Relationships 101
Psychology is basically the science of relationships. One of my licenses is for Marriage, Family Therapy. As you can see it deals with the relationships between two or more people, however, our relationships with others is a reflection of how we are with ourselves. Therefore, we need to improve our relationship with ourselves to see improvements with other people in our life. Let’s face...Learn More
Becoming an Equal
We are all the same. Nobody is above or below us. Until we realize that we are all in this family of life together, we can learn to bridge the gap between people, countries, and this world. Such a lofty way of looking at life, many would think, but when you get right down to the fact that we are all 99.999% the same the only difference is what we think. I recall an episode years ago on a...Learn More
Improving Communication
Maybe this article should be titled, “Get off your ifs, ands, and buts.” This week had one theme – the trouble with communication, or lack thereof. In meeting with couples and families, my common message has always been, finding a way for the message sent to be received. It takes effort for the communicator to present information to another person in a manner that they can accept. For example,...Learn More
The Emotional Bank Account
Whether you are in a good or bad relationship, it is important to know about the emotional bank account. I ask you, in your current relationship are you making deposits or withdrawals? Healthier relationships tend to have more of a positive balance. What are deposits into the bank account? A deposit could be simply avoiding your cell phone or an incoming call and focusing on being with your...Learn More
Dad’s Memorial
A rainbow followed me as I drove to work this morning. The morning before my father’s memorial celebration. He lived a good 90 years and seemed to have a good life. I came to love my father after the rocky start of his abuse in my younger years. Because of this I went through extensive therapy and was then able to confront him as an adult. From that moment we began to build a wonderful...Learn More
What is Therapy?
With our influx of new clients recently, I’ve found myself explaining what the process of therapy is. It seems that for so long people have sluffed it off, avoided it, realized their problems were not going away on their own and needed some assistance. I recall thinking that I was weak for going into therapy, and lost the fight in trying to help myself. I feel for that younger me who meekly...Learn More
How to Change Others
So you want to learn how to change other people, but why? If they change to how you want them to be, would that make you feel better? If they said I’m sorry, would it make your problems go away? So many go to great lengths to change others, to make them love you, respect you, or simply to stop bothering you. I have some bad news for you – you can’t change them, that is their job. Many people...Learn More
Relationship with You
Our relationships reflect back to our relationship with ourselves. This is what Sigmund Freud wrote about in the 1890s. He coined the term “Projections”. Since the film projector just came out, he could see somebody projecting all of their negativity onto another person – the screen. My dad always said, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back to you.” If you...Learn More
Relationship Rescue
Unfortunately, we were never taught in school how to keep a relationship healthy. As with most mental health-related issues, we learned usually how to fix things by mimicking how our parents did things. If you came from a healthy home, no doubt the odds are you will be healthy in a relationship, but that doesn’t have a bearing on your partner. Paying close attention to what kind of environment...Learn More