Fort Smith Therapy

03/17/2026

Therapy Myth vs Reality!!

03/16/2026

03/11/2026

If you’re raising a teenager, you’ve probably experienced at least a few of these.

How many squares can you check?

03/10/2026

Client Bingo 😄

If you’ve ever been in therapy, you might recognize a few of these.

Therapy is a space where you can show up exactly as you are — awkward starts, deep realizations, and everything in between.

How many squares would you check?

03/09/2026

Therapy Bingo 😄

How many of these have you heard as a client or said as a therapist in therapy?

03/08/2026

Please join us in welcoming Colton Cooper to Fort Smith Therapy! Colton is a Master of Social Work student at Arkansas State University and is completing his internship with us while working with both children and adults.

Colton believes people make sense in context and strives to create a space where clients feel safe exploring their experiences and moving toward what matters most in their lives. In his work with children, he incorporates play-based and developmentally responsive approaches that emphasize safety, emotional regulation, and relationship.

We are excited to have Colton as part of the Fort Smith Therapy team!

Colton would love to work with children, teens, and young adults, generally ages 4 through 30.

He has a few evenings and Saturday morning appointments open.

If you are looking for solutions to relationship issues, we can help. We provide counseling for all

03/07/2026

Our brains are wired to notice danger more than good things. That’s why it’s so important to slow down and intentionally notice the positive moments—they help retrain the brain.

The Brain’s Negative Bias

The human brain is wired with a negative bias. This means it naturally pays more attention to potential threats, problems, or negative experiences than to positive ones.

From an evolutionary perspective, this was protective. Our ancestors survived because their brains quickly noticed danger — a predator in the bushes, a sudden sound, a sign of threat. Missing a danger could be life-threatening, but missing something pleasant was rarely a survival risk.

Because of this wiring, negative experiences are processed more quickly and remembered more strongly. The brain’s threat detection system (particularly the amygdala) flags them as important and stores them deeply so we can recognise similar dangers in the future.

Positive experiences, however, don’t automatically register with the same intensity. Pleasant moments often pass through the brain more lightly unless we consciously pause to notice them.

In simple terms:
The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.

This is why one criticism can outweigh ten compliments, why worries linger longer than successes, and why children and adults often need help to notice, savour, and repeat positive experiences so they begin to 'stick' in the brain.