Posts Tagged ‘Relating’
Why is it So Hard to Receive Support?
Letting others in is an ongoing process. As a therapist, I offer support for a living—yet taking in care from others is another story. I remember the a-ha moment when I first understood the reciprocal nature of support. Several years ago I attended a powerful community-based grief ritual. At the start of the intimate weekend,…
Rupture and Repair in the Therapeutic Relationship
I’ve said it before: human relationships are messy. Why would your relationship with your therapist be any different? I had just begun my postdoctoral fellowship at a forensic agency, working with individuals mandated to treatment as a requirement of their parole or probation. Many of these individuals had been involved with the justice system since…
#TBT on Psyched: Single Men Dating in the Modern World
Gender roles and our lifestyle make dating a brand new unknown.
A Couples Therapist watches TV — Parenthood
Like many others, my wife and I are eagerly looking forward to tonight’s premiere of the new season of Parenthood, though with considerable wistfulness that it’s the final season. With our kids off to college, we forsook our basic cable last year for a streaming box. Not only are we saving nearly $100 a month,…
Discouraging encouragement: the kind of praise that doesn’t help
As I was ignoring my children and zoning-out on the old Facebook for a time recently, I found myself considering a post from the Conscious Discipline feed. Conscious Discipline is all about attuning to our kids and bringing them up – can you guess? – consciously. It’s a wonderful resource for parents, for teachers and…
Anger is your friend: the restoration of anger
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the…
The check-in: an exercise to nurture intimacy and the tolerance of deep connection
In my experience working with couples, it’s not uncommon to find that partners have a considerable difference in their need or tolerance for emotional contact and intimacy. One partner may be more emotionally expressive and generally talkative, while the other may be less emotionally expressive and less comfortable with one-to-one contact with their partner. Contrary…
Single Men Dating in the Modern World
Things are different than they used to be. Have you noticed? For men. For women. For all of us, traditional gender roles and expectations are collapsing, being renegotiated, tweeked, and yet clung to and reinvigorated, often all from the perspective of the same person! To say the least, it can be confusing. This blog article…
Men’s Work
These men meet nearly every morning in Pacifica, CA Being male is something you’re born as; however becoming a strong, emotionally intelligent and open man is not a given. Being this type of man takes practice, a practice that gets worked out in the intimate and everyday relationships that make up our lives. Relationships with…
Parenting Is Not the Hardest Job in the World
Parenting or Motherhood, to be exact, is not the hardest job in the world because IT IS NOT A JOB AT ALL. I wonder sometimes if “JOB” helps parents feel valued by the workforce. Or maybe because relating with a child is hard to stomach so by calling it a job we get some reprieve…
A Few Ways of Inviting Connection & Intimacy
This blog will be light on the prose and heavier on just a few exercises/tips/doorways into a fuller heartfelt connection with yourself, or with your intimate partner. It is also worth mentioning that greater intimacy with self always has a positive impact on your openness to intimacy, vulnerability, and thus connection, with another, from the…