Sexual surrogacy
A man paralysed by polio loses his virginity in his 30's with a sexual surrogate. Later made into the movie 'The Sessions' with Helen Hunt playing the surrogate. Surrogates spend most of their time teaching the client how to feel - how to be aware of what is coming in through the senses! Read More...
Post-natal depression in men
There’s a widespread belief that antenatal and postnatal depression (PND) are experienced only by women, but research and anecdotal evidence suggest that PND can affect fathers too. Men suffering from PND need help and support to recover. Read More...
Sex At Dawn
"Ryan and Jethá show that our ancestors lived in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and often, sexual partners. Weaving together convergent, often overlooked evidence from anthropology, archeology, primatology, anatomy, and psycho-sexuality, the authors show how far from human nature sexual monogamy really is. They expose the ancient roots of human sexuality while pointing toward a more optimistic future illuminated by our innate capacities for love, cooperation, and generosity." Read More...
Secure attachment
14/06/12 Couple interactionEmotion focused couple therapy Intimacy
A desire for support and connection is the sign of a mature, healthy relationship in which each partner has developed a secure sense of “attachment” to the other. Research has shown that, while we all need to care for ourselves, we also need to feel that we are not alone and that someone will stand by us when the going gets tough. Read More...
Trauma of neglect, couples and intimacy
"Where the adult children of neglect have found a way to manage virtually all their other human needs on their own, sex presents a problem. It is not as if one cannot take care of one’s sexual needs oneself, but sex alone is a very different thing. What I have observed among my neglect survivor clients, is that somehow, this need prevails as one that they feel entitled to have met by another person.
Mira Rothenberg describes a void of loneliness in children of neglect in her book Children with Emerald Eyes:
Sometimes there is sex to fill this void. And the sex is then strange. There is little giving, but there is taking, there is devouring of you and whatever you can give to fill this void. The exquisite giving and taking is no longer. The balance is disappointed. Because it is to take, to calm, to quiet this awful howl of loneliness and the hunger that derives from loneliness. To feed, so that for once, for this one short while, the need, the plea, the want is filled." Read More...
Mira Rothenberg describes a void of loneliness in children of neglect in her book Children with Emerald Eyes:
Sometimes there is sex to fill this void. And the sex is then strange. There is little giving, but there is taking, there is devouring of you and whatever you can give to fill this void. The exquisite giving and taking is no longer. The balance is disappointed. Because it is to take, to calm, to quiet this awful howl of loneliness and the hunger that derives from loneliness. To feed, so that for once, for this one short while, the need, the plea, the want is filled." Read More...
RU being gaslighted?
'The first stage is disbelief: when the first sign of gaslighting occurs. You think of the gaslighting interaction as a strange behaviour or an anomalous moment. During this first stage, things happen between you and your partner - or your boss, friend, family member - that seem odd to you.' Read More...
Conflict repair exercise
Robin Menard has created this conflict repair exercise by combining Dr. Sue Johnson’s work along with the work of John Gottman. In the past she found both exercises were missing important information. For instance Sue Johnson’s Hold Me Tight Conversation 4 exercise was excellent at helping couples get quickly in touch with deeper feelings but it was missing the listening/validating piece. The John Gottman exercise she used many times in her own relationship but found that having each person go over their side of the conflict in length can be slow getting to the “jist” of what happened and the deeper feelings. Sue Johnson’s exercise offers a quicker deeper solution. So here are the two exercises Robin combined together. Read More...
The three kinds of sex - Sue Johnson
Synchrony Sex
This is when emotional openness and responsiveness, tender touch and erotic exploration all come together. This is the sex that fulfills, satisfies and connects. The key prerequisite here is not wild sexual techniques but a safe emotional bond. The safer we feel emotionally, the more we can communicate, express our needs, play and explore our responses and relax into sexual feelings. Read More...
This is when emotional openness and responsiveness, tender touch and erotic exploration all come together. This is the sex that fulfills, satisfies and connects. The key prerequisite here is not wild sexual techniques but a safe emotional bond. The safer we feel emotionally, the more we can communicate, express our needs, play and explore our responses and relax into sexual feelings. Read More...
Parents as emotion coaches of future couples
29/02/12 Couple interactionEmotion coaching
Gottman noticed that there was a small group of parents in his study that really helped their children identify, label and work through their emotions.The better an adult is at regulating and working through their emotions, the happier and more successful they are in their lives. The implications of these findings for later life choice of partner and for healthy coupling and family dynamics are self-evident - 'the better an adult is at regulating and working through their emotions, the happier and more successful they are in their lives.' Read More...
Mood as a barometer of our relationship?
“He doesn’t have my back.” This is how Andrea described her relationship with Simon, with whom she had been living for four years. 'Andrea has the look of a fashion model, with short black hair, high cheekbones and rail thin frame. She always shows up for therapy in black. “We get along. And that’s enough for Simon. As long as he doesn’t have to go to bed alone. ... Simon hates to go to bed alone.” Read More...
Becoming an expert on each other
Focus on helping each other become experts on one another; there is a shared responsibility for the emotional regulation of our partner; we need to rely on our experience of them to build expertise on who they are. We will be more contented in our relationships if we become experts at identifying dysregulation in our partner and successfully attend to them, aiding them back to self-regulation. Read More...
Controlled separation
"I have a therapist who keeps interjecting her opinion & retracting it - one week she TELLS me to leave the guy, the next week she's ok that I didn't - adding to my confusion!, making my stuckness even worse."
Let us say that you do not want to abandon your partnership but would rather repair your coupling. Let us say your spouse is sitting on the fence, and both of you are waiting to see what happens next. Or you want to separate without making matters worse, without becoming bitter enemies. How is it possible to profit through transition? This one would require a structure with guidelines spelled out to reduce much of the guesswork. This structured separation would help each partner gain a fresh perspective on his and her marital impasse. Here was a means for Jill and Jim to take charge and regain control of themselves and their lives. Read More...
Let us say that you do not want to abandon your partnership but would rather repair your coupling. Let us say your spouse is sitting on the fence, and both of you are waiting to see what happens next. Or you want to separate without making matters worse, without becoming bitter enemies. How is it possible to profit through transition? This one would require a structure with guidelines spelled out to reduce much of the guesswork. This structured separation would help each partner gain a fresh perspective on his and her marital impasse. Here was a means for Jill and Jim to take charge and regain control of themselves and their lives. Read More...
Erotic imagination
"You can only let go with someone who you feel is solid and is not going to be too fragile and will be able to resist and welcome even the raw edge of your desire and your lust." Read More...
Trauma before or during the marriage
"The marital relationship can be considered one of the most important elements of the recovery environment. The research of van der Kolk and his colleagues suggests that the ability to derive comfort from another human being predicts more powerfully than trauma history itself whether symptoms improve and whether self-destructive behavior can be regulated." Sue Johnson Read More...
Wine lose fights shorten life
Typical win lose fight sounds like I'm right you're wrong. They are zero sum games since one person's win is equalled by the other's loss. In marital arguments self-esteem is the wealth each is fighting for. This piece of research shows how deadly a pattern this is for men more so than for women. Read More...
Varieties of shame underlying fights
In an emotionally revealing way, Bradshaw shows us how toxic shame is the core problem in our compulsions, co-dependencies, addictions, and the drive to super-achieve, resulting in the breakdown in the family system and our inability to go forward with our lives.
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What does marital discord predict?
Marital distress is a powerful predictor of relapse from any medical or psychological treatment. A series of studies have shown that marital conflict alters physiological functioning. Hostile or abrasive behaviour during conflict markedly increases adverse physiological changes. In terms of morbidity (illness rates) and mortality (death through illness) women are more adversely affected than men. Read More...
Caution in drawing conclusions from research
"A 15-year-long study found that a person’s happiness level before marriage was the best predictor of happiness after marriage. In other words, marriage won’t automatically make one happy." Is that true? Read More...
Recommendations for a stable marriage
05/09/11 Couple interactionNegative cycle Intimacy
“Emotional isolation is a more dangerous health risk than smoking or high blood pressure. We are designed to live in community and in close relationships. Love is not an intoxicating mixture of sex and infatuation. Instead love is having an emotional bond with others with whom we form “a safe haven from the storms of life. This type of love actually enables us to live longer, with less pain and sickness. Contact with a loving partner literally acts as a buffer against shock, stress, and pain." Sue Johnson Read More...
Self-silencing of sexual desire
"The problem is that in long-term relationships men are far more likely to retain their sexual drive than their partners. The No 1 sexual problem plaguing women is low libido which means couples everywhere are struggling with a mismatch in desire." Read More...
Bottling up frustration, anger and self-silencing
"Anger is fuel. Anger can be healing and healthy. Anger can be a monster. When we feel it, we want to take action. We want to hit someone, break something, throw a fit, smash a fist into the wall, swear and use obscenities. Anger isn’t nice. We’re conditioned to stuff it, deny it, bury it, block it, hide it, lie about it, medicate it, muffle it, ignore it... everything but to experience it." from 'The Artists Way'. Read More...