Living With Anxiety- Tips for Helping Calm Anxiety
Living With Anxiety Over 40 million adults in the…
How to Expand Your Emotional Capacity
First I need to give credit to the originator of this metaphor, a friend and mentor Dr. Stephen Finn. Dr. Finn is a psychologist in practice here in Austin, Texas and is on faculty at UT Austin. He has mentored many psychologists over the years and is a world-renown expert on psychological assessment. If you are interested in psychological assessment you may find his website, www.therapeuticassessment.com, of interest. Now that I have given credit, let me explain what “saucering” […]
The Care and Feeding of Your Wave (or Loving Your Angry-Resistant Partner)…
Some time ago I published a blog on the “Care and Feeding of your Island/Avoidant Partner”. For those of you unfamiliar with the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), “Islands” and “Waves” are the terms coined by Dr. Stan Tatkin to help people understand attachment styles and how they show up in romantic relationships.”Wave-ish” partners have a few hallmark qualities that can help you identify them. They tend to like to talk, especially at night as they ar […]
How To Get Your Partner Into Couple’s Therapy
I get this question a lot. So I decided to write a blog post about it. Now, of course first you need to realize that you cannot control another person. Believe me, I have tried and tried hard. I like to say that I am just stubborn enough and strong-willed enough and persistent enough that if anyone COULD control another person it would be me. And I have always failed every time I tried. So please realize that. You cannot force another person to do anything, least of all couples therapy. […]
Victim-Perpetrator-Rescuer Triangle
VICTIM. RESCUER. PERSECUTOR. That about covers it sometimes, right? Ever feel like you are in some weird play where there are always the same three characters? One person is getting screwed, one person is the hero trying to rescue that person and one person is the villain who is always seen as the bad guy. Which one do you most often get cast as? And how can you get out of that dynamic?That dynamic is called Karpman’s (Drama) Triangle. I would love to say that I invented t […]
Is It OK To Ask A Partner To Change?
I get this question a lot. Usually framed as “you…
Interview with Dr. Stan Tatkin on Shrinkrap Radio – Great Explanation of His Roots
For anyone who has wondered how Dr. Tatkin came to…
How We Learn To Be Ashamed
I have written about shame before but wanted to expand…
How To Say You’re Sorry…And Make It Stick
To err is human…. So where does that leave us?…
How Therapy Works
First let me say that this blog topic has been…