TODD SCHMENK, MS, MEd

My work begins with a simple observation: people change when they understand the context they are in. Not the story they tell about the context, and not a diagnosis that categorizes it, but the actual functional relationship between what they are doing, what they are experiencing, and what the situation is calling for. That distinction matters more than it might first appear.

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The frameworks that shape my thinking are Functional Contextualism, Relational Frame Theory, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Functional Contextualism treats behavior as an ongoing act in context rather than a symptom of an internal condition or a category to be named. Relational Frame Theory offers a rigorous account of how human language and cognition work, and why the things we tell ourselves can become the context we are most trapped inside. ACT is the applied extension of these ideas, offering specific ways to help people move toward what they value even when their history and their mind are pointing in a different direction.

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These are not techniques I apply or systems I memorize. They are lenses that help me ask better questions about why behavior makes sense given its history, and what would need to shift for something more workable to become possible.

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Much of what I write here grows out of more than two decades of clinical practice, teaching, and supervision. That said, this site is not a clinical resource and it is not a training platform. It is a space for careful, unhurried thinking about how change actually happens and why it so often does not happen the way people expect.

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I am particularly drawn to moments of stuckness. Not stuckness as a sign that something is broken, but stuckness as a signal that a once workable strategy has outlived its context. That tension shows up in therapy rooms, in professional transitions, in relationships, and in the quieter space of one's own internal experience. Writing allows me to stay with those moments long enough to understand what they are pointing toward.

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Some of what appears here will find its way into books. Some will remain as essays, reflections, or theoretical explorations. All of it is an effort to speak honestly about what makes change more likely, what gets in the way, and what it means to move in a direction that matters.

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If you are drawn to depth, to ideas that aim to be lived rather than mastered, and to thinking that takes the messy reality of human experience seriously, you are in the right place.