Healing
Sexual surrogacy
01/11/12
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...
Conflict repair exercise
26/04/12
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...
Becoming an expert on each other
04/02/12
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
29/12/11
"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...
What does marital discord predict?
30/09/11
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...