The primary purpose that shame/reunion dramas fulfill in couple relationships is to bring the feeling of shame into conscious awareness so it can be metabolized. There are often secondary emotions being felt simultaneously, but shame is prominent. Because shame is one of those “hot potato” feelings that no one wants to be left holding, the roles in […]
Shame is one of the most difficult and complicated feelings that human beings must grapple with in their life’s journey. It strikes at the heart of our vulnerability and sense of self. Shame can follow actions ranging from making a simple mistake to committing the most serious violations of society’s laws and mores. Neuroscientists have […]
When couples come for treatment, they have usually determined long ago which one of them is the victim and which one is the villain in most conflictual situations in their relationships–who is the “right” one and who is the “wrong” one; who is the “good” one and who is the “bad” one; who is the […]
Competitiveness between human beings is programmed into our brains as part of our survival instinct. Competition can be a healthy and useful part of our lives in certain circumstances, but not when it occurs between family members. Parents in a mentally healthy family work to minimize the natural competition that exists between siblings. In an […]
Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of opposites attracting — the introvert marries the extrovert; the saver chooses the spender; the debutante ends up with the guy from “the wrong side of the tracks”. When the opposite characteristics of partners are consciously enjoyed as a form of balance in their relationship, they are not […]
The reliving strategies that were described in the previous post are some of the building blocks for recycling dramas. Together the brains of intimate partners nonconsciously create interactions in current life that take the form of dramatic dialogues that come out of childhood memories. These dialogues have a scripted quality that replicate the feelings from their […]
To maintain a safe treatment, the skillful therapist needs to know about the creative strategies our brains employ to force the reliving of stored childhood feelings that are waiting to be metabolized. The therapist must be able to recognize the beginning of the metabolizing process in order to reframe painful and potentially dangerous experiences between […]
One of the basic tenets of Neurodynamic Couples Therapy is that human neurobiological programming surrounding mating is pointed toward the goal of metabolizing emotions that have been locked in our brains since childhood. We believe that this is a new, more scientifically informed way of viewing the old idea of repetition compulsion–not as a destructive […]
Couples come to us for treatment because they want to stop fighting and ease their pain. They are only in our offices because they have tried everything they know to do to accomplish these two things, and they think we have the magic to make it happen. The skill of the therapist is in helping […]
All of the previous guidelines I have shared about creating safety in couples treatment are in preparation for teaching a couple to be genuinely curious about each other’s internal worlds. In previous posts, I have frequently mentioned the need for the therapist to be in an openly curious state of mind, but here I will […]