Emotional Flooding: How do we Stop the Conflict?
What’s the first thing to do when you and your partner are locking horns? I’m talking about situations where you each believe that your partner just needs to wake up and see the light and you feel that you keep having the same argument over and over and nothing gets resolved. This is the kind [...]
Never Assume, Never Expect
Many couples that I see in my practice have difficulty with expectations and assumptions. When we start working on improving the skills of communicating clearly, with positive regard and openess, I encourage couples to work on putting their assumptions and expectations about each other into words. It never fails to surprise me how many different [...]
Keeping Your Balance on the Tightrope
Many clients come to therapy because they are fixated on either the past or the future. Their focus on what might happen in the future creates anxiety. What happened in the past colors their thoughts and limits their ability to be ‘in the moment’. This is where the practice of mindfulness, the ability to focus [...]
Learning How to Communicate
When couples come into my office their problems usually have common themes. They express problems with “communication.” Either “we can’t agree on anything,” or “I’m afraid to say what I really think because it will cause an argument.” Couples often feel trapped, caught in a negative dynamic that they can’t break. I rarely encounter a [...]
Solutions
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is concerned with the role of thinking in how we feel and behave. There are several approaches to CBT including dialectic behavioral therapy and rational emotive therapy. They all focus on identifying maladaptive patterns of thinking and work to replace them with cognitions that promote a more effective approach [...]
