Loss – Two parts of the same coin
“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim” -Vicki Harrison Loss is an unavoidable part of life and grief is the natural response to loss and part of the...
Healing After Abortion
By Erich Schoeman(Clinical Psychologist, Speaker, Trainer, Writer) 5 min read “I’m a bad person!” Lizzy thought to herself after seeing another mother caress her baby at the mall. This thought had crossed her mind countless times over the last two years. Each time,...
10 Thoughts on Perfectionism with helpful Inputs
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) 12 minute read Many of us take pride in doing things well and have an aversion to making mistakes or falling short. We want things to...
Navigating the Turbulent Waters of Adolescence
Created by Erich Schoeman, Clinical Psychologist, Matters of the Soul/Sake van die Siel Disclosure: Several artificial intelligence programs were used in the process of researching and story writing this chapter (ChatGPT, Co-pilot, Gemini). It’s just after seven in...
10 Christian Thoughts on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity – for teens –
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) Christian Psychology Ministry 9 minute read Confusion about your gender identity or sexual orientation is a genuine struggle for some...
Words from a father to a teen about sex and pornography
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Speaker and Trainer, Father of two), Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) 6 - 7 minute read Have you ever heard of the Trojan Horse? Homer mentioned it in his book, The Odyssey, written about...
Functional vs Dysfunctional Families
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) Christian Psychology Ministry God wants to bless us with families that reflect Him in all ways. Following His will typically leads to...
10 Ways to have a godly family
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) Christian Psychology Ministry Most Christians likely aspire to have a family that serves the Lord and reaps the benefits of living in...
10 Thoughts of overcoming fear
By Erich Schoeman (Clinical Psychologist; Trainer & Speaker) Matters of the Soul (www.mattersofthesoul.org or www.sakevdsiel.org) Christian Psychology Ministry Fear is something that all of us face at some point in our lives. From fear of failure, not having...
10 Signs and solutions to eating issues
Most people enjoy food, and some consider themselves to be “foodies”, loving the different tastes and flavours of various foods. Yet for others, food becomes more of a foe than a friend or at best a troubled friend. Their relationship to food, their bodies and weight...
What is anxiety and how to manage it
What is Worry? Worry, stress, fear and panic are words that have different technical meanings but are often used interchangeably to describe a common condition that have globally reached epidemic proportions. Anxiety. While fear is a response to a direct threat,...
The key to Wellness – Unlock God’s promise for PEACE
Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things and it is extremely sick; Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his...