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Stephanie Sternes LMFT, LCPC, NCC

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Emmett, ID
Stephanie Sternes LMFT, LCPC, NCC

Marriage & Family Therapy. Is your example of what and how marriage works based on an excellent family history? How do you learn to have a marriage that lasts?

Communication & Stepfamily Specialist. I completed my studies in Marriage and Family Counseling at Northwest Nazarene University. I have worked as a resource specialist, teacher, and small claims mediator. I am a a wife and mother with 6 children ages 17 to 43. I work with individuals, couples, families, and groups to problem solve and uncover new areas of positive engagement. Sometimes people get stuck in what they are doing. We tend to do the same things looking for different results. I enjoy working with people to help them clarify their goals and move forward with plans to help achieve what they are after. I have a particular interest in helping people regain relationships. With couples it is incorporating the past and the future. Today's families are complicated; navigating step families, parent child, couple's and in-law relationships are not things they teach us in school. Knowledgeable support can be key. My approach to counseling is through power of choice and a realistic look at strengths and options. I believe that you are the expert of your own life and with clarity more options are available to you. I am affiliated with Clarity Counseling Connections, a non profit that aims to serve the Emmett community regardless of a persons ability to pay for professional counseling. Visit our website to choose the counselor that you think will work for you!

03/25/2026

How Does Enmeshment Happen?

It doesn’t start with closeness.

It starts with loyalty.

In two-home systems, children often learn:

To belong in one home,
they must distance themselves from the other.
It looks like connection.
It’s actually pressure.

When Loyalty Replaces Love, Children Get Stuck in the Middle

Over time, that pressure creates what we call enmeshment
not because the relationship is too close,
but because it’s no longer safe to be separate.

This is the Love–Loyalty Paradox™:
when loyalty replaces love as the glue holding the system together.

Most clinicians were trained to treat one-home family systems.

But many of our clients don’t live in one.

If you’re working with divorce, co-parenting, or stepfamilies,
this changes how you assess alignment, risk, and treatment planning.

This Friday – Boise + Live Online
6 CE Hours (Ethics, Boundaries, Su***de Assessment)
Lunch included for in-person attendees

03/23/2026

Are You Missing the Two-Home System in Your Cases?

Most counselors are trained to work with one-home families.
But many of your clients live in two.
If you are seeing:
• Divorce cases that are not improving
• Stepfamilies stuck in conflict
• Kids caught in loyalty binds
• Co-parenting that keeps derailing treatment
You may be working with a two-home system with a one-home lens.
Experts like Dr. Patricia Papernow, Larry Ganong, and Ron Deal have been clear:
Stepfamilies and two-home family systems require a different clinical approach.
(This Ron Deal video explains why.)
________________________________________
Join me this Friday in Boise for a live training on how to assess and treat two-home family systems.
✔ 6 CE hours
✔ Lunch included
✔ Real case application
✔ Also available online
If you work with divorce, stepfamilies, or co-parenting cases, this training is for you.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ethical-risk-of-treating-stepfamilies-like-nuclear-families-tickets-1983594553707
________________________________________
You are not missing something.
You were trained for a different system.

03/22/2026

Some people read a clinical story and feel,
“This is my story.”

In many ways, that response makes sense.

The patterns within two-home family systems are often predictable.
Divorce, stepfamilies, co-parenting conflict, and loyalty binds.
These dynamics show up in similar ways across different families.

The stories I share reflect those patterns.

They are not one family.
They are not one case.

They are composite experiences, drawn from both clinical practice and lived understanding, with details intentionally altered to protect privacy.

If something feels familiar or personal, I want to acknowledge that experience with respect and care.

You are not alone in what you are navigating.

03/19/2026

Caught in the Middle?

A couple came to counseling exhausted.
They loved each other.

They wanted their marriage to work.
But every session turned into the same fight.

The ex.
“She is always interfering.”
“He never sets boundaries with her."
“She controls the schedule.”
“You make everything worse.”

At first, it appeared to be a marital communication problem.
And the counselor did what most of us were trained to do.
Focus on improving communication within the couple.

But something important had never been assessed.

For over a year and a half there had been moderate to high tension in the co-parenting relationship between the two homes.

Schedule changes turned into battles.
Holidays were tense.
The kids were starting to withdraw.
And now the stepfamily struggles to attach and is starting to fracture.

This is a moment many counselors miss.
Not because they do not care.

But because most of us were trained to look at one family system in the room.

When a child lives in two homes, there are two family systems influencing the problem.

If we only assess the couple sitting in front of us, we can miss where the conflict is actually being generated.

And that changes everything about the treatment plan.

When co-parenting conflict has remained moderate to high over time, traditional couples counseling is often not enough.
The treatment plan may need to expand to include REFERRALS such as:
• Co-parenting counseling or coaching
• Structured co-parenting programs
• Individual therapy for emotional regulation or attachment wounds
• High-conflict parenting education, such as New Ways or similar models
• A stable counseling relationship for the children that remains available across developmental stages. When conflict between homes remains moderate to high over time, maintaining an ongoing therapeutic relationship can provide a neutral, safe space where children can periodically process loyalty conflicts and family stress as they grow.

Because as children move through developmental stages, they often reprocess family conflict in new ways.

Over time, we may begin to see:
Withdrawal
Loyalty binds
Resist and refuse dynamics
Sometimes, even the loss of a parent–child relationship
By the time these symptoms appear, the system has often been under strain for years.

This is why moderate to high co-parenting conflict should be addressed preventively in treatment planning.

Just as we document risk assessment and referral planning with suicidal clients, counselors working with two-home family systems may need to document referral to higher levels of care across the family system when moderate to high conflict persists between homes.

This is not about blaming parents.

It is about protecting children from prolonged exposure to unresolved conflict between the adults who love them.
Counselors cannot fix the conflict between homes alone.
But we can see it, name it, and refer appropriately as part of responsible treatment planning.

It is hard to build a stepfamily when the co-parenting relationship between the two homes has never been stabilized.

Counselors:
Were you ever trained to assess both family systems when a child lives in two homes?

If you work with divorce, stepfamilies, or high-conflict co-parenting, this is exactly what we cover in my upcoming 6-CE training on counseling in two-home family systems.

03/12/2026

A couple once told me something that stopped me in my tracks as a therapist.

“We did exactly what the counselor suggested… and things got worse,”

I asked what the treatment focus had been.

They said:

“Control what you can control.”
“Worry about your house, not the other one.”
“Keep your side of the street clean.”
“Parent in your house how you want to.”
“Treat all the kids the same.”
“Put your marriage first.”
“Accept the fact you can’t change the ex.”

All common counseling guidance.

All good guidance…in nuclear families.

But this family was living in a two-home stepfamily system.
Most counselors were never trained for that.

Quick question for counselors:
Look at your current caseload.

How many families in your office today actually live in two homes instead of one?

Divorce.
Co-parenting.
Stepfamilies.
Shared custody.

For many clinicians, it’s 50% or more of the caseload.
And those families require a different clinical lens than nuclear families.

Do you know when a higher level of care is needed?
Who to refer to?

Join us! We would love to have you!

Ethically Counseling Two-Home Families
Live in Boise / Online / March 27
Earn 6 CE Hours in the 5 Big Challenges These Families Have
• 3 Ethics
• 1.5 Boundaries
• 1.5 Su***de Assessment
Lunch included.
Bring your hardest cases.

of Divorce

Conflict Co-Parenting

03/05/2026

The counselor thought she was treating a 16-year-old girl.
She was actually treating a two-home family system.
And she missed it.

A 16-year-old girl started therapy for normal teenage stress.
Friend drama. Conflict with mom. Nothing unusual.

Then she had a major argument with her dad and refused to go to his house.

Mom supported the decision.

Dad called the counselor, confused.

“Out of nowhere, my daughter and her mom won’t talk to me. What is going on with my child?”

He had never been included in the treatment plan.

The only way he could understand what was happening was to request records.

The counselor informed the teen.

The teen told her mom.

The conflict between homes escalated.

Six months later:
• No high-conflict co-parenting assessment
• No stepfamily or two-home family systems consultation
• No resist-and-refuse referral
• No systemic intervention

The child is still being treated as an individual client.
But she wasn’t in an individual problem.

She was caught in a severe love–loyalty paradox between two homes.

High-conflict co-parenting almost always means the child is living inside a loyalty bind.

When counselors miss the two-home family system, therapy can unintentionally deepen the divide between parents and children.
Many counselors discover that over half of the children on their caseload actually live in two homes.

But most treatment models still assume a nuclear family lens.
How many children on your caseload are actually navigating two homes instead of one?

If you work with children of divorce, stepfamilies, or high-conflict co-parenting cases, this training will help you recognize the system dynamics that individual therapy alone cannot address.

Join us for this 6 CE training. 3 Ethics, 1.5 Boundaries, 1.5 Su***de Assessment
• Live in Boise
• Online option now available
• Lunch included for in-person attendees
NBCC Approved = IDOPL approved for LMFT, LCPC, LCP, LMSW, LCSW

Bring your hardest cases!!! Learn how to assess two-home family systems, loyalty binds, and when a case requires higher levels of care or specialized referral.
Register Below

02/26/2026

High Conflict: What are the Options?
This is a case clinicians call “high conflict.”

She didn’t say she felt like an outsider.
She said:
“He never puts me first.”
“The ex still runs this house.”
“The kids don’t respect me.”
“I’m tired of being last.”

It sounds like blame.
Sometimes it is.

But often, it is structural.
She loves her husband.
She is trying with the kids.
But she feels unprotected.
Unchosen.

She is on the outside of a family that existed before her.
This is Challenge #1 in every stepfamily and two-home system: Normalize it and watch the stress come down.

First question at intake:
Is this a two-home family?
Because therapy is different when it is.

The Insider / Outsider Dynamic.
It is predictable.
It is structural.
It is not a character flaw.

Most clinicians were never trained to see it.

And when we miss it, we individualize what is systemic.
There are ways to reduce loyalty binds.
Ways to strengthen leadership.
Ways to stabilize the structure.
Ways to avoid ethical landmines unique to two-home families.

Join me for a full-day clinical training:
3 Ethics CEUs
1.5 Boundaries CEUs
1.5 Su***de Assessment CEUs
Lunch included.

Live in Boise or ONLINE.

Registration link below.

02/19/2026

A teen was referred for anxiety.
She “refused” to go to her Dad’s house.
Mom believed Dad was the problem.
Dad believed Mom was alienating.
The therapist treated it like a typical anxiety case.
But one question was never asked:
“Is this a two-home family system?”
What was actually happening:
A loyalty bind.
Grief from the divorce.
And pressure to protect both parents emotionally.
Within months, the conflict escalated, therapy stalled, and the teen’s symptoms worsened.
This happens every day……not because clinicians lack skill, but because two-home systems operate under different ethical, clinical, and legal rules.

Join us tomorrow to learn:
• How to quickly identify a Two-Home Family System
• The ethical risks unique to divorce, co-parenting, and stepfamilies
• Idaho Code 1329 changes you must know
• Practical tools for assessment, documentation, and coordinated planning across BOTH homes
Come join us! Get 6 CEs in one day, lunch and mingles, right here in Boise!
Register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ethical-risk-of-treating-stepfamilies-like-nuclear-families-tickets-1979740847167?aff=oddtdtcreator

02/13/2026

Idaho Code 1329 changed therapy in two-home families. Did your practice change, too?

02/03/2026

A teen was referred for anxiety.

Overthinking.
Trouble sleeping.
Pulling away at school.

On the surface, it looked like a familiar anxiety referral.

But as I listened, the real story showed up quickly.
This teen had moved into a new two-home family system.

New stepparent.
New rules.
New expectations.
New routines.
New holidays.
New discipline style.
New emotional tone.

There had been a lot of change and no real intervention to help blend old ways with new ways.

The teen wasn’t anxious.

They were overwhelmed by too much change without support for how to integrate their previous family culture into the new one.
In stepfamily work, we name this clearly.

This is a normal response to one of the most common Big 5 challenges in two-home families:

Culture and traditions.

When family culture shifts suddenly and children are expected to simply adapt, their nervous systems often carry the cost.
Once we stopped treating the teen as the problem and started working with the two-home system around culture, routines, and expectations, the anxiety softened.

This is one of the most common clinical misses I see when we use nuclear-family models with stepfamily systems.

And it is exactly what I teach in my CE on two-home and stepfamily dynamics. Join me! Let's look at your hard stuck cases! I will show you how to map the 5 Big Challenges. If you are't in Idaho, email me, I love to train groups in other states!

More accurate systems language leads to safer care for children's fight, flight, freeze responses.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ethical-risk-of-treating-stepfamilies-like-nuclear-families-tickets-1979740847167?aff=oddtdtcreator

01/26/2026

you know when the children of divorce need a higher level of care?

When their parents move past low tension co-parenting! There are so many signs and best practices to ethically counsel these families. Follow me to learn along the way!

Address

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Emmett, ID
83617

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5am
Wednesday	10am - 5am
Thursday	10am - 5am

Telephone

(208) 918-0054

Website

http://StephSternes.com/?facebook, https://www.thehealingstoryranch.com/

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Our Story

I completed my studies in Marriage and Family Counseling at Northwest Nazarene University. I have worked as a resource specialist, teacher, and small claims mediator. I am a a wife and mother with 6 children ages 7 to 33. I work with individuals, couples, families, and groups to problem solve and uncover new areas of positive engagement. Sometimes people get stuck in what they are doing. We tend to do the same things looking for different results. I enjoy working with people to help them clarify their goals and move forward with plans to help achieve what they are after. I have a particular interest in helping people regain relationships. With couples it is incorporating the past and the future. Today's families are complicated; navigating step families, parent child, couple's and in-law relationships are not things they teach us in school. Knowledgeable support can be key. My approach to counseling is through power of choice and a realistic look at strengths and options. I believe that you are the expert of your own life and with clarity more options are available to you. I am affiliated with Methodist Counseling Center, which has its main location at 4444 W Taft Street, Boise, ID 83707. Visit the website to see all of our locations!