Affordable Relationship Counseling San Diego: How Do I Work?

Last week, a potential client called and asked me how I work. He said he Googled the search term “Counseling San Diego” and found my website. I told him that I worked from a Bowen Family Systems perspective and that I also thought about relationships from an existential, strength-based perspective. He asked me what that meant. I informed him of my basic views on multigenerational couples therapy and individual therapy. I also explained that I believed that it is in our most painful experiences that the deepest life lessons may be learned. Thus, one can become stronger as an individual or as a partner in a relationship not merely in spite of problems, but BECAUSE of them! I also told the caller about my basic views on collaboration and mutuality in the therapy relationship. Finally, I explained that my level of activity in any given session is not predetermined but rather is responsive to the context of the client and the particular session. In one session, I may mostly listen. In another session, I may ask good questions that open up the client to ask himself more questions. In still another session, I may offer my best thinking from a Bowen theoretical perspective or an existential, strength-based perspective. I try to ask clients how they THINK about an issue that they are grappling with rather than how they are FEELING about the issue. Feelings are automatic. THe effort to become more thoughtful in the midst of intense feelings is the stuff of good therapy, from my perspective. I try not to get in the way as my clients struggle and persevere in their efforts at personal growth as they work though their unique challenges. The therapy room may at times fill with laughter and at other times with tears. It is important to me to encourage clients to be able to step outside enough to allow humor to lighten their load. Occasionally, clients may be gently confronted about letting go of old defenses–defenses that once were useful coping mechanisms in another context and time in their lives, but that get in the way of effective living today. In my work, I try to be both creative and flexible. In my opinion, the art of good therapy, as in the art of good living, lies in the capacity to become increasingly adaptive to the changes and challenges that we all face as human beings. To learn more about my model of practice, visit my website at http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.com

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Couples Counseling San Diego: Ten Tips to Cool Down

In my couples counseling practice in San Diego, I often coach partners to have a visual of a dropdown menu of items to help them cool down in the midst of becoming reactive to their partner.  Humans are the only species with an evolved “thinking” brain. However, our thinking shuts down if we get too flooded with intense emotions, which often occurs in the heat of an argument. If we have some pre-planned ways to “buy time” till we can cool down, we tend to manage ourselves better when things go South in our romantic relationships.

When you and your partner get into a heated argument, you can feel yourself getting reactive. Your physiology changes. You can feel your heart beating faster. You can feel yourself losing control. You want to scream. Say angry things.  Strike out.  Hurt. Cry. Yell. Go hide. Your cortisol levels rise (stress hormone).  You cannot seem to get a grip on your emotions. Here are ten quick tips to buy some time till you can cool down and better self-regulate as intense emotions flood you:

1. Take time to exercise.

2. Go on a hike or just walk around your neighborhood.

3. Journal your feelings and thoughts.

4. Take a hot bath (or cold shower)

5. Call a friend.

6. Read a new book or magazine.

7. Get a massage.

8. Meditate.

9. Go shopping.

10. Think carefully and deeply in order to identify your part in triggering the argument and then move toward owning up to that portion with your partner. Remember that all arguments are co-created. This means no one is to blame. We each play a part in triggering a response in the other. This idea is freeing, because it means we are always able to make a difference in the relational dance by changing one of our own dance steps.

To learn more about my model of practice, please visit my web site at http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.com and pick up some free tips just for stopping by. I offer a complimentary phone consultation and can be reached at 619 9906203. At my Affordable Relationship Counseling practice, I offer a sliding fee scale and evening hours for working couples.

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Counseling: An Avenue to Relationship and Individual Empowerment

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only is such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” M. Scott Peck

We all experience times in our lives when our problems seem overwhelming. In earlier eras, there was a social stigma to seeking counseling. But over the past forty years or so, it is becoming increasingly clear that counseling is a treatment that everyone can benefit from at one time or another in one’s life. To seek counseling is to address one’s problems, conflicts and relationship difficulties directly. Counseling is an effort that is inherently relational. The counseling relationship is itself a place to practice being honest with self and with other. Counseling is a courageous move. It can be empowering for the individual and his/her relationship. If you are having problems either individually or in your relationship, why not begin the new year by seeking counseling? It may put you on a different path that will lead you toward increasing clarity and fulfillment. For affordable relationship counseling, call 619 9906203 for a complimentary consultation or visit http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.com for some free tips and information about Dr. Cunningham’s model of practice.

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Marriage Counseling

 

What is it about  marriage that calls upon us to stretch and grow? It is the frustration and the problems that emerge that require of us new approaches and behaviors within ourselves. Instead, we often find ourselves trying to “fix” or to change the other guy. This will not work.  McLaughlin once said, “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

Pain and frustration can be great teachers. If one bends into problems instead of turning away and making it about the other guy, one can get a lot more bang for one’s buck in terms of personal growth and emotional development.  Long lasting, satisfying marriages reflect two partners who have the emotional maturity to “stay with it,” even during the stormiest of times.

Every relationship has a dynamic, a vibe. It is always co-created. We are either in sinc with one another or in reaction to one another, depending on the day and/or context. If relationships are co-created, they can be compared to dances. If you change one step, you have the possibility of changing the dance. This notion of infinite choices in terms of how to respond is a hopeful idea. It means there is always something else that can be done to change it up.

To learn more about my model of marriage counseling, please visit me at http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.comor call 619 9906203 for a complimentary telephone consultation.

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Affordable Relationship Counseling: What Drives Relationship Tension?

Dr. Murray Bowen, pioneering figure in marriage and family therapy, presented the groundbreaking idea that there are two competing life forces, and the tension between these life forces is always at play in relationship systems. On one hand, human beings have a need to be connected to important others. On the other hand, they have the need to be a separate self. How to balance these reciprocal forces in a way that works for oneself while at the same time having the ability to respect a partner’s differing needs for connection and separateness is the stuff of good therapy….learn more by reading my model of practice at http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.comand get some free tips just for stopping by.

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The Concept of Reciprocity in Couples Counseling

Couples counseling that is effective looks to identify the reciprocity in a couple’s sequences or cycles of behavior and then to empower the couple to interrupt this reciprocal functioning. Dr. Murray Bowen and Dr. Michael Kerr (1988), pioneers in the field of marriage and family therapy, frequently noticed that “[couples] functioned in reciprocal relation to one another….It was if one person gained or ‘borrowed’ strength in relationship to the other person having lost or given up strength. The functioning of one person, therefore, could not be adequately understood out of the context of the functioning of the people closely involved with him” (p. 7).*

Thus, the ability to think in opposites is helpful when one is working to shift a negative dynamic in a couple’s pattern of behavior. There are many examples of reciprocity in a couples relationship, some of which include overfunctioning/underfunctioning, pursuing/withdrawing; spending/saving;  or liberal parenting style/strict parenting style. In the case of overfunctioning/underfunctioning reciprocity, for example, the overfunctioner is, in actuality, defining the underfunctioning of the other person and vice-versa. This is disempowerment at its best! It is usually the overfunctioning partner who is in more discomfort and, therefore, the therapist will work first with this person to decrease the overfunctioning. The underfunctioning partner has a “cushier,” more comfortable position and may not be as motivated toward change.  Can you think of any more examples of reciprocal or opposite positions in your own couples dynamic? The key is to remember that a couple may be exaggerating their “automatic” behavior in reaction to their partner’s mirror opposite “automatic” behavior. Thus, polarization is the outcome over time in the old adage “opposites attract.” While attraction to an “opposite” may be true initially, the very thing that may have once attracted begins to repel.  

The work is often to identify the partner who is in the most emotional pain as the person to begin to work with in decreasing their “go to” position and perhaps taking on the opposite behavior.  The person who is working to decrease his/her automatic functioning in response to his/her partner may be pressured to “change back” by the other partner in the early stages of efforts to change. The strength of a couples system to try to hold on to its equilibrium, even if the equilibrium is not useful, is fierce! The couples dynamic is stuck, and, even though not useful, may be difficult to change!  The therapist coaches the change partner to just “hold on” to the change and, eventually, the other partner may begin to respond by toning down their behavior in the opposite direction. This is the beginning of a true shift in a “stuck” dynamic. To learn more about reciprocity and couples counseling with Dr. Cunningham, call 619 9906203 for a complimentary phone consultation. You may also visit her website at http://www.Cunninghamtherapy.com

*Kerr, M.E. & Bowen, M. (1988). Family evaluation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

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