A frequent complaint that therapists hear from couples when they enter treatment is that they have felt hurt by each other. They want to tell us all about the pain that their partner has inflicted on them, and they often seem to want the therapist to declare which one of them has been the “most” […]
What is rage? My sweet little cairn terrier taught me what rage is. One day I put down her feeding bowl, and she started her meal. I needed to move the bowl slightly to get it out of my way. As I reached my hand down toward her bowl, she bit me! She had never […]
At the end of my last post, I wrote about the shame connected to childhood abuse that must be relived in couple relationships. Couples in which one or both partners were victims of childhood abuse will likely also be reliving terror. Terror is the feeling that leads to a flight or freeze response. The victim experiences […]
Because the emotion of shame usually derives from having done something “wrong” in the eyes of significant others, it is inevitably part of every important relationship. That look of disapproval or disgust that accompanies shame-filled experiences is such a blow to our self-esteem that creates so much subjective pain; it is no wonder we avoid […]
When couples come to us for treatment, they have frequently been struggling with the dysregulated emotions of trauma. Their right brains have been correctly mutually creating an outlet for these unmetabolized emotions through their recycling dramas, but the partners usually do not know what to do with them and have almost always developed a sizable amount […]
Another way of thinking about this post might be the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Couples therapists are not responsible and cannot control the timing of a couple’s desire to be together or their readiness to use therapy. Every person’s right brain (nonconscious) is completely […]
Every skilled couples therapist needs to have some ideas about what to do when the treatment doesn’t seem to be working. Fears of failure begin to creep into even the most experienced of us, so knowing how to identify the roadblocks in therapy can help us redirect the work and reduce feelings of responsibility for elements […]
In previous posts, I have explained why it is countertherapeutic to shut down the repetitive conflicts that bring couples to therapy. Within those conflicts are the unmetabolized feelings that their right brains have been waiting to experience and voice. The therapist’s job is to mine their conflicts for every possible ounce of meaningful emotions that […]
Conflicts in couple relationships hand us the potential for profound, deep, permanent change “on a silver platter”. Knowing how to respond to this opportunity is the key to effective couples treatment. Too often couple conflicts make therapists anxious, and they prematurely shut down the most fertile ground for empathy and understanding. In a previous blog post, I […]
The concept of needing conflicts is central to understanding how Neurodynamic Couples Therapy heals. Some other forms of couples treatment characterize conflict as simply an important avenue for communication and negotiation between partners. A popular notion of marital health says that couples have to fight in order to work out their differences–i.e., partners who fight together stay […]