Steps Family Therapy

So, after careful consideration (and maybe after looking through the previous article on When to Walk Away), you’ve determined it is time to end the relationship. Knowing how to break up can be incredibly difficult, and you’ve likely felt a lot of pain in the process. Helping people navigate breakups is one of the saddest parts of a relational therapist’s job, but ending a relationship is sometimes a necessary and healthy decision. The following are some considerations for yourself and your partner as you follow through on how to break up in a way that preserves both of your dignity. What Needs Do You Have? People enter relationships to fulfill some need or want: emotional or physical intimacy, validation, loneliness, financial needs, children, etc. If you don’t have another reliable source for the essential needs, then it will be very difficult to pull the trigger on a breakup. For example, if you don’t feel emotionally stable when not in a romantic relationship, then you will anxious...

  It pains me that I would ever need to instruct people on how to reduce the intimacy and vulnerability of a relationship; to get to an internal state where a person’s words, both positive and negative, have little or no effect. Relational detachment is a therapist’s worst nightmare, but there are some scenarios where it may be appropriate: -When you frequently come into unavoidable contact with a verbally abusive family member (such as a parent). -When you do not consider divorce a legitimate option, but your spouse is not in a place to stop hurting you emotionally (If you can safely do so, please remove yourself from physically abusive relationships). -When you are co-parenting with someone who is not in a place to cooperate or be respectful. -Other situations where confrontation and resolution with a source of trauma are unlikely or impossible (workplace, school program, etc.).   I am almost always in favor of confrontation and repair, and believe all people are...

  A common question presented in therapy, and that I imagine most people face, is when to call it quits on a relationship. As a therapist, I try not to tell people what to do or not do regarding relationship status, but I may pose certain questions or provide education to help people make those decisions deliberately and according to their core values. The following thoughts may help you gain clarity as you decide whether to stay in certain relationships. First, I want to identify a few things that DON'T have to be deal breakers, but sometimes are if people don’t know about them or don’t take enough time to think about them. “ The ICK”. Though this term has many definitions in the Urban Dictionary, here it refers to a rapid decline in interest, or spike in aversion, of a potential partner due to trivial or unknown reasons (e.g., not asking her out again after seeing her leg hair, or after hearing his unique laugh). For us, the ICK refers to something inside YOU that needs to be exp...

Parents sometimes ask me how they can help their kids be more grateful. I typically start this answer by defining “gratitude” as a feeling, rather than a character trait; the feeling of happiness, pleasure, relief, or security we get when we receive something we actually want. We feel grateful for certain things, and not for other things, and can feel gratitude and ingratitude at the same time (e.g., “I’m grateful for the candy, but not for your dirty look”). Not being grateful for something, or many things, does not make a person inherently “ungrateful.” We don’t feel grateful for things we don’t want. We might act grateful when someone gives us something we don’t want, but I don’t call this “gratitude.” This is either strategic (trying to appease someone to get something from them in the future), fearful (appeasing to avoid punishment), or caretaking (trying to prevent someone else from feeling upset). Grateful-appearing behaviors may be adaptive to certain situations, but they a...

  Are We Raising Weak Kids? I’ve gotten this question a lot recently in some form or another. And the short answer is, YES. But the long answer is NO, all things considered. Let’s explain. Past generations had it rough. They had more wars, more abuse, more crime, less social welfare, more disease, more economic insecurity, more lead in their pipes, and they actually had to make phone calls instead of texting. The further in the past you go, the more “Do or Die” it was. And the result? More people died. And they died a lot earlier. And those that didn’t learned to survive hard things. It’s just that the way they survived looks different from how kids do today. And, if we really look closely, we’d find that we don’t want kids to adapt the same way their parents did. Let’s look at “Anxiety” and “Depression,” which most kids identify with these days. Anxiety is the activation of the Fight/Flight response and Depression is the activation of the Freeze response, for when the Fight/Flight...