Tag: relationship counselling

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Relationship Building

The Benefits of Using Couples Counselling To Repair A Relationship

When your life gets busy, you may find that you and your partner start drifting apart. Couples Counselling is a great way to repair your relationship and get back to a point where both of you are happy. Here are a few benefits of using couples counselling to repair your relationship:

 

Clarify your feelings

Couples counselling will allow you and your partner to figure out where you would like your relationship to go. Speaking to a professional and giving yourself and your partner a specific time and space to speak to each other about your feelings can help you decide whether or not the relationship should continue.

 

Resolve past problems

Sometimes it is beneficial to speak about your problems with a professional third party involved. Often, you will find that you and your partner may argue about something and then suppress the emotions once the fight is ‘over’, but all you’re doing is holding in your true feelings in order to stop the argument. These unresolved emotions settle into your unconscious like an ‘unexploded bomb’. Going to couples counselling will allow you to speak in a controlled environment with a patient professional at hand. They can help you and your partner positively resolve past problems before that ‘unexploded bomb’ goes off.

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Life in General

Do you think your partner is narcissistic?

If so, chances are that your partner is male! And that you are extremely frustrated and unhappy!

In my experience of counselling couples, in many of my couples who report having tempestuous and high conflict relationships, one partner accuses the other of being narcissistic.

Why? Because the partner is accused on showing zero empathy, only considers their own needs and demonstrates a strong sense of entitlement without considering their partner’s feelings or needs.

Recent research which as involved a meta-analysis of 31 years of research on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder reports that they have found significant differences between males and females in this regard (across all age groups and multiple generations). Men have been found consistently to have higher incidences of narcissism and a sense of entitlement. This is bad news for the women who are in relationships with these men unfortunately!

Narcissistic personalities tend to be high in self-esteem (they tend to believe that they are perfect and do not need to change in any way), lack empathy for their partners (and anyone else) and are prone to unethical behaviour and to high levels of aggression. This combination of traits very rarely leads to happy relationships!

Narcissistic personalities rarely do well in couple counselling as these individuals invariably want to call the shots and want it all their own way. They tend to be unable, or unwilling, to see things from their partner’s point of view.

So is there any hope for partners who are involved in a relationship with someone who is a narcissist? Of course it depends on a number of factors such as the personality of the partner and whether or not they are prepared to adjust their expectations, their own attitude and their behaviour to accommodate their mate’s personality style. In my experience, someone with a dependent personality style is most likely to be prepared to accept a partner’s narcissism because they have low levels of self-esteem and a high need to be in a relationship.

More often than not, though, individuals with narcissistic personality disorder tend to develop a history of short, unstable relationships. They are also bad news as parents.

So the moral of this story is: Don’t be blinded by a date’s good looks and his charm (narcissists can be really charming)! Look beyond this to the other relationships he has and has had in his life!

 

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Maintaining Healthy Relationships Psychology in practice

Is Your Cellphone Ruining your Relationship and Your Life?

Or more accurately:

 

Are you allowing your cellphone usage to seriously detract from your quality of life?

 

Consider the following scenarios:

 

  1. A couple are sitting in a dimly lit, cosy restaurant. Everything is perfect and the stage is set for a wonderful, intimate night out. However, both partners are texting furiously in their cellphones, oblivious to their surroundings and to each other.
  2. A young couple are sitting under umbrellas at the pool of an upmarket hotel. It is a perfect day, the sun is shining and their two young children are playing in the paddling pool a few metres away. Quality family time? Well no, because both are fixated on their respective small screens.
  3. A man and his dog are having some bonding time at the beach. The sand is white, the sun is warm, the sea looks inviting but what is happening? The man is lost to the moment and his dog is sitting in front of him looking dejected. What a shame!

 

So why do we do this to ourselves and what is the impact on our lives as a result?

We tend to feel that we are being so productive and are being so well connected by being on facebook etc, yet what is often happening is that we are totally missing out on the special moments in our real lives!

 

Time and again, in my psychology practice, I am told of how some aspect of cellphone usage has  led to something bad happening,  either for an individual or for a couple in their relationship.

 

What are the top contenders?

 

For individuals:

  • Not being able to “switch-off” in their down-time, causing frustration, resentment and ultimately in burnout.

 

For couples:

  • Often partners find out that their spouse is cheating by finding text messages on his/her cellphone. Cellphones make it much easier to indulge in secret relationships.
  • It is easy to get the wrong end of the stick. SMS messages are easy to misconstrue. I suggest to my clients that they restrict SMs communication sharing of information. Anything sensitive or potentially emotion-provoking should be discussed face-to-face to prevent misunderstandings from occuring.
  • Unrealistic expectations are built up. When you know your partner has a cellphone on their person at all times it is easy to assume that they will be able to respond to a message from you immediately at any time of the day or night. So when they don’t (or can’t), the s…t can easily, and habitually, hit the fan!

 

So what can be done to avoid all the technologically-induced minefields of our own making?

 

First, I suggest becoming mindful of your own cellphone behaviour. Make changes where necessary. 

 

If you believe that your partner has a problem in restricting their cellphone usage, bring up the topic diplomatically. Perhaps talk about the upsides of being less cellphone-centred!

 

If you cannot seem to find the right balance between the virtual and the real or if you are actually obsessed by all things web-based and that life is passing you by  (or your partner believes this about  you), maybe it is time to get some help!

 

 

 

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Psychology in practice

Cape Town Clinical Psychologist discusses: Your 2012 Resolutions – think relationships!

Most people (even those who don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions) are thinking about what they would like to change during 2012. Most focus, however, on themselves – their health and their behaviour (for example, deciding to quit smoking or embark on an exercise regime).

In my clinical psychology practice, however, I advise my clients to think more broadly about this issue – to think about their relationships.

 I therefore invite you to consider the current health of your relationships with:

1) Your partner/spouse, children and your family:

Ask yourself the following questions, for example…

Is your relationship as good as it can be? Are you able to be honest and authenitc with your spouse? Do you practise a way of interacting with your intimate partner which is respectful and considerate? When you asgue, do you do so in a constructive way, without resorting to “below the belt” tactics such as name-calling? (If there are problems in our intimate relationship it is invariably the case that the partner is blamed for this state of affairs. It is crucial that we each start by changing our own steps in our relationship dance!)

Are your relationhips with your children and your extended family as good as they could be? If you were to die tomorrow, have you told them how you feel about them or do you have “unfinished business”?  Is your will up to date?

2) Your friends and co-workers:

Are you sufficiently supportive and “there” for your friends and co-workers? Are you reliable, dependable and empathic?

3) Your community and environment:

Are you involved in community and volunteer activities? Do you consider your environment and recycle, for example?

4) Your pets

If your pets were able to rate you in terms of how well you meet their needs, what grade would you get? If you have a dog, do you walk him/her every day?

 

I am sure there are many more examples out there in the same vein and I would  be happy to receive your comments in this regard!

Of course, making resolutions is the easy part, like any form of behaviour change sticking to them consistently is a much more difficult thing and a topic in its own right for another post!

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

The Psychology of Couples Counselling: Are you sure that you and your partner are on the same page?

You and your partner have both decided that couple counselling would be a good idea, but first, are you certain that you agree on what is wrong?

Couples who arrive for couple counselling often say that they are here to “work on their relationship” or to “improve their communication”.

Often, though, each one arrives with the (often unconscious) intention of proving that they are right and that their partner is wrong and they try (hard) to convince the therapist that this is the case and to get the psychotherapist to see things from their point of view. Each person believes that if only their partner would change, then all will be perfect between them (as it was at the beginning of the relationship)!

When this is the case, it is important that each partner take on board that change needs to come from both individuals and both need to learn some sound relationship skills in order to get the relationship back on track.

 

In the next post I will write about hidden agendas relating to the goal of couple counselling – for example, when one partner wants to work on the relationship whilst their spouse is (sometimes privately) considering opting out.