Guys Giving Gifts: The Darker Side of Valentine’s Day
February 15, 1980, is a day I will never forget. I was explaining to Ellyn, who was at that time my fiancée, why I ignored Valentine’s Day. It was the standard response a lot of men give in that situation – it’s an event created by Hallmark, my love and affection are demonstrated in other […]
Transactional Analysis: Strategies
Strategies for Working With Lies, Passive-Aggressive Behavior and Affairs Dr. Ellyn Bader is Co-Founder & Director of The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, California. She is long-time members of the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) and have served in various capacities in the organization. Ellyn was president of the ITAA from 1984-1985. This is an […]
How To Be a Better Couples Therapist
With one Exercise–Guaranteed! Want to improve your ability and your self esteem as a couples therapist? You can, with one exercise. This one exercise won’t be easy or simple, but it will be effective and will pay dividends for years to come. The problem. Couples enter therapy and after the initial sessions a common pattern […]
Marital Therapy When Partners Have Incompatible Goals
“Practice Development Dispatch” Newsletter Collection It was the first session with a very distressed couple -the woman had made an irrevocable decision the marriage was over. We were discussing her decision, but her husband did not want to accept it. He wanted their kids, ages 9 and 7, to have an intact family, and he […]
Reliability and Trust
Who can you trust? It was 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon. Ellyn was getting ready to go to a conference where we were making a presentation the next day. She asked me to pack the chart stand in the car and I agreed. The next morning on the way in to the office, I realized […]
A Developmental Model of Couples Relationships for Couples Therapists
Edna, 28, and Steve, 30, had been living together for two years when they requested couples therapy. In appearance Edna was dressed immaculately, while Steve looked disheveled. Their fights, not surprisingly, focused on his slovenly appearance and sloppy household habits, and on her fastidious behavior and frivolous patterns of spending money. Theirs had been an […]
Happily Ever After
A marriage is the most rewarding – and the most challenging – relationship of your life. Don’t let this alarm you, but no matter how old you are, how smart you are, or how hip you are, your relationship to your spouse will parallel your relationship to your parents during your childhood. Your marriage will […]
Recognizing Beliefs that Foster Marital Disillusionment
Partners meet. They fall in love and everything is wonderful – until within a year or two when they get mugged by the realities of daily life. Then comes the inevitable disillusionment. The partners don’t conform to each others’ fantasies and their flaws become more visible. This disillusionment phase is ripe for wrenching growth and […]
7 Strategies for Establishing Positive Contact in Couples Therapy
In this newsletter, we look at the issue of how you establish contact in the early sessions of couples therapy. Most graduate school courses teach the importance demonstrating unconditional positive regard for our clients. This is taught as a primary way to make good contact. While it can work well with individual clients, it’s not […]
Leadership and Marriage
Effective leaders and effective marriages have three things in common: 1. Leaders and partners learn from their experiences. 2. They learn how to adapt to changing conditions. 3. They pay attention and anticipate probable future problems. During the winter of 1911, Robert Scott was racing to be the first man to get to the South […]
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