My Soul is Colored Black

"The Soul is dyed the color of its thoughts"

Marcus Aurelius

THE SOUTH

I grew up in the south. In Texas to be exact, in a small university town where people of color were a minority, but deeply embedded in the community. As an elementary child I of course knew of Black people, we even had a Black woman that would come to my home in the mornings to help my sister and I get off to school because my parents both worked. Mrs. Brown was her name. I liked her. She was kind to me. I knew she was an African American, but her skin color didn't matter to me. I loved her because she loved me. 

I also grew up, sad to say, speaking slang names about Black people as if it was an every day matter. Names today that are abhorrent to me to use. I made sure those names were never used in our home while I was raising my children. Racial slurs were common language back in the 60's. Jokes about Black people, nursery rhymes with implicit racial slurs, children's songs and ditties; they were all just part of my acceptable everyday growing up childhood.  The "other side of the tracks" the "black shanty town" the repulsion I saw on my grandmother's face when a black man stopped to get water for his overheating car and asked for helped, the socioeconomic differences, and the segregation of Black and White. It was all part of southern living, and just "normal" to me.

I was much, much older before I began to realize the impact, and the ignorance I had lived in growing up, and even more recently to realize how ignorant I was about my own "white privilege." As I look back now, I can see how my entire culture and childhood experiences were speckled and dotted with racist and blatant disregard for the African American race. I learned much of these racist words and attitudes from my grandparents who were openly racist and hateful toward the Black race as a whole. 

They even participated in clandestine KKK type rituals when I was young. My other family line came from Tennessee and I even have a great- grandfather named after the very first KKK leader in the 1800's, Bedford Forest. My family line, I am ashamed to say, were racists of the worst kind. I was a product at the time of my upbringing in my acceptance of these things as just normal life in the south. 

I was also an innocent child that didn't understand any of this, nor the impact it had on me or on the world.  Fortunately, my parents were college graduates and had differing opinions than their own parents on the racial issues in the country back in the 60's. While racism was all around me, and accepted in my culture, in my own home away from my grandparents, I was taught tolerance. Slang words were not used. I wasn't reprimanded, but I had a different experience that allowed me to eventually see things differently than the racism of my extended family and my southern culture. 

DESEGREGATION

I'll never forget the first day back to school in January of 1970 after Christmas break in my 3rd grade class. I remember looking out the front windows of the school where there were what seemed like hundreds of Black children pouring out of the belly of dozens of bright yellow school buses.

Texas schools were de-segregated by law, in my home-town beginning in January of 1970. Black schools were dissolved and the Black children were bussed from the "other side of the tracks" as the ghetto was called, into White schools. I was confused about all the unrest I felt as a child in elementary school after that day. Turmoil ensued. Fights broke out in the hallways. Black vs. White, discrimination and unrest was an every-day experience growing up from that day on.

As an eight year old child, even though I'd grown up using racial slurs and playing childhood games and singing songs that were discriminatory, I didn't understand. I didn't put the pieces together between these Black children and the horrid things I was singing and saying against the Black people. I was totally ignorant. In fact, so ignorant that I made friends with the Black children in class and out on the playground. It felt normal. They were children in my class, they played as I did, and though I saw they were different than me, I saw more their similarities than the differences. Black children were kids my own age, they played and ran, and swung on the jungle gym at recess like I did. They were my friends. 

NEW FRIENDS

Then there was the unforgettable day in 4th grade when my teacher asked me to come outside the door of the classroom with her. I was scared when she called me out, going outside with a teacher meant you were in trouble! I was terrified and embarrassed in front of the class that she took me outside. What had I done? I didn't like attention brought to myself and I was never one to get in trouble. So when Mrs. Gerdis simply said outside the earshot of anyone, "I noticed that you've made friends with Natasha (a little Black girl) and I wanted you to know that I think that's really kind and wonderful of you." I was confused. 

Why was making friends with a class-mate such a big deal? At 9 years old, that made no sense to me? Why take me out as if I'm in trouble and praise me for just doing what kids do, play together? After that I started to notice that Black and White children didn't really play together on the play ground. They were segregated. I was indeed the only White child that played with a Black child. 

I remember feeling different, and even mad that the Black people were mistreated that way. I was determined to be friends with all, and especially my peers of color.

IGNORANCE AND RACISM

As an older teen I became more aware of racism and of the slurs and ugliness of how the Black people were mistreated in our society. I became a champion of Black people, I hung out with them as much as I could, they taught me to sing Black Blues, Negro spirituals were beautiful to me, and Harriet Tubman became my favorite heroin. My Black friends told me I had a "Black soul!" I felt that was a deep compliment, and to this day I still feel it as a compliment. I resonated with their history, I felt terrible about their mistreatment, I had all kinds of empathy. I also ignorantly thought that all that ugly mistreatment had mostly ended with the civil war and with legally enforced de-segregation. I was very, very ignorant. I was also living White privilege and had no real idea the continued challenges that the Black people had, and the freedoms I took for-granted. I was even more ignorant on how my ignorance was actually supporting discrimination. Until a few years ago. 

In 2017 I decided to offer a continuing education course on ethics for mental health therapists and psychologists like myself. I wanted to include a section on race equality and non-discrimination. After all, I wasn't a racist! I felt I had a special understanding of the Black people because I had a "Black Soul" and I wanted to help educate others about this topic.

So to ready myself, I read books about Black history, about slavery, about the KKK, about the unfairness of treatment towards the Black people, and most of all about White freedom and privilege and the history of the United States post civil war and how the government intentionally promulgated slavery through political means. I learned about how Racism is continuing to this day. I was aghast to know that segregation laws were still in effect in some southern states, even in the 2000's!  I read voraciously, talked to people and others about their views of racism and how it still exists. I attended other continuing education courses that included sections on racial, religious, gender and other discrimination and really tried to educate myself about this topic. 

What happened to me was no less than transformational. I began to see and understand just how much racism was and is still alive in this country today! I realized that I was blind, color blind, and ignorant. I realized I not only lived in a racist world, but I was a product of this world, and therefore an ignorant racist too!

Since that time I have worked to become aware of my privilege. I have worked to be aware of my status and what I can do easily that perhaps a woman my same age but of a different race would not be able to so easily. I have worked to learn me, to be more aware, and to be more humble and teachable about the injustices in our nation and the discrimination that still is quite alive in our culture around race, religion, sex, gender and identity. 

PROTESTS OF OPPRESSION

Watching the rioting and unrest in the country is distressing for most all of us. While I don't agree with aggressive, destructive means of being heard, I can understand why what happened to George Floyd by mistreatment of a White cop in Minnesota has created an outrage in this country. Is it any wonder that so many are angry and tired of being mistreated? It is no wonder to me. Once you become fully aware of the oppression, the mistreatment, the discrimination that the African American's have endured at the hands of White America for over 200 years, it is amazing there is not MORE distress in this country!  

GET EDUCATED

So what can we do to change this? Learn. Be Humble. Acknowledge your ignorance. Seek to understand. Read and educate yourself. WAKE UP to the truth that is all around us! Speak out, and speak up. Recognize and understand our own culture and biases. We can't continue to do the same things over and over again and expect different results! We are the only ones who can. Find out what is happening in our country and lets truly bring equality to all. 

Here is just a few links to get your started to see and understand the depth and breadth of this problem in our every day lives.  They indicate, based on research and facts, how racism is still very much alive and strong in America. Racism shows up in places and ways we are often unaware in the housing market in health care and health outcomes, and many, many other ways. Check out this research-based website here on racism.

At the Couple And Family Institute of Tri-Cities, we are dedicated to equality in our treatment of all people. We are open to learning more, and we want very much to support and offer services to any and all regardless of race, color, creed, gender identity, or sexual orientation.  Check out our services. We are here, helping relationships with all the magnificent diversity that is in our world.  

Leave a comment, we would love to hear your thoughts. 

Sex is an attachment behavior!

There are lots of blogs and blog posts that quote the research that extolls the virtues of sex. Here's one

that identifies the hormones release during orgasm. Oxytocin is the "cuddle hormone" along with other endorphines such as dopamine, and some that act like an analgesic to pain. This is all true, and there's plenty of research out now that shows how important contact comfort and connection is for bonding and reducing pain Click Here. We know that a healthy, connected romantic relationship increases life expectancy, increases health, and in general people are happier when they are in a loving relationship. Some of this is just plain common sense! Of course we are happier when we are connected and feel loved! 

Attachment Theory

However, we don't often think about sex as an attachment behavior! Attachment has been used to describe how children connect to their parents as infants. But attachment is so much more, as John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory said, "from cradle to grave" we need connection and attachment with a precious few people through out our entire lives. 

Our blueprint for attachment begins as an infant when our primary care taker, most often our mothers, respond to our needs consistently. In the last 70 years or so, attachment theory has been researched and is now generally accepted as an accurate theory of the childhood developmental process.  Check out this most recent book by Kent Hoffman about how to create security with children. 

However, in the last 25 years, research has turned to understanding love through an attachment lens. As Sue Johnson in her latest book, Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Relationships"  (I recommend listening to it rather than just reading it because Sue is the reader, and her English lilt and voice is riveting), says "The new love sense is overthrowing long-held beliefs about the purpose and process of romantic love as well as our sense of the very nature of human beings...sex may impel us to mate, but it is love that assures our existence." Love IS what makes the world go around, and mother nature lines up for us to feel love and sex together through the release of a chain of amino acids or "hormones."

The "love" hormone

When mothers are nursing their babies there are two hormones released, one is Prolactin, which is part of the creation of and secretion of milk, but the other is Oxytocin, the "bonding" or "cuddle" hormone! Yes, the same hormone that is released to create bonding between a mother and her baby, is released during lovemaking and orgasm to create bonding between a couple! Scientists have experimented with oxytocin and found that injecting it into humans increases the feelings of intimacy and trust, even between strangers! Love and orgasm, sex and closeness are meant to draw two people together. It is the secretion of these hormones that increase connection and love, along with loving behaviors that reinforce a feeling and sense of closeness and connection so that love is lasting, even for a life-time of love. Check out this fun video that talks about the science of love, oxytocin is the "potion of devotion!"

Three Kinds of Sex

While as human beings, we can indeed "separate" love and sex, they are designed to be together. Sex without love, is defined as "sealed off sex" by Dr. Johnson. When sex is sealed off from a sense of connection with a partner it is necessary to increase the novelty and ways in which to have sex. Couples often need more and more sex, or more sexual stimulus in order to feel aroused or excited. In a long-term relationship, that just isn't very realistic, especially in creating a lasting and fulfilling sex life.  Sealed off sex often leads to difficulties for couples in their relationship. Often as a therapist I find this kind of sex leading to fights and negative patterns of interaction in a couple's relationship. It can sometimes lead to infidelity as the connection is lost, resentment increases even as the distance widens, and one or both partners can get pulled into another relationship to compensate for what is lacking in their current one.  It's often difficult to bring these partners back together again. A pornography addiction or a sexual abuse history (or both) are among the very common ways in which a person can disconnect their emotions from sexual interaction.  Sometimes it essential to get individual therapy around those issues in order to heal the split between sex and love. 

Another kind of sex Dr. Johnson identifies is "solace sex." When one or both partners feels anxious about their partner's love and caring for them, when they feel afraid of their own needs and afraid to openly talk about their emotional needs with their partner, sometimes they begin to use sex in order to find solace or comfort for their fears. With solace sex, couples may have sex frequently, but it is never satisfying. It's as if they are saying, "I'm unsure you love me so I need you to 'show' me with frequent and intense sex." This can look like a demand for sex many times a day or a week, without it ever feeling fulfilling or satisfying. Couples who use sex to be reassured of their partner's love are trying to feel a sense of connection, but without being emotionally vulnerable. This also leads to problems in a relationship, more often than not, resentment can build in the partner that is being demanded of, which increases the insecurity in the one seeking solace through sex.

Secure Sex

Then there is the third kind of sex, the most secure form of sex that Dr. Johnson identifies in her Love Sense book, as "synchrony sex." This is where a couple feels more secure with each other, less anxious or afraid of rejection, or disconnection. This is where a couple feels safe to play, safe to say what they want or need, safe to ask for what they want, and safe to enjoy just being sexual with each other without the need for constant reassurance. Synchrony sex is secure sex where love and connection are combined heartily with sexual interaction.  Secure sex is fulfilling sex, where novelty is not needed nor demanded in order to feel satisfied because it's not about acrobatic positions! The more secure, or in other words, the less anxious and afraid we feel with our partner, the more safety and security to know our partner is accessible, responsive and engaged, the freer we are to play and enjoy the experience. 

Sex is part of a positive pattern of attachment

When there is sexual engagement and oxytocin is released, trust and security increases. When outside the bedroom we feel that our partner will show up and be with us, accept us, and have our back, the easier it is to have a safer sense of our partner. Security and safety are reinforced into a positive cycle when we view sex as part of a healthy secure attachment relationship. 

For more information on how to create a positive pattern of safe sexual connection and secure emotional experiences with your partner you can attend a Hold Me Tight weekend for couples. See This Link for the next coming couple retreat in the Richland, Pasco, Kennewick, WA area!

"I hate you! Don't leave me!" Sound familiar?

How Accessible are you and your partner to each other? How Responsive are you and your partner to one another? How emotionally engaged are you with each other? A.R.E. you there for each other? These are the real questions underneath we are looking for the answers to when we are with our partners! Yes, REALLY!!

Being human means we need others. Current research has shown that the human brain is hardwired, much like an animal with instincts, to know that being in close proximity to others is our greatest chance for survival. We were not designed to be alone, and thus being alone codes as "dangerous" to our brains. We can go into a primal panic if we feel we are all alone and in a perceived threatening situation. 

The greatest punishment for hardened criminals in prison is solitary confinement; in some states they are banning this form of isolation because it is so cruel and inhumane. Because we need others to survive and thrive in this world, we can feel off-balance and insecure when we don't feel close to another, especially when we don't feel valued, seen, heard or important to our partner. So how does the need for proximity, closeness, and emotional safety play out in your relationship?

When we're in the midst of a fight with our partner about whose turn it is to do the dishes, it's hard to believe the REAL problem is lurking below the surface and that it often has to do with how accessible, responsive, and engaged your partner feels to you--but that is likely exactly what is happening! Especially if that kind of argument happens in a similar way time and time again. 

Lets see how this plays out with Arwin and Blair, a young couple in their early 30's, who you will be introduced to in the Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities retreat. See if this sounds familiar to you and your partner when you have difficulties.

Both Arwin and Blair were professionals with their own careers when they got married in their late 20's. They had a pretty connected and happy relationship, had lots of friends and family, and enjoyed being together with lots of activities to keep them busy. After several years they felt it was time to have a family. Shortly thereafter Arvin got pregnant and Blair landed a job oversees. They were excited, it was a new adventure for both of them, and they loved traveling!

So Arwin quit her job, they moved, and she began to rely solely on Blair for financial and emotional support. Soon after they settled into their life, Arwin had the baby. Blair had to work long hours at his new job to get established. He felt the burden to provide for the family. Arwin was at home with a new baby who needed lots of attention. Everything had changed for both of them. They didn't have family or friends in this new culture and country, and it was expensive to call friends or family back home very often. 

Arwin felt lonely, and began to need Blair in ways she had never had to rely on him before. She was anxious as a new mother and unsure of herself. Blair needed Arwin's support and confidence as he was gone long hours of the day trying to prove himself with a new boss. Blair began to feel overwhelmed at Arwin's new demands on him for his time and attention. They didn't know how to reach for each other in ways to garner the support they needed during this difficult transitioning time for their family. Neither of them felt the other was accessible, responsive, or engaged in the way they each needed.

So a typical argument went like this...Blair was just arriving home a little after 7pm from work. Arwin had dinner on the table at 5:30 pm, the time they had agreed on for dinner to be served. As Arwin fed the baby, put her down to bed, and left the food on the table to grow cold, she sat down and waited in a fume for Blair to come home. When he arrived she was cold, aloof, and curt with him. "I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, "I totally lost track of time while I was trying to get that last report on the bosses desk for first thing in the morning." "The food is cold," Arwin said, with an even colder stare. Blair immediately felt defensive feeling her anger, but he didn't dare speak for fear she would verbally attack him. He just sat down to eat, not knowing what else to do. Arwin started in, "Where were you? Why didn't you have the decency to just call me? Don't I matter at all to you? Dinner is suppose to be at 5:30, now you've missed seeing the baby. She won't even know her dad! Am I just supposed to sit and wait and wait and wait for you to finally show up?" Blair felt defeated and like a shmuck, but didn't say anything, he kept eating. "Don't you have anything to say?" Arwin kept the pressure going, "I've waited all day to have some adult conversation and you just sit there after being almost 2 hours late and say NOTHING to me!" A long tense moment of silence. "I hate you!" Arwin screamed as she stormed out of the dining room. Blair sat confused. He didn't understand why she was so unreasonable and distraught.

Arwin and Blair are caught in a negative pattern that Dr. Sue Johnson, the author of Hold Me Tight®

calls the "protest polka." The more Arwin protests the distance between them, the more Blair withdraws. The more Blair withdraws, the more Arwin protests--around and around. 

But what is really going on between Arwin and Blair? Arwin is feeling lonely. She doesn't feel she has enough access or responsiveness from Blair so she is upping the ante to try and get some kind of response! Without saying so, Arwin is really seeking to know she is important to him enough that he is thinking of her, and that he will comfort her in the distress of being so alone and isolated in her new environment. Blair is nervous about his new role as a sole provider, fearful he isn't good enough to be what she needs from him. When Arwin blows up at him for being late even after he apologizes, he feels like he can't ever get it right for her. He goes silent to keep from making it worse between them, which leaves Arwin feeling even lonelier, which then turns to an angry protest. The angrier she gets, the more silent and fearful he becomes, which just makes her more angry! This is a never-ending circle that feeds on itself and ironically creates the very thing they are most afraid of, being unimportant, unvalued, and alone without each other!

Do any of the steps in this move seem familiar to you and your partner? Do you get stuck in negative patterns that seem to repeat over and over again, even with different subjects but a similar theme of hurt, anger, tension, and distance?

In our Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities retreat the first (of seven) conversations you will have with your partner is to discover the negative pattern you get caught in and ways to get out of it! You will together begin to uncover the steps of your negative dance and start to see what is driving it, so the two of you can take control of the cycle rather than the cycle controlling your relationship.

So come, come to the Hold Me Tight® Tri-cities couple retreat for a REAL treat! You don't wan't to miss the conversations that can lead to A.R.E. with your partner!

WAIT! What just happened???

Have you ever been talking with your partner and suddenly something is said, something else is said, and then in a matter of seconds things are bad and you don't know what happened? Or you felt something shifts and then boom, things are bad between you? It's like it flew by you so fast and they, or you get defensive/angry/shut down and you have no idea what you said, or what they said that caused it? Then it's awkward and you don't know what to say or do. The moment flies by, you know something wasn't good, there's distance, but you don't know what happened and maybe are afraid to say something?

Awkward Distance

After a few of these kinds of things happen between you, it starts to get a little unnerving to broach the subject, you don't know what went down, don't know how to make sense out of it, maybe are a little afraid to bring it up. With enough time things maybe are a little better, so you don't want to bring it up to rock the boat--so this awkwardness creeps up between you.  It makes it hard to talk to each other unless its just household basic things like, "will you take the garbage out?" or to inform each other, "Friday is girl's night out, I'll be home late." There's not much if any emotion in your conversation, very little to no sharing after a while, and before long this is just how it goes between you.  There can even be some tenseness between you that even over time dissipates until there's just coldness and distance.

Freeze 'n Flee

In Emotionally Focused Therapy (or EFT) terms, Sue Johnson the co-founder of EFT calls this withdraw/withdraw pattern "freeze 'n flee."  Both partners have withdrawn from each other and are afraid to make things worse, or fear making their partner upset and risk incurring their anger. Unexpressed anger and fear are often the main unidentified emotions underneath this negative pattern in a relationship.

As an EFT therapist, I find this pattern occasionally with non-confrontational couples. They often are pleasant and polite to each other, highlighted with some occasional tenseness. Or sometimes couples become withdrawn from each other after years of trying to connect and the above scenario continues and no one knows how to repair or come back together. They live parallel lives and both are extremely lonely and feel isolated.  They have an unspoken agreement that no one will risk talking about what is happening. Dr. Johnson says, and for good reason, that this pattern of a relationship is dangerous; the withdraw/withdraw pattern is at most risk for divorce and breaking up. Why? Because there's no emotional engagement.

We Need Connection

Without emotional engagement with our partners we are at risk and vulnerable to find our basic human needs for connection and love elsewhere. Affairs, both emotional and sexual, are not uncommon in this kind in a withdraw/withdraw relationship pattern. Like water and food, we need connection and love to sustain us. If we don't get it in our primary relationship with our partner, we will find our needs in other places. It might be working excessively to feel like we're important or valued in our job, it might be watching TV and escaping because it's too painful to face the disconnection of your relationship, it might be drinking alcohol or taking pain pills to numb out the loneliness, or it might be chatting with an old flame on Facebook and becoming involved. We will find a place to get our needs met in some kind of way because we just can't be without feeling loved, and if we can't find that feeling of love with our partner, we will do something to take the pain of not having it, away.

Fear Gets in the Way

If this pattern is happening between you, it's important to recognize that both of you are hurting, lonely, and longing for connection but both are afraid to open up and talk about it. The fear is the thing that keeps you from reaching each other, fear of each other's reactions, fear of being blamed or attacked, fear of not knowing how to be enough for your partner, fear of being too much for your partner, fear you can find a way through it...What is the fear for you? Can you name it? 

Once you can begin to identify the fear that makes you step back and withdraw from your partner, can you then recognize any other emotion underneath it? Do you feel hurt? Hurt by something your partner did, said, does, continues to do that really hurts? Can you put words around that hurt and share it with your partner? Does the sadness and loneliness start to come up? What feelings do you have? Can you start to share some of these feelings with your partner?

Slower is Faster

When we can slow down and look at our feelings under the surface "calm", and try to understand ourselves and our partners reactions, we can begin to get some traction away from this awkward disconnection of withdraw/withdraw. Lets look at an example. 

Tim and Audrey were a cute couple when they were in their 20's. Both were quiet and thoughtful people, liked by many, and seemed like a perfect fit with each other. They loved the outdoors, they shared a common religious foundation, and had some of the same dreams and aspirations for a family, for community connection, and to contribute to the world. They were pleasant, no fuss kind of people, and really appreciated that about one another. Conflict rarely happened, and they seemed happily married to their friends and associates.  But early in their marriage little things would happen between them where Tim felt a jolt inside when Audrey would say something about his family to him, he didn't know what to say, so he reacted by shutting down and saying nothing. It seemed to Tim that he was just able to bounce things off without it affecting him, he didn't realize himself that he was shutting down. Audrey felt his shut down but didn't know how to identify or speak about it, but it was unpleasant when she would get his cold response or no response. After a while she stopped saying anything about his family and avoided saying much at all to him about any topic that he seemed tense around. She didn't want to rock the boat or make things worse.

Tim and Audrey are caught in a withdraw/withdraw pattern. In order to see and understand what is happening for them, they really need to slow down their interactions and begin to share more with each other what is happening inside for them. The hard part is that they are both afraid to talk about what is really happening. Their reactions are so fast that they can't see it. At this point the negative withdraw/withdraw pattern has a hold on the relationship. They are stuck and getting more and more distant with time--like two slow boats drifting away without a paddle! Tim and Audrey really need some help to see their negative pattern, slow down what happens underneath, and begin to find their way back and reconnect. If I were their therapist, I would recommend that they first attend a couple's retreat that gives them the education about the new science of love to help them see what is happening, why, and what to do about it! 

Hold Me Tight®

Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities couple's retreat is based on the empirically validated couple's treatment by Dr. Sue Johnson, that research has shown to make a difference in 90% of couples. We walk you through 7 conversations that have the power to help you slow down, see what is happening between you, understand each other differently, and most importantly it will help you begin to change the patterns that are causing you to drift apart!  

 In a HMT Tri-Cities couple retreat we talk about the new science of love and what that means for you as a couple.  With this new science we now understand what love is, what creates it, what destroys it, and how to revive it! In this unique retreat we help you and your partner understand and then experience what is a proven method to find each other again. We know how to create a loving bond and how to shape that love in a way that helps you as a couple create and/or strengthen your bond with each other.

So, what's more important than your relationship? 

Come, enhance what you have, re-kindle your relationship fire, or repair the rift that is between you! Come to a Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities and find your love again!

Visit http://www.holdmetighttricities.com for more information, dates, times, and to register!  

"We Don't Need to Go to Therapy!

I make a living as a counseling psychologist, and I do alright. However, I think I would be making a LOT more money if I had a dollar for every time I heard a client say in my office that "my husband said he didn't think we needed to come to therapy." Or "My wife made it clear early on what she thought about going to therapy, so we never went until now (15 years later!)." Something of this version is not uncommon at all to hear, as that person is now sitting in my office broken-hearted when their spouse left them, or they come together when their relationship is dangling by a thread.

MYTHS ABOUT COUPLE THERAPY

I find it very unfortunate and disconcerting that negative views of therapy, either individual or couple/family therapy still abide today. Often there is a lot of shame around the fact that someone is struggling to the point that they are reaching for solutions, and this is most saddening to me.  Our early colonizing Americans prided themselves on "rugged individualism" stemming from our early Euro-American ancestors and pioneers. "Do it on my own" or "figure it out for yourself" or "If it is to be it's up to me" are some milder spoken phrases that really imply "suck it up, and deal with it" or worse"quite whining" when we find ourselves in emotional pain or distress individually or as a couple.  These phrases whether spoken to us by others, or internally said to ourselves, inflict more shame and pain on top of our already hurting hearts and lives. Some of the sad myths that circulate about attending therapy keep us from getting the help we need in a timely way, and can increase the pain we're already feeling. Some of those myths are:

If we just ignore it, it will go away. 

This is just not true, especially in the case of couple's therapy. If there are continual negative patterns in your relationship where you feel hurt, ignored, not good enough, unhappy, disconnected and lonely, these are not likely to go away, but often become even bigger and more painful over time. Time does not heal all wounds, when there is an infection in the body, time makes it worse. A LOT worse, and can kill you if you don't get treatment. In the case of a marriage, perceptions of our partner can become narrower and narrower in a negative view, as John Gottman, a foremost relationship researcher coined it, Negative Sentiment Override, can take over and everything in the relationship begins to be colored as if our partner is our enemy and doesn't love or care about us. This is a dangerous place to be, and the longer it goes on it can be the beginning of a death keel to the relationship, or can take a very long time to recover from even with help.

We don't need therapy, we can figure it out on our own

Sometimes, this may be true. Sometimes we can have stressful things happen in an otherwise connective relationship. If you and your partner have a history of being able to turn to each other, soften and repair so you can find your way back to a loving and connective relationship--then you're right--you might not need therapy. However, if you don't have a history of being able to repair, to approach each other with tenderness and kindness, giving each other the benefit of the doubt and being able to share your hearts with each other--stress can and will only make things worse between you over time. What I often see in my practice is that couples managed their relationship okay until life stressors intensified and the couple didn't know how to turn to each other for support and comfort. This is when the couple begins to struggle. They lose the ability to keep their emotional balance together and their relationship can topple into distress and can flounder for many years. The statistics say on average a couple waits 6 years after things go south before they seek treatment! Getting help instead of just living with it is vital.  It is also very, very important to get a trained couple's therapist who can help you and your partner move through your stuck places, reconnect, and heal.

You're the one that needs to go to therapy, there's not a problem with me!

I see a fair amount of individuals starting out in therapy with me, but usually by the end of the first session they tell me that the real reason they are there is to fix their relationship! It's really hard to do couple's therapy with only one partner, or make anything between you and your partner better without both of you being there. If there is a problem between you and your partner, just one of you coming is not going to fix it.  No matter how thin the pancake, it ALWAYS has two sides!  If your relationship isn't working, if your partner is complaining about how they feel the need to get therapy together, listen to them and respond!!  One of the saddest things I hear more often than I'd like is, "my wife wanted to go to therapy years ago, and I told her she could go but I'm not!" This said by a man whose wife has filed for divorce or separation and he's in therapy--by himself.

 Or the couple that finally makes a quick stop at my office as a way to say "we did everything, even therapy and it didn't work" just before the each land in a lawyer's office for a divorce. This approach is more like avoiding preventative screenings and denying obvious symptoms for years until late stage 4 cancer has completely metastasized and then saying treatment didn't work! You can wait too long to get help and sometimes the relationship won't recover.

If we go to therapy then we REALLY are screwed up!

To this myth I ask, who is sickest, those who go to a doctor, or those who don't?  If you have a broken arm or a broken bone does it mean you're messed up to go to a doctor? If you have a persistent fever and go to a doctor for medication, does it mean you're weak and something is terribly wrong with you? Yet, somehow in our culture we have a lurking belief that to see a therapist means you are weak and terminally flawed and should hang your head in shame or hide it from the world that you need help! There is no shame in getting help, we are all in this struggle of life together and life can get messy and difficult! Many, many couples struggle to feel a sense of security between them and need therapeutic intervention to find their way.  It doesn't mean you are weak to seek help, quite the opposite. Only the truly courageous and brave are willing to push past the stigma that is unfortunate in our society, and seek help for their struggles.

GET HELP, GET IT EARLY

I can't emphasize enough how important it is when your relationship is floundering to get help, and get it before little things become big things. When I have a young newlywed couple come to me and talk about the struggles they are having with their relationship, I applaud them! While they still have positive sentiment in their relationship taking care of those negative patterns before they become deeply rutted and fixed negative dynamics between them is so important!  On the other hand, I have many, many older couples, sometimes in their late 40's, 50's, or even 60's, come to me after a life-time of deeply rutted negative and fixed patterns of interaction with each other. They love each other, but they don't know how to connect and their bond is very damaged. It can take years to help them repair and create love again in their relationship. 

 I'm an avid gardener. I love to plant fruit and vegetables and harvest fresh homegrown food from the labor of my own hands. The one thing I don't like about gardening, however, is pulling weeds. One year I was extra busy and avoided weeding the garden for several weeks at the beginning of the growing season. What had been just a few weeds that could have easily been handled in a few minutes, had spread and began to completely overrun my garden!  The weeds were stunting the growth of my newly planted tenderlings by taking up the water supply and invading the roots of my poor little plants that were struggling to survive.  It took me half a day to get the weeds under control while. Had I been attentive to my fledgling garden just for a few minutes every other day things would have never gotten to that point and threatened the survival of my garden. The analogy applies to our relationships. Early prevention and repair is essential, and if a couple is unable to make that repair themselves, they need to find a trained and skilled therapist to help them learn how to repair.

Caveat Emptor: Find A Trained Couple's Therapist

In my master's program before I began practicing therapy, I had one course on family treatment. Yet, I was told after I graduated I could hang my "shingle" and advertise for individual as well as "couple" therapy without more training. This is not an uncommon thing for those coming out of grad school programs unless they are specifically a marriage and family therapist, which I was not. I didn't have the training nor skill to treat couple's back then and fortunately, I refused to see them until I got more training! Doing couple's treatment is VERY different than working with individuals, and requires a different skill set. Learning to work effectively with couples takes a lot of training and experience! In fact, working with someone who does not have very specific training to do couple's therapy can make matters worse. As Dr. Bill Doherty says, therapy without a well trained therapist can actually be DANGEROUS!! Yikes!!

 We don't want to make things worse when things are already bad! Yet, indeed well-intentioned but untrained in the nuances of working with couples, the untrained therapist can send a couple over the edge into what Doherty calls, marital suicide! However, there is a solution to this problem! 

EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED THERAPY FOR COUPLES

We are so very fortunate today, as it was but just a few decades ago we didn't have any where near the amount of knowledge or research and training we do today to help couples and families. Dr. Sue Johnson  found in her doctoral program that the literature was woefully lacking on how to approach couples and families in a way that really got to the core of the matter. Over the course of the next 30 years not only did she discover a map for how to help couples from distress to resolution, she published myriads of articles backing up her findings.  She and others continue to research and assert Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as the most empirically validated and successful treatments for couples and families that exists today.  When engaged with a trained and certified EFT therapist, between 70%-90% of couples completely resolve their distress and/or get better, and have lasting change that holds up over time. Their relationships continue to improve for years after treatment is over! This is unparalleled success in the world of couple's therapy where the statistics of treatments other than EFT have at most a 35% success rate and that is not lasting. Follow-up studies with other treatments show a decline in the couple's relationship with time.

The reason why EFT is so successful is because we finally have cracked the code to love and discovered the real root of couple distress! Click Here to see a video of Sue talking about this form of therapy. Because of all this amazing research and the efforts of Sue Johnson, we know what causes distress between couples, we know what repairs it, and how to do that within the session! Even better, Dr. Johnson has created an International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy that offers extensive training and certification in this form of treatment! EFT continues to spread far and wide and many, many therapists are gaining the training and skills to duplicate these amazing statistical successes in their own home offices. 

HOLD ME TIGHT®

In addition to the trainings and certification programs, Sue Johnson has created a program or workshop for couples that therapists offer around the globe. Hold Me Tight® workshops are based on her best selling book

by the same name, and are life-changing for many couples. She also has a New York Best Selling book that I personally recommend, Love Sense. Couples come for two fun-packed days of educational and experiential time with their partner where they learn a new way to relate and connect with each other. Instruction, video examples, and seven conversations the couple have with each other during the two days are the essential components of these relationship-changing workshops. Therapists trained in EFT who volunteer come and assist at the workshop to give you and your partner excellent support in the conversations, as needed. A Hold Me Tight® workshop is a great way for a couple to come, learn together, experience a difference in their relationship, and discover if they need further therapeutic support after attending. If requested, referrals to therapists in the area that are trained in EFT can be made.  Hold me Tight® Workshops are held all over the country, check out the link to find one closest to you. 

Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities 

Hold Me Tight® Tri-Cities is held bi-annually in the beautiful Richland, Washington. Dr. Carol Ann Conrad, EdD a certified EFT therapist and Supervisor with over a decade of experience treating couples and families, has been leading these workshops locally for several years. Come and have a great time with your partner whether you just want to enhance what you already have in your relationship, need some help in finding the connection and spark again, or are trying to decide to stay together, this workshop is for all couples. Don't wait--nothing is more important than your relationship and your family. They are worth investing your time and money!

Attachment Styles: A Blueprint for Relationships

What is your attachment style? Why would this be important to know about yourself and your partner in your relationship? 

Would any contractor ever begin to build a home without first creating a blueprint? Of course we know that the blueprint is an outline, a design, carefully thought out about everything that will be pertinent to building a home from the foundation to the walls, ceiling, lighting, plumbing, outlets, materials to be used etc. A well organized and drawn blueprint is essential and necessary for creating a home that will stand against the storms and vicissitudes of weather and life.  

An attachment style is like a blueprint for an intimate relationship. 

Our attachment style is a blueprint or template that is unconsciously shaped, based upon our early life experiences of how our needs are met by our caretakers. It begins in utero and is formed by the time we are 2 years old. Research indicates that our amygdala, or the emotional center of the brain, is fully developed prior to birth. It is our emotional life, or our emotional experiences that shape our early life and thus our early blueprint for intimate relationships. This template tells us how safe it is to reach for our emotional needs, how we must reach in order to increase our chances of getting a response from others, and how to most effectively avoid painful encounters or rejection of our needs from others. 

A Secure Attachment Style

Human infants learn very quickly that they are extremely dependent for life and sustenance upon their parents. How the parents respond to the infant's needs determines the level of trust or security that the child feels with their caregivers. If the child comes to trust that when they call, when they have a need, and their parents meet or respond to that need consistently and effectively, that the world is a fairly safe and predictable place. The child is able to move into their world responding to others from a place of confidence and trust that validates their perspective and reinforces that they are safe and capable. When their experience with others reinforces their template or blueprint that says, "the world is fairly predictable and safe and I can get what I need from others,"
they continue to see the world through a lens of safety. Their expectation, set with their caregivers, creates a feedback loop of validation and reinforcement of their perspective as they continue to move into their world. This is called a secure attachment style, or secure blueprint of the world. Researchers have done longevity studies and discovered that securely attached children do better in school, have more friends, better grades, are more successful in their life. Most importantly, children with secure attachment styles grow up to have happier and healthier relationships.

 An Insecure Attachment Style

If, on the other hand, a child does not have a caretaker that responds readily and/or consistently to the child's needs, the child begins to feel fear, or what some attachment researchers call, "primal panic." The child will feel less-secure with caregivers who are not as accessible or responsive. A less-securely attached child will seek and cling to the parent, or avoid and dismiss their need for parental attentiveness, or a combination of both.There are only 3 strategies that human beings develop in order to cope with their primal panic. Click here to learn more about attachment styles and take a quiz to discover your own attachment pattern. Again, a child will base their perspective of contact, connection, and intimacy with others, upon the experience with their caretaker.  This will then set a feedback loop where the child has unconsciously developed an intimacy blueprint which creates either anxiety or the need to shut down their need expectations. As the insecure child moves out into the world their expectations of others will generally bring them what they fear.  A confirmation bias loop begins to reinforce the individual's beliefs about others in the world; either they can't count on others, or they just don't have needs for others in their life.  While these strategies allow the insecure child to grow and manage their lives, they are less successful in life in general, and in particular less successful and happy in relationships.

Childhood Attachment styles predict adult attachment styles

Researchers have more recently discovered that we can predict with fairly high accuracy, up to 80%, the attachment style of an adult based upon their attachment style as a child. In other words, this blueprint for relationships once set by the age of 2 years old is fairly stable. Click here for more research-based information about attachment stability across time.  We know that about 50% of the population are more secure, leaving the other half of individuals to be in the less or insecure categories--set up for more relationship issues in their life. 

So Here's the Good News about knowing your attachment style or blueprint

Attachment styles are malleable!  That's right!  While attachment styles are stable across time, if we know our attachment style, what were the likely contributing factors to it and are willing to work at it, we can actually change our attachment style!  Yes, we can have an "earned secure attachment."  Daniel Seigel, a well-known psychiatrist and researcher says that it is not what has happened to us in our lives or growing up, but the sense we make out of it, that makes the difference. It is how we come to understand ourselves, our lives, and our parents, that helps us change our attachment style. By coming to see how we formed our attachment style, understanding our emotional needs and owning them, we are well on our way to redesigning our blueprint! 

This is great news for those of us who weren't lucky enough to be in that 50% category where our parents gave us a more secure blueprint to live by!  And by the way, this isn't a knock against our parents. They were doing the best they could based upon their own attachment style and resources they had at the time to raise us.  But the best news of all, is that we have choice over our relationship blueprint!  We didn't get much choice about how our original strategy to stay close to our caregivers developed, after all the strategy we developed worked and helped us survive the best we could. However, as adults, we have the capacity to understand what happened to us, the ability to make sense of it, and to actively change our actions and reactions in our current relationships!

Change the Intimacy Blueprint, Change the outcome!

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples, the basis for the Hold Me Tight workshop designed by Dr. Sue Johnson, is specifically focused on giving couples a new experience and changing the landscape of their attachment styles to be more secure.  In fact, that is really the primary goal of EFT, to create security in their relationship so the couple feels a stronger emotional bond with each other. When fear is shared and diminished, more security allows us the capacity to stop those negative expectations and patterns that create disconnection. We can learn how to reach, to touch our needs and ask more effectively to get them met, which sets up a positive reinforcing cycle. With understanding and new experience as a couple we can learn to be accessible, responsive, and engaged with each other.  More security reduces distress and increases loving feelings.  We can create new patterns of security that we know from the research brings the greatest chance for lasting love and happiness within our relationship.  Today, thanks to Sue Johnson and EFT, we have a map of how to create love and emotional bondedness in a relationship even with couples that have NEVER had a sense of security with anyone in their life! This is the greatest news of this century!  For more information about EFT and/or to find an EFT therapist close to you, Click Here. 

Relationships are the key to happiness and lifting depression

Relationships are key to happiness and lifting depression