Benefits of Couple’s Therapy
Relationships change as individuals move through normal life stages and with these changes, the ability of the partners to effectively communicate is essential. Even healthy relationships can use a tune up occasionally. Couples therapy can provide many benefits to couples who are experiencing difficulties in their relationship. Here are some of the key benefits:
1. Improved communication: Couples therapy can help couples learn how to communicate more effectively, which can improve their ability to express their needs, listen to their partner, and work through conflicts.
2. Increased intimacy: By working through issues that may be causing distance or disconnection in the relationship, couples therapy can help increase intimacy and strengthen the emotional bond between partners.
3. Resolving conflicts: Couples therapy can help couples identify and resolve conflicts in a healthy way, which can lead to a more harmonious and peaceful relationship.
4. Building trust: Couples therapy can help couples rebuild trust after a breach, such as infidelity or lying, by providing a safe and supportive environment for couples to work through these difficult issues.
5. Developing new skills: Couples therapy can teach couples new skills and strategies for maintaining a healthy relationship, such as problem-solving, conflict resolution, and effective communication.
Overall, couples therapy can help couples strengthen their relationship, improve their communication, and develop the skills they need to navigate the ups and downs of life together. Reach out and we can get started today.
One-up/One-down Relationship Pattern
As a marriage counselor, I find this relationship pattern showing up in many different couples. While neither partner is to blame and neither part is better than the other, the couple is caught in the pattern of behavior.
The two parts to this relationship pattern do not function one without the other. Many times, both partners tend to think that the over-functioner is the one who is more capable, healthier and more complete. The success of the over-functioner, however, is built by both agreeing to make one self out of two. The over-functioner takes on the functional self of the other. Basically, both have agreed to this unbalanced functioning status. One assumes the “one-up” position and the other volunteers the “one-down” position. Connection is lost when this pattern shows up.
You may be over functioning when what you do puts you “one-up” on the other person.
Worrying about someone else.
Feeling responsible for others, thinking you know what’s best for someone else.
Doing things for others that they could do for themselves
Giving advice before it is requested. Expecting others to do it your way.
Talking more than listening.
Having goals for others that they do not have for themselves.
Taking over someone else’s task without being asked.
The Inability to listen to complaining
Criticizing/Judging others
Believing you are responsible for someone else’s feelings.
Symptoms: Overwhelm, resentment, anxiety, lonely, headaches, weight gain, heart disease.
Under Functioning: To assume the “one-down” position.
Asking for advice – when what is needed is to think things through.
Not making decisions –Getting other to help – when help is not needed.
Listening more than talking
Setting goals but not following through with them
Acting irresponsibly
Excessive complaining
Habitually letting others have their way. Not taking initiative.
Blaming and victim stance
Believing others are responsible for your feelings
Symptoms: Depression, lonely, sleep problems, digestive problems.
The under-functioner tends to dump the problem or question into the lap of the nearest over-functioner. When we under-function, we imagine that we feel the way we do because of what someone else is doing, and that others ought to make us feel better. Rather than commit to a course of action that might have undesirable results, the under- functioner will put off making any decisions at all. An under-functioner waits for someone else to decide or simply lets events take their course.
Sources and more reading on this and other relationship patterns:
Jeffrey A. Miller, The Anxious Organization
Roberta M. Gilbert, MD, Extraordinary relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions
Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., The Dance of Anger,
Bob Duggan & Jim Moyer, Resilient Leadership
Janet’s Reading List
Reading list
Recently, I was having a conversation over dinner with Annie Cheng, owner of The Table Less Traveled. We were discussing our challenges regarding relationships in business and with family. The subject turned to the books I love. This is a collection of books about relationships with your intimate partner, your family, teams at work and managers up and down the organization.
Both at work and at home relationships can be a struggle. We all battle with balancing independence and connection in our relationships. We want to be close and connected to loved ones, but we also fear losing our independence. In some ways, each of these books address this struggle and help the reader become more aware of their own needs and patterns in this area. This is a collection I put together for Annie because each one of these books has helped me resolve a relationship challenge of my own.
Hold Me Tight – Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, by Dr. Sue Johnson. Sue compares relationship struggles to a dance! Whether the dance is positive or negative, the dance continues the same until one partner takes a different step, thereby changing the dance. The idea of the relationship dance in this book helped me change my marriage. I was able slow down and take a new step and my husband changed his steps. Our marriage dance became more fun.
Extraordinary Relationships – A New Way of Thinking about Human Interactions, by Roberta M. Gilbert, M.D. Sometimes the way we interact with our partners is intended to get them to react differently. Gilbert writes about how we pull from our experience as children to manage our ourselves in anxious situations. The over/underfunctioning pattern in a relationship is one of the most common, and the one that speaks to me. When my anxiety is high, I struggle with wanting to take over, give advice and “fix” everything. This is my overfunctioning behavior. I am learning to notice my anxiety as it builds and to slow down this automatic response.
Rising Strong – The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution,by Brene’ Brown. Although, I am a fan of all Brene’s books, this book one spoke the loudest to me. Brene’ is a master storyteller and her stories of struggle and vulnerability are inspiring. The story that strikes me is her question, “Are people doing the best they can?” When I started asking this question about the people around me, I found more compassion and empathy. I have tendency to self-criticize and over think. Asking this question of myself, helped find more compassion and empathy for myself.
Mating in Captivity – Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, by Esther Perel. This book is as fun as it sounds. Esther Perel is a couple’s therapist. She explains that the most erotic aspects of sex are uncertainty and unpredictability, and how to keep them alive in a secure relationship. I won’t be sharing my personal story on this one!
Moving to the other side of my bookshelf, I have four books that are my current favorites. My first career is in the business world and I continue to work in small business settings. Unique to small businesses is the small group of owners mixed with owners’ families and the resulting relational challenges. These books focus on your roll of leader in the group.
The Power of Presence – Unlock your Potential to Influence and Engage Others, by Kristi Hedges. I found this book by accident. I was preparing for a training and wanted to work on my presentation skills. I have done Toastmasters, and have been coached and worked on all the “rules” of speaking, but I just never felt at ease in front of an audience. I imagine my audience did not feel much better. I found a LinkedIn article by Kristi titled, “throw out all the rules of public speaking!” So, I bought the book. She writes about finding your authenticity as a leader and speaker. The exercises in the book helped me find my unique style as a speaker. As a result, I gave the training from my unique perspective and spoke from place of passion and energy.
The Anxious Organization, by Jeffrey A Miller. This is a short, easy to read narrative packed with examples of management and organizational dysfunction. Although I thought I was a different person at work than at home, I notice that some of the same patterns were occurring. The business perspective in this book made sense to me. The challenges of the teams were the perfect illustrations of systemic organizational issues. When the system is the focus, individuals in the system can change the patterns. I applied these techniques to my relationships at work and at home.
Resilient Leadership – Navigating the Hidden Chemistry of Organizations by Bob Duggan and Jim Moyer. The copy of this book on my bookshelf is in well worn. The pages are dog-eared, and there are yellow sticky notes sticking out all over. Resilient Leadership is a narrative focusing on one middle manager and his anxiety responses at work and at home. Bob and Jim’s illustration of systems thinking helped me see my role in challenging relationships with my coworkers and my boss. Although I’ve read it a couple of times, I am currently working with a group to go through it again chapter by chapter.
Resilient leadership 2.0, by Bob Duggan and Bridgette Theurer. Not quite dog-eared yet, this is a new book (2017) from the same group as above. In time, it may replace the original as my “go-to.” Bob and Bridgette discuss the concepts of systems thinking with real examples of managers struggling with dysfunction in their teams.
Reactive Behaviors - Dysfunctional Patterns
It all begins with an idea.
Change in families and organizations starts with the individual. The following is an excerpt from Resilient Leadership: Navigating the Hidden Chemistry of Organizations, by Bob Duggan and Jim Moyer. Below are examples of how we might soothe our anxiety. I address these problematic behaviors working with couples in marriage counseling and individual life coaching.
Either/Or thinking – Reactivity results in simplistic black and white categories. There is no grey, no nuance in the midst of reactivity. It’s all or nothing, you’re for us or against us, and anything less than complete agreement is seen as total disagreement. The result of this kind of functioning is a polarization of people and positions, with an adversarial approach to every contentious relationship.
Victim Mentality – Reactivity often surfaces as hypersensitivity, a perennial stance of woundedness in the face of other’s behaviors or even just life’s outrageous fortunes. The result is a flight from responsibility. “It is never my fault; the other is always to blame and I am inevitably the innocent victim who cannot be held accountable for circumstances beyond my control.” Ironically, the flip side of this also surfaces sometimes in the form of blaming self, even though there is no objective basis to do so.
Deadly Serious – Reactivity can mask itself in the guise of a learned, grave attitude where everything is treated with a deadly seriousness. There is no lightness, no humor to offer perspective; rather, reactive functioning can seem to operate in slow motion, as if one were wading through the heaviness of molasses. Another flip side to look for is a kind of nervous joking that is actually a way to mask one’s reactivity.
Impulsive/Thoughtless – Just the opposite of slow motion heaviness, another typically reactive way of functioning is to refuse to take time for thoughtful deliberation. Every situation triggers an immediate response; every new development requires quick action, and judgement comes only by way of an afterthought.
Invasive Behaviors – Automatic functioning is oblivious to the need to respect appropriate boundaries. This can manifest itself in behaviors such as disregard for proper channels of communication, ignoring or subverting the democratic process, refusing to play by the rules, over-functioning beyond one’s mandate/area of competency, offering unwanted advice, and trying to step in and “fix” others’ problems whether they want the help or not.
Focus on Crisis – Reactivity is often manifested in an excessive focus on pathology, to the point of ignoring the positive, healing potential present in every situation. This orientation often results in too much time and energy spent on the lowest functioning, least productive, most troubled members of the organization.
Narrow Vision – Reactivity narrows one’s range of vision. One gets “stuck” on a preoccupation with rituals, procedures and policies rather than being able to see the big picture. When situations present themselves, reactive functioning results in an exclusive focus (e.g., on the content of the issues), without regard for the surrounding context or the emotional dynamics underlying the issues. At the extreme end of this pattern is insensitivity to one’s environment and to other people that amounts to a real blindness. People who are accident-prone (with cars or relationships) may be “blind” in this way.
Hijacked Thinking – Reactivity occurs when feeling processes overwhelm thinking processes. Emotions – whether anger, sadness, elation, or whatever – can often be so powerful as to make careful thought nearly impossible. Because chronic anxiety is part of our automatic functioning, it is often much more difficult to realize our capacity for thoughtfulness has been compromised by anxiety-driven reactivity.
Limited Repertoire – Reactivity limits one’s ability to think and act creatively. In the grip of reactive functioning, the range of available options always appears less than it is in reality.
Easily Stampeded – Reactivity produces “groupthink” and results in people being easily swayed by emotional appeals, mindlessly following the crowd, over-reacting to perceived threats and so forth.
Rebellion/Submission – Both patterns can be forms of reactivity, two sides of a single coin. Stubborn refusal to comply with reasonable requests is a reactive as complete willingness to submit, regardless of the price.
Dominating/Scapegoating – Again, both behaviors are aspects of a particular form of reactivity. When chronic anxiety has resulted in a person feeling a loss of control, either of these behaviors aims at regaining control by claiming a superior position in the relationship.