The Interpreted Rock

By Stephen C. Schultz In my previous article— Measuring What Matters: Oxbow’s Edge in Treatment Outcomes —I focused on the importance of tracking outcomes. The idea was simple: if we’re not measuring progress, we’re limited in our understanding. But lately, I’ve been thinking about something deeper. Because the reality is—families don’t come to us asking about data. They come to us in crisis and family turbulance. A Conversation I Won’t Forget I was speaking with a parent recently who was crying. Her speech was fast—pressured. The questions came rapid-fire, one after another. There was urgency in her voice, but also frustration. At moments, it came across as confrontational. I listened. I gave her space. After a few minutes, I asked if I could share something about myself. She paused and said, simply, “Sure.” I told her that I’ve been with Oxbow Academy since the beginning. That I’m the father of four grown children. And that my hope was we could just have a conversation— parent to par...

  By Stephen C. Schultz Over the past 30 years in the mental health field, I’ve had the privilege of working with and walking alongside hundreds of families through some very difficult, very personal situations. These are not easy conversations. They rarely are. But if there is one thing I’ve learned that holds true across every diagnosis, every crisis, every level of care, it is this:  Secrets sabotage care.  There’s a moment in almost every conversation about problematic sexual behavior (PSB) where things quietly shift. A parent pauses. A question goes unasked. A detail stays just beneath the surface. Not because you don’t care, but because you care so much . When Not Knowing Feels Safer If you’re a parent walking this road, there’s a very real tension you’ve probably felt: “Do I really want to know everything?” Because knowing can feel overwhelming. It can change how you see your child. It can introduce fears you weren’t ready to carry about safety, about sib...

By Stephen C. Schultz Birthdays have a funny way of sneaking up on us. Not the date itself, we all know that’s coming. They show up every year like clockwork. But the memories that tag along with them…those can arrive out of nowhere. It was my brother’s birthday recently. Nothing unusual about that. As I mentioned to him, he’s developed quite a streak of having one every single year! But birthdays have a strange side effect for me. They tend to send my mind wandering back down old neighborhood streets and dusty trails that only exist now in memory. I started thinking about the adventures we had as kids. There were summer hikes to “the reservoir,” which at the time felt like an expedition deep into the wilderness, even though it was probably only a couple miles from home. Of course we carried our BB guns, because every proper childhood adventure required them. We rode our Big Wheels down the street so fast that our feet couldn’t stay on the pedals. Gravity would take over, and suddenly ...

  By Stephen C. Schultz Life rarely unfolds the way we imagined it would. Everyone eventually encounters a moment in life when the story you thought you were living suddenly changes. Sometimes it changes slowly. Other times it changes all at once. A diagnosis. A mistake. A loss. A decision that carries consequences further than we expected. And in those moments, something subtle but powerful happens. We begin to ask: What does this mean? Not just what happened—but what it says about us, about our future, about our worth. I have come to believe that much of life is shaped not only by the events we experience, but by the meaning we construct around those events. Two people can walk through the same storm and come away with very different interpretations of the rain. One may say, “I can't believe I'm so dumb as to forget my umbrella!” Another may say, “Dang, I forgot my umbrella! This is kind of fun just walking in the rain! I haven't done this since I was a kid, walking to sc...

 By Stephen C. Schultz There is a certain morning in late February when you can feel it. The air is still cold, but it has softened. The light lingers just a little longer on the hills. Snow retreats in quiet surrender, and somewhere in the garage, a tackle box waits to be opened. Spring does not arrive all at once. It hints. It whispers. And for those of us who love to fish, it calls. Fishing has always been more than a pastime. It is an invitation , to slow down, to step outside, to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone you love and wait together for something you cannot force. As I’ve written before in Fishing… It’s Really About Relationships! , the tug on the line is never the whole story. The deeper story is about who is standing next to you when it happens. When I look back over the fishing reflections shared on The Interpreted Rock , I’m reminded that the real treasure has rarely been the fish. In Tangled Lines and Timeless Bonds: Fishing Stories Worth Remembering , the fo...

 By Stephen C. Schultz Before beginning, please allow me to share the personal place this reflection and article comes from. I did not set out to write about this topic in an abstract manner. Over the past year, epilepsy and a subsequent brain surgery have reshaped the daily reality of our youngest daughter, who is now 24 years old. In a quieter, but no less profound way, the lives of my wife and I have changed as parents. We have had to confront grief, recalibrate hope, and relearn what faithfulness looks like when effort does not always lead to progress. What follows is offered with gratitude and humility. Gratitude for the many families, clinicians, and fellow parents who have helped us find language when words were scarce, and humility in knowing that we are still learning. If this article helps another parent feel a little less alone, then sharing it feels worthwhile. Helping Meaning Take Root When Physical or Mental Health Challenges Change the Story There is a moment many p...

  By Stephen C. Schultz I remember a conversation I once had while driving with an educator during visits to residential programs for adolescents. We were discussing which programs seemed to work best with the most complex clinical presentations. After a pause, she said something that stuck with me: “Some programs have a reputation for working with the most clinically complicated students—and that’s not something to shy away from. It’s something to understand.” That comment stayed with me—not because it flattered any particular program, but because it raised deeper questions: Why do certain programs develop that reputation? What actually allows meaningful change to occur with students who present with layered trauma, neurodevelopmental differences, attachment disruptions, and Problematic Sexual Behavior? What kind of treatment truly meets those needs? Those questions are especially relevant when working with adolescents struggling with PSB. These are not students lacking intelligen...