The Relationship

Heartbreak, science and couples therapy

Posted on September 9, 2010, 11:04 am, by Tim Atkinson and received 2 Comments ».

Why does heartbreak hurt so much? There’s some new research that offers some great insights into the world of couples therapy. Ellen McCarthy writing in the Washington Post picked up the story of work at Stony Brook University of New York into what goes on inside the heads of those who are heartbroken.

If you are familiar with Imago Relationship counseling you may recall that when we first fall in love the brain releases a powerful cocktail of chemicals, which make us feel on top of the world. According to Harville Hendrix, these chemicals are important, because while we are very good at recognizing our ideal partner, we need a little time to get really connected before we discover that there’s a downside. When the initial euphoria of the drugs wears off, we begin to discover that part of being with the ideal partner is discovering some profound differences, which we need to work on together.

OK, but what if we don’t make it that far? What happens when our relationship breaks down, and we’ve gotten used to those nice drugs?

Withdrawal!!

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Tags: couples counseling, couples therapist, couples therapy, couples weekend workshop, Getting The Love You Want, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Help

Imago relationship help just got a whole lot better

Posted on August 25, 2010, 12:50 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received No Comments ».

"Ask me a question". Imago's latest interactive feature is very quick and direct

If you want relationship help, where do you start?

There’s often quite an emotional barrier to picking up a phone and saying to a stranger “My relationship could do with some help.”

It’s hard enough to even say it to yourself.

That’s why I’ve been so interested in trying to make opportunities available for people to explore a few ideas for themselves online. I’ve wanted to step away from just delivering the answers, but to create a place for you to come and have your brain cells inspired. At the heart of Imago we believe it is you who builds connection, so we want you to be able to understand what is going on.

This week I put all our various relationship education tools together into one cohesive relationship help program. I invite you to try out. It’s free. It’s helpful. And I really hope you find it fun too.

There’s opportunities to ask some of the big questions about love, but also to take some quizzes which get you thinking about how your partner is different, and how you were attracted to them in the first place. You can even test your relationship skills, in an interactive simulation of a fight with a rather irate partner. Don’t miss out on that one!

If you like you can think of this new web page as a complete online introductory course to Imago. Or you can just drop in and browse and see what you like. Don’t forget to tell your friends too.

Here’s the link to the site: http://gettingtheloveyouwant.com/free-resources

I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Marriage Counseling online – by the masses

Posted on August 19, 2010, 6:00 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 3 Comments ».

Online marriage counseling meets Jerry Seinfeld! “The Marriage Ref” is a TV show produced by Seinfeld where couples reveal their relationship problems, and a referee steps in to say who wins. Now there’s an online version. And you can be “the marriage ref”. Or you can reveal your own disputes and see which side the world votes for. Want to try it – just go to http://couplesspark.com/.

You won’t be alone when you get there, since the site was just reviewed in the Washington Post. It was created by a 27 year old bio-informatics expert, Kunmi Ayanbule, who was quoted as saying “My goal is to get couples talking, that’s what really resolves conflicts.”

When I went online to check it out, I have to confess I was expecting to be appalled. I imagined messy fights about taking out the trash, and all sorts of hideous comments from the people who can post comments. I was pleasantly surprised. I tuned in on a “conflict” between a couple who hadn’t had sex in a year. Some posted practical relationship help, although one person said “A woman who hasn’t had sex in over a year needs to RUN from this guy..red flags all over the place…She can do better…” I’m not sure how I would feel if I was the guy.

I’m wondering what the Imago couples therapy equivalent might be.. Perhaps I should try creating one? I like that “CouplesSpark” starts with a neutral statement of the relationship problems, and then gets each partner to give their perspective in a short statement. In my Imago version I would then put a little section in which the other partner comments on their perspective saying “My partner’s perspective makes sense to me because….”

Maybe the role of the commentators would be to try to understand each person even more, and could themselves also help each partner understand the other’s experience better.

Because it’s not really just the talking that matters. It’s how you talk about your relationship that really matters. On balance I like CouplesSpark because as people comment, it will bring out the different perspectives. The only thing I don’t like is that most people don’t comment, they simply vote. So in the end of the day when 5 people vote for my perspective and 2 for my partner’s, I guess that will make me a little less likely to take my partner seriously.

Here’s a thought I will leave you with. The computer scientists talk about the great singularity, when machines outstrip human intelligence, and even learn how to improve themselves. Does that mean they could become the ultimate online marriage counseling?

Tags: couples counseling, couples weekend workshop, Relationship advice, Relationship Help

Why use validation in Imago Couples Therapy?

Posted on August 17, 2010, 5:57 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 3 Comments ».

Regular readers of this couples therapy blog might have noticed something recently. Nothing! No me. Where was I?

Well, you can go and check out what has been keeping me busy at www.continue2connect.com, a new online bit of fun with a serious purpose. It’s focused around “Mike and Mary” who “do Imago” just after finishing an Imago couples weekend workshop. On the website you can sign up for a whole series of 12 episodes, one a week. They are designed for following up after a workshop, but most people would get something out of them, if not a giggle or two.

I’m writing the series as a I go, so if you signed up 4 weeks ago, you will be happy to hear I just put #5 online, and #6 which “in the can” is about validation. When I was looking at all that had been published recently for inspiration on this post, I realized that I still have validation on the mind.

For those of you new to validation, this is what we call the second main step in a dialogue. First you would mirror your partner, carefully repeating back what you had heard. And then you “Validate”, which doesn’t mean any form of clerical processing, but just simply saying “You make sense, and the reason you make sense is…”

It’s very easy to overlook the significance of validation. It doesn’t take very long in the overally process, and many people are uncomfortable with it because it’s a fine line between saying “You make sense..” and saying “You are right..” Sometimes in the middle of a difficult conversation you may just not be ready to have your partner thinking that you admitted they are right, and therefore agreed to wash the dishes for the next 3 months.

Validation goes along with Dr. Harville Hendrix’s astonishing statement, usually delivered at high volume “Your partner is not you! Got it!” Er, well yes, thanks Harville, she’s much prettier than me for a start. But what he is pointing out is that I quite often find myself saying things like “I can’t believe she said/did that - she must be nuts.”

The easiest way to dismiss someone entirely is to say that they are “nuts”. Then you can just ignore everything they say as being totally baseless. Or you can decide that they are somehow deceptive or manipulative, and that they are just saying things to you in order to further their wicked ends. What’s really underlying this kind of thinking is the assumption that if everyone behaved perfectly rationally and sensibly we would find out that they were just like us and agreed with everything we said. We wouldn’t even need marriage counseling any more!

So here I am with my partner, and she’s upset because I have done something small and insignficant that quite obviously doesn’t really matter very much, but she has decided to make a big thing out of it. She tells me about it, and of course I say “Don’t be silly, you know I love you, that’s just a silly little thing that happened that doesn’t mean anything.”

Funny thing though. That approach doesn’t often seem to work. Its a short trip from there to calling the couples counselor.

What validation is about at heart is recognizing that our partner really is quite different from us, and usually does make decisions that seem quite odd. But that when they make those decisions, for our partner, they appear to be the most logical and sensible thing. Not because they are stupid! But because they are different.

When we don’t recognize that people are different, it often means that we aren’t seeing them for who they really are, and that makes deep connection quite difficult. Validation is like saying “I see who you really are”. You say instead, “I hear what you say, and it makes sense to me, because I understand how it is that you see things that way.”

It leaves people feeling appreciated, and valued. Try it when you can. Next time you find your partner says something you really don’t understand, ask them about it, until you do understand. In Imago we would often use the question “Is there more?” to encourage our partner to open up a little more. When you’ve got it – then you can say “You make sense to me” and see how it changes the whole way they are responding to you.

Tags: couples counseling, couples therapist, couples therapy, couples weekend workshop, Happiness, Harville Hendrix, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Help

Marriage counseling help – online is the new couch

Posted on July 22, 2010, 6:02 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 8 Comments ».

Let’s face it, actually getting marriage counseling help is tough. First you have to admit to yourself that you have marriage problems, and that’s a tough one to swallow. Then you have to talk to your partner, and you know how that goes:

“Let me get this straight, you think we have marriage problems?” your partner might say “There’s nothing wrong with me!!”.

Hardly surprising then that Tara Parker-Pope, writing last month in the New York Times talks about how several groups are turning to online approaches to end marital strife. Some approaches are based on the idea of an online survey, which measures your marital health, and points out areas where you might need relationship help. Other approaches are more like Imago couples therapy, where couples learn to understand and accept each other more fully.

The underlying thought is that although an online method won’t be so powerful, couples might use it earlier than traditional marriage counseling, and so it would be more effective. I was at my dermatologist the other week, who in two minutes took off a little skin defect with his liquid nitrogen spray. Left untreated, I might have later on required a much more severe operation.

John Gottman’s research showed that most couples wait several years after problems emerge before seeking out relationship counseling. And by the time they get into couples therapy it might well be too late. If you are like me, my early experience with relationship education was pretty unimpressive. A few middle aged couples at the local church took us in and looked coyly at each other while they mentioned that “Sometimes it was hard, but its worth it in the end if you just stick with it.” So I was hardly likely to go looking for more help like that, even as the first arguments flared. And in the end I didn’t even “stick with it”. I was fortunate to have the benefit of better help for my second marriage.

So it makes perfect sense that this might become a world where we not only seek out our partners online, but then we go back online to find out how to cope with the problems that inevitably emerge. For many people who come to Imago, after years of struggle, they are astounded to find a simple and understandable approach that could have saved them years of marriage problems.

If this is the way the world is heading, then it feels good to know that Imago is heading with it, in the right direction. Just this week we launched an online education program to provide follow-up for couples who had attended our weekend workshop. And we’re continuing to expand our range of free online marriage counseling help, with some state-of-the-art interactive programs. Be part of the future, and take a look.

Tags: couples counseling, couples therapy, Getting The Love You Want, Relationship advice, Relationship Help

Good endings to relationships…perhaps?

Posted on June 23, 2010, 6:46 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 8 Comments ».

Japanese innovation leads the world yet again, this time in the field of relationships. Ending them, that is.

Reuter’s reports on ceremonies to end a marriage, held with family and friends around, and even a ceremonial gavel to smash the ring. You aren’t allowed to do that while it’s still on your ex-partner’s finger though.

The purpose of the ceremony is to help create a new beginning. “By putting an end to our marriage, we wanted to give ourselves fresh starts and give our lives a sense of renewal,” Mr. Fujii, a 33-year-old businessman, told Reuters Television.

That made sense. Now the question in my mind is whether you give yourselves a fresh start and a sense of renewal without having to buy a new ring. (Or even find a new person to put it on.)

How often do you find yourself thinking “Wow, I wish I could clear out all this messy stuff, and just start again.” I’ve just come back from 6 days deep in the Grand Canyon on a raft, with all that pristine freshness and vitality of a (relatively) undisturbed natural environment. That’s a process that helps me feel fresh, and revitalized. It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

But what happens when you walk away from your flattened and twisted lump of gold, to enter your new life, with your new love? How long does it stay fresh? How soon before the next relationship becomes heavy, constraining and burdensome? What has really changed?

Harville Hendrix often talks about the statistics for second marriages. They fail more than first marriages. What you really want to be is in a third marriage – they are usually very successful. The first time your marriage fails, people tend to blame their partner, but by the second time they begin to learn that it might be something to do with them. Most people have learned to take a good look at their part in a relationship by the third time around.

So when you have your hammer poised above the ring ready to strike, remember there’s two other options, both of them focused on creating your best chance for happiness in future relationships. Both involve working with your partner to fully understand what went wrong, and to understand the cycle that led from the delight of your first loving moments together, to the pain of your final decision to separate. Imago can support this discussion, by giving a framework within which you can understand your relationship, and a dialogue structure to talk about it safely.

If you still decide to separate after that, you may find yourself much better able to be successful in future relationships, and to be able to avoid old patterns. But the process can have unexpected outcomes. Maybe you will find that it is this process of building understanding which gives your existing relationship a fresh start, and a sense of renewal.

Marriage advice for the United States of America

Posted on June 15, 2010, 6:54 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 2 Comments ».

A nice Tea Party

No, I’m not offering marriage advice to every citizen of the land. But a good friend sent me an interesting piece of political writing from the New York Times, and pointed out the connections it made between Imago couples therapy and the way Professor J.M. Bernstein writes about anger.

Bernstein’s article looks at what he calls “The Very Angry Tea Party”. Here’s a quote. “This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down.”

My friend, Bob Drezner, a retired Imago Couples Therapist, wrote this. “. The apparent disappointment in the Other (in this case, government) is remarkably like the disappointment one can at times feel towards your partner in a primary relationship. The depression/anger/rage appears equally in both of these instances.”

Bernstein manages to write about the Tea Party movement without appearing to make any political judgment about whether they are “right” or “wrong”. Instead, he listens to what they say, and more particularly, to the underlying emotions with which they say it. That in itself sounds like a page out of a text book about dialogue. He talks about how all of us have chosen a relationship with government, which mirror’s marriage in some ways. We long for a good government, who responds rationally and with care for our needs. When it appears to become ineffectual, it does feel like a loss of faith, and bring forwards the emotions that one might reserve for a lover who fails us.

The saddest warning note in Bernstein’s article was when he pointed out that one word for divorcing your government is revolution.

Imago is about listening and hearing, and recognizing the emotions of those we hear, and as Drezner wrote to me ” I was just struck by the parallels presented to the world of Imago. It seems to me a wonderful way to understand the Tea Party issue especially in light of the article you sent out about Harville and Helen.”

Ah yes! There was indeed another article published this week, in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Writer Susan Hampson noted Hendrix’s early history as a preacher, and called her article “The Love Gospel according to Dr. Hendrix.”

Hampson inspired Hendrix to deliver some characteristically powerful material. From the Globe and Mail: “We have discovered that the violence on the planet arises out of the dysfunction in the family, the core of which is the couple.” The statement gets put out there, just like that. No gentle introduction. He rephrases for clarity. “All violence on the planet is the family writ large.” He pauses as if to let his audience absorb it. “We now know where the demon is of the human tragedy, the human problem. The demon is in the family.”

On one level we have a national family breaking down. Bernstein points out that the concept of the old fashioned political meeting is going out of style, because people are so angry that the meetings become disrupted. The national family has left the dinner table discussion in a rage, and slammed the bedroom door behind it.

Yet here is Hendrix saying that to restart real discussion we need to start within our own families. It is there that we can learn the language of listening and understanding. We can learn how to understand our deepest fears and not let them overcome us, but to enable us to share the fears of others.

Hendrix’s marriage advice for United States of America seems to be to learn to listen again, and to understand, so we can all work together to create the world we dreamed of, and which now sometimes feels beyond our grasp.

Alanis Morissette wedding – congratulations from Imago

Posted on June 9, 2010, 7:26 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 3 Comments ».

Alanis Morissette is one of Imago’s fans! So we’re very excited to hear that she married recently in a small private ceremony. So private – that it took the media two weeks to even find out about it. But her relationship success adds a new meaning to the beautiful video she recorded showing her appreciation of Imago.

Alanis’ big hit was “Jagged Little Pill” , a deep soul-searching and emotional tour-de-force. Wikipedia says “The album is considered one of the most successful albums of all time for its many commercial achievements, received awards and cultural resonance, world-wide.” The emotional tensions of the album also seemed to characterize her life, with the media hanging onto every rumour about her long-term relationship with actor Ryan Reynolds. Hardly surprising then that she didn’t let them get a whiff of her marriage to singer Mario (Souleye) Treadway until well after the wedding. Good for her!

And congratulations to Alanis and Souleye on their marriage.

When to give relationship advice, or not?

Posted on May 26, 2010, 4:15 pm, by Tim Atkinson and received 8 Comments ».

The delight of being a blogger is searching for what to write about. It sends me scouring the internet for articles of interest about couples therapy. And in the process I came across a short blog post on psychology today which really got me thinking. In the post, Joni Johnston PysD talks about three things to consider before giving relationship advice. Since she is the author of the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology” I like her take on things.

What are friends for, if not to give advice in time of need? And this struck a chord with me personally, because I often find people coming to our website looking for relationship help. Dr. Johnston gave some sound advice, along the lines of how a coach would work. You can help the person who asks advice find their own answer, by asking them a series of questions which help them think the problem through.

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Tags: couples counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationship advice, Relationship Help, relationship issues

Couples counseling across the happiness divide

Posted on May 24, 2010, 11:38 am, by Tim Atkinson and received 4 Comments ».

Believe it or not, in some circumstances, being too happy can notch up your need for couples counseling!

Regular addicts of this column may recall my obsession with connecting relationship help and happiness. Voyagers to the mountain kingdom of Bhutan can enjoy a country whose success is measured in happiness, and that good relationships are honored as the best path to a happy life.

Unless you are a man who is happier than your wife.

At least that’s the conclusion of one recent study from Germany entitled “You can’t be happier than your wife: Happiness Gaps and Divorce”. If the husband is much happier than his wife, the couple is much more likely to split up, according to statistics from thousands of couples in three European countries. But not if the wife is happier than the husband.

OK guys, if you want to avoid a trip to couples therapy, one strategy is to start looking glum at home.

While my mind as whirling from this one, I came across the delightful news from England, that guys could guarantee long-term domestic bliss if they did four household chores a week. I always thought that newspapers were supposed to print news, so apparently it was news to some when the London Times published the article under the headline “Husbands who help in the house less likely to divorce“.

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Tags: couples counseling, couples therapist, couples therapy, Happiness, Marriage Counseling