Category: Marriages & Couples
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Interventions in Relational Counseling
Relational therapy utilizes various acronym-based models to guide therapists. It emphasizes the importance of integrating different theoretical approaches for effective interventions, highlighting key intervention styles, including behavioral, pragmatic, structural, and more. These styles collectively support system needs and adaptability, allowing therapists to fluidly adapt techniques based on clients’ evolving dynamics.
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Happy Relationship – loving another as yourself – loving we to love me
A relationship is a system… it is a whole with interconnecting parts – and the whole ends up being greater than the sum of its’ parts so lets think about this is a ‘couple’ context – you and your romantic partner (though yes this could apply to any relational system) what are some of the…
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What is the purpose of Marriage?
In this post I will share some of the variables that can be experienced from a life long commitment or marriage. The purpose is to create somewhat of a road map to help you and your partner to identify the strengths of your bond and those areas that could use some attention. This could also…
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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…
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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.
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Relationship feel stuck? Try pretending that you don’t know everything about your partner
So what is the solution… pretend that you don’t know your partner at all… the more that you can honestly engage in this suggestion the more you will find that you actually don’t know your partner as well as you thought (in a good way).
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Parenting fundamentals – The basics for co-parenting your children
Quick summary: I will very briefly outline what I have found to be the most common ideas shared in the immense amount of parenting literature out there. I will give you ideas to think about as you work with your partner to create a supportive environment for your children.
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‘not -talked-about’ themes in Human Sexuality – normalizing
Quick summary – the topic of ‘normal’ or ‘day to day’ sex is perhaps not always given as much attention as could be helpful to the masses. As sexual education slowly decreases while pornography and celebrity gossip increases we find ourselves in a society that does not always know if they are more different or…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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What is Love? How do I know if I am in love or have experienced love? Love is selflessness and felt security… love is also a physical and emotional feeling
Quick summary: The reason that love is so difficult to define has much to do with the fact that the word “love” means far too many things in the English language. I will define the three most common definitions of love. Love is a euphoric to terrifying rollercoaster ride of emotions, love is a label…
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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…
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Human Sexuality and Stress Management
Quick summary: Sex has a positive impact on stress and yet stress has a negative impact on sexual frequency and desire. I have two suggestions: one, intentionally engage in practices that reduce the distracting power of stress so that you and your partner are more able to focus on the potential of sexuality in the…
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Argumentative? Dichotomies in conversations lead to arguments not solutions
Quick summary – Couples and politicians alike commonly experience unnecessary unpleasant emotional reactions and a failure to reach a resolution do to the use of false dichotomies in conversation. Dichotomous thinking is what people commonly refer to as “either or thinking” or “black and white thinking” – basically people oversimplify issues so as to believe…
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Does being drunk make you uninhibited? | alcohol, authenticity and primal instinct
Quick summary: Alcohol comes up quite a bit in counseling as most people who have drunk until intoxication have a story about how a drunken occurrence impacted a relationship. Clients have noticed that there is somewhat of a correlation between being drunk and having affairs… the question then naturally arises, “Does being drunk make you…
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Love with the mind, the body and the spirit
Quick summary: We experience love with the mind the body and the spirit… to maximize the love in your relationship you can focus on all three…
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Love is something we experience with our emotions
This sounds very obvious – what is less understood is that many people impact their ability to love by using logic and other defenses to guard themselves from the suffering that love can bring. As a couples therapist I can suggest that when you guard yourself from being emotionally impacted from your partner, you often…
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Past blame or “whose fault it is” and on to solutions
Quick summary: whose fault is it? This question is a big one from governmental to family politics. How does assigning fault help in the solution? The most common argument is that “if people know that they were wrong than they will not make the same choice again in the future.” the problem with this logic…