When to give relationship advice, or not?
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.
People often think of couples counseling as the therapist being an expert, ready with some great relationship advice, which solves the problem. And we’re often ready to step into the role, especially when asked by someone who seems to be in genuine pain.
All of this makes me think twice about what is actually happening when I give relationship advice. What if I give the wrong advice? That can be fairly damaging. But it seems kinder than giving no advice at all.
What I’ve learned from Imago can be quite helpful, because that is all about discovering more and more some-one’s story. Imago has taught me to listen carefully to someone, and to ask to hear more in a way which helps people look more deeply into themselves. That’s a great skill when it comes to advice giving. Maybe just the listening is all you need to do. In Imago we recognize that even more than being heard, people like to know that others think they make sense, and can understand and share their feelings. These are all the skills of great dialogue, and maybe a great alternative to giving specific advice.
But when it does come down to advice, I’ve found a fall-back recently, that neatly avoids me having to give a whole load of advice, especially when usually all I hear from people is one-side of the story. Imago is based on believing that if people understand the dynamics of their own relationship, it can give them a lot more hope. If you can’t make head nor tail out of what is going on with your partner – than can be pretty disconcerting.
So I often find myself responding to requests with sharing a little about what Imago can offer. “Is There Hope for me?” people ask. Well yes, a relationship is a journey through the power struggle, and however hopeless it looks down there, you only got there because you loved each other. And so on. I put some of these pieces of relationship help right on the top page of our website the other day, and they seem to be going down well.
I think being asked for relationship advice is a great honor. It’s nice to have a chance to think about how to respond well.
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My husband and I have been to an Imago workshop and have seen an imago therapist. I hae even read “Getting the Love You Want” twice to try to get a handle on what is going on in our relationship. I guess that he and I are going through what you Imago people would call the “power struggle”. We have been going through it since very early on in our relationship, which I would say makes for about 9 years of power struggle. The couselor that we saw was not so huge on advice, but huge on telling us what was going on for us. He was so eager to show us that he could draw lines from what was going on to our childhood that he often forgot to listen. Sometime he was right, sometimes he was wrong. But, the point is that in our regular everyday lives we do not have a counselor sitting by our side hypothesizing on why we are behaving the way we are behaving now. If the therapist does not allow the client to uncover his/her own truth then therapy is useless. It results in a few weeks of feeling better as a couple until some crisis or conflict comes up again. Then it’s back to the therapist to resolve the conflict. The one thing that I see that is missing in Imago, and please correct me if I am wrong, is how to cultivate awareness of self. I’ve seen a lot of talk about mindfullness on the imago website. But, I don’t see how that mindfullness is cultivated in the imago process. If one partner is extremely outward focused, insisting that his/her woes are caused by those around them, then they can take the imago dialogue and turn it into a diatribe on why the outside world should change so that they can behave differently. In the behavior change request, an unaware person may request that their partner do something that actually just caters to their woundendness. I for one would much rather discover my wounds and heal them myself, rather than depending on the world around me to change so that I can be comfortable in woundedness. No thanks. My point is….doesn’t the process of imago require two “mindful” or aware adults? This is where I feel that I am in my relationship. My husband has found a trigger for himself and insists that the answer now is that I just cease to trigger him. Ha. Good Luck with that. I go to therapy, looking within and sharing and he takes what I say there and uses it later to try and win arguments. I’ve gotten to a place where it doesn’t really matter how he behaves, I can stay aware of my own triggers and my own journey. But, I don’t really want to go through the process with someone who is stuck in blame, and shows no signs of moving. How in the world do you get your partner to become more mindful? Impossible.
I liked the reluctance to give advice. I was not sure what you do instead. What is specific for Imago therapists, and different from other therapists. Every therapist (hopefully) listen. So what is different – and maybe more helpful for couples – here?
Imago Therapists coach couples to speak to each other about things which really matter, using the “Imago Dialogue”. Its more important that the partners listen to each other, and the Imago Dialogue helps that to happen. The therapist does guide the direction of the conversation, and helps keep it safe, respectful and connecting. But the emphasis on each partner learning how to connect more with their partner through dialogue, than taking advice from the therapist.
Dear Molly,
I’m sorry to hear your experiences of therapy haven’t been so positive for you. Many couples are successful using Imago for themselves just by reading “Getting the Love You Want” or studying our website, but not always. It is possible to know what dialogue is, but to still need help from a counselor or workshop to use it really effectively. It does take two of you to participate in changing the way you relate to each other – and that’s where a workshop presenter or therapist can help.
Hi Tim, I love your post! I agree with you that listening is all a person needs to do. It’s important to know that everyone has lots of opinions, and every individual generates new ones all the time. Bottom line is, a person is his own highest authority. He is best served by looking within to discover what he values most about each aspect of his relationship.
Premarital counseling was utterly worthless for us, but post marital counseling (a good year worth of it) was priceless. Marriage is hard, if not even impossible. I wrote some words about how challenging marriage can be in this post titled “Marriage is a Fraud”. Feel free to check it out here http://arturopaulinoblog.com/?p=553