For this post, I will list the most common disruptive communication mechanisms/patterns that people use when receiving another person’s emotions. People come into my office all the time asking for assistance with communication, loneliness, and lacking connection. In other posts I have described what ‘to do’ when your goals are to be compassionately empathetic – for this post, […]
Category Archives: Communication
Double Binded Communication
Often we send ‘mixed messages’ to people. It can be a source of dis-ease in a relationship when a partner or loved one is giving you two opposing messages at the same time. This creates a double-bind as there is not an effective way to respond correctly to the communication. Most commonly the opposing messages are […]
Attunement Exercise
In building an empathetic ability it is very important that people first advance their ability to attune to another person. I will briefly explain attunement, then I will offer a practical – easy to use – intervention.
Feedback loop in a Couples interaction
Quick summary: In a Couples interaction there tend to be dynamics that are reoccurring which spiral out of control and lead to a vicious cycle in which resolution in highly unlikely. I will offer a tool to be used by a therapist to help a couple in isolating and reflecting upon their cycle. Once the […]
Relationship Help | “My partner says that I don’t listen” | how to meet the emotional needs of your partner
I am going to talk to you about what you should be paying attention to and what you should not be paying attention to while trying to become a better listener in your relationship.
Compassionately Assertive – Maintaining Boundaries without Aggression – using empathy and clarity to get your needs met
Quick summary: This post will explain how to use empathy, self-awareness, and assertiveness to ensure that your personal boundaries are respected by others. Often we have a difficult time when an instance calls for decisive action in order to help the environment to respect our individual boundaries. Some react with aggressiveness that protects a person’s own boundaries yet often violates another person’s boundaries in the process. Other people are wary of engaging with conflict and therefore choose to not defend themselves or they choose to use an avoidance strategy. I am going to suggest that it is possible to be both assertive and compassionate when helping another person to stop violating your boundaries.
Parenting questions for couples – Questionnaire to increase synergy, collaboration, empathy, and overall understanding for couples who are co-parenting a child.
The intention of this exercise is to foster an open dialog surrounding the different parenting philosophies and different desires/dreams that each individual has for their children. As a person gains a greater insight into their partner’s philosophies along with a greater understanding or the emotional significance of those philosophies, they become better able to meet their partner’s parental and spousal, and individual needs.
Play therapy explained | How to use play therapy | Attuning to your child | how and why it works
Quick Summary: Play therapy is an effective and developmentally accommodating way for a child to communicate emotional or otherwise ‘complex’ information to an adult. A child will often tell you about what they are currently feeling or thinking about with their toys or drawing etc… If an adult can pay attention to the story line or scenario that the child is enacting with their toys (puppets, action figures, dolls, cars etc) the adult can gain an understanding of something that the child is unable to communicate with verbal language (be careful not to over analyze; often children are simply re-enacting something they saw on a TV show etc.) When a child feels as though an adult can understand them they feel secure and validated in who they are… they also feel secure that the adult can meet their basic needs and their attachment needs. The security which arises from empathy and understanding promotes healthy relational, emotional, cognitive and physical growth for humans of all ages.
What is empathy? How do I know if I am experiencing empathy?
Quick summary – Empathy is when a person opens up their emotional boundaries and allows another person’s feeling to be cradled and nurtured within the loving hands of his/her understanding. Empathy is holding a narrative of another person and allowing yourself to feel the person’s emotions related to his or her storyline while understanding that these are not your own emotions.
Anger and Arguments – Are you defending the topic or your self?
Quick summary: as part of increasing your self-awareness I suggest that you take a look at the topics that really get you ‘heated’ with the goal of coming to an understanding of how you personally identify with that topic. In this self-exploration you might just find that your emotion has very little to do with the topic and is perhaps more related to: an unresolved occurrence from you past, or an attempt to create a stable sense of who you really are (your identity), or both.
Empathy building exercise – learning to be empathetic – increasing emotional understanding
Quick summary: In difficult times often we really want someone to ‘just be there for us’ and to ‘show compassion and understanding for what we are dealing with’ as opposed to offering pragmatic solutions or taking initiative to ‘fix it.’ In short people very often simply want empathy and they can feel worse, alone, or misunderstood if their confidant goes into problem solving mode. In this post I will give you a methodology as to how to offer empathy to a person. The process might not feel genuine at first, but by understanding and utilizing this technique you will eventually grow a more sincere empathetic ability.
Premarital counseling questions | life long commitment questionnaire | questions for a long & happy relationship
Quick summary: This is a premarital or a life long commitment questionnaire that I developed to encourage partners to talk openly about subjects that tend to have a significant impact on the success of a marriage or other long-term relationships. This questionnaire is suitable for people of all different cultures and religions and for any two people who desire a lasting relationship. It is often very helpful to seek out the assistance of a therapist for such an exercise as some of the questions can be rather difficult; a therapist can help a couple to process their answers in a safe and constructive fashion. To therapists I would suggest that you read the questions and have the couples answer the questions to each other (have them face each other and not you the therapist). A therapist should tell the clients that they can ask for assistance in a future session if any subjects need more therapeutic attention… without this disclaimer it could be rather difficult to finish the questionnaire in a single session (if you have no such time constraints than you can decide with your clients what the ideal process would look like).
Why are people Defensive? Reducing the anxiety of change
Defensiveness is a behavior that people consciously and unconsciously engage in to avoid the anxiety which inevitably arrives with change. Change requires us to drop our perceptions of permanence… this means that when we change we are offered an experienced example of how our concept of self is ever transient… it can feel uncomfortable to be reminded that who we think that we are is not quite as fixed or stable as we like to believe. People are often defensive to maintain the illusion of an unchanging identity… the belief is that if you defend against suggestions of change you will be able to avoid the anxiety involved in altering your identity or your beliefs. Of course people are also defensive when they fear that your suggestions will have a negative impact on beliefs, people, and organizations etc that are very important to them… In this way people are defending against a perceived threat. For this piece I will be talking about defensiveness when a change is proposed that could be perceived as beneficial by the person receiving the suggestion… when a person is willing to consider that the suggested change might be in their best interest.
Psychotherapy Forum – Start a new Topic and Join the Discussion in the Wellness Forum
I have set up a Wellness forum for the readers of this blog… Start a new Topic and Join the Discussion in the Wellness Forum.
Tips for getting your Attachment needs met in your adult relationships
meeting the needs of your partner is a great way of meeting your own needs… having your partner meeting your needs is a great way for them to meet their own needs… meeting your own needs is a great way to make yourself more able to meet the needs of others… meeting the needs of a relationship meets individual and collective needs at the same time…when the needs of a group and the individuals that make up that group are met, all people involved tend to feel happier and healthier.
Spend your energy on that which you can truly influence
Quick summary: How much time and energy do you spend on things that appear to be urgent and important that are not particularly urgent or important to you, your family, or your community directly? My sister sent me an article about how little of an effect politics and government agendas actually have on the more important variables concerning a population such as longevity and overall quality of life. The author provided some very compelling research that very much substantiated his point… he displayed how dramatic government policy shifts ended up having very little effect on variables we tend to think of as most important. I then was reading a condensed version of ‘The seven habits of highly effective people’ and found that the author said somewhat of the same thing… spend most of your energy on that which you can significantly influence. Other saying started popping in my head such as “think globally act locally”… I came to the realization that I completely agree… my intention would be to do so… but I too get caught up in over thinking about issues that I really don’t have much control over. The process is detrimental on a range from wasted energy all the way to being destructive and isolating as the energy spent often does not produce while it does create more conflict.
Attachment – why we say and emote one way when we truly feel and think a different way
Quick summary: I was just re-reading some articles on Emotionally Focused Therapy and on Attachment Theory and I thought I might offer a noteworthy piece of information. Often we say what we don’t mean and we offer an emotional response which is different from how we truly feel in order to protect ourselves from attending to our attachment concerns or fears… ok, so what does that mean? Quite simply it is easier to attack, avoid, defend or distract than it is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to express your vulnerability concerning an important relationship… it is easier to be mad than it is to be sad… very often anger and emotional withdrawal are very effective means of distracting yourself from your sadness or your fear. Vulnerability arrives when we acknowledge that we hold fear about losing relationships which are important to us… Relational bliss lies within the honesty of allowing yourself to acknowledge your vulnerability in a supportive and empathetic relationship.
Externalization – you are with the problem… you are separate from the problem
Quick summary – externalization is a technique from Narrative therapy which uses language to separate a person from their problem so that the person is better able to manage that problem. The basic idea is that it is easier to fix a concern if the concern is not rigidly attached to the person’s identity or personality (you are not stubborn… you use stubborn behavior). In this way the therapist would help a person to see that they are not a depressed person… but rather they are a person living with depression. This process offers perceptual freedom to a person… If they no longer view themselves as innately depressed then they can choose what to do with the depression which is with them (as it never was truly part of them). Narrative theory tends to view diagnosis as counter productive as a diagnosis encourages a person to over identify with the label… this takes away the person’s freedom and hope.
Harmful Interaction Patterns – which do you do and what can help?
Quick summary – Dr. John Gottman has done extensive research on the variables which affect a stable marriage (or committed relationship). He is able to predict with just over 90% accuracy if a couple will eventually divorce after as little as 5 minutes of observation. He isolated four interaction patterns (he calls them the 4 horsemen) which are potentially devastating to a relationship. The interaction patterns to work on are contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. Please note that we all engage in these interaction patterns… the harm is related to frequency, degree and the absence of reparation strategies and a firm relational foundation. You might not be aware that you are using any of these patterns… couples therapy can help increase your awareness of what interaction you tend to utilize (and why) and what you can do to improve the interactions in your relationship.
Can you be too close? – Enmeshment and automatic emotions transfer
Quick summary: When I say ‘too close’ I mean to say that there are some relational bonds which are so intertwined that the individuals in the relationship have a difficult time deciphering what is their ‘stuff’ and what is their partner’s or other person’s ‘stuff’. One of the most common aspects of an enmeshed (too close – completely intertwined – no significant boundary between the individuals) relationship is the inability to avoid mirroring or taking on the emotional disposition (mood) of the other person. In such a relationship the individual will empathically ‘feel’ the emotions of the other person and will automatically feel the same way or a set way (if one person gets embarrassed the other will feel embarrassed as well). When a relationship is enmeshed the individuals can also tend to have a limited ability to accept that the other person can hold a differing subjective perception or opinion than themselves (this will be cover in another blog – today’s topic is emotional transfer). Increasing self-awareness while creating an awareness of the existence of enmeshment in the relationship are the first steps towards reducing the phenomenon.