Love is Within Reach

By Dr. Sue Johnson

Marriage may be on the rise but that doesn’t mean we’re getting any better at relationships. Now research shows that love may be less of a mystery, a frenzy of sex and emotion and instead the result of behavior that we can apply logic to.

As a clinical psychologist and researcher for over 25 years, it’s become clear that two things make or break relationships: the ability to respond emotionally and offer support when it’s needed.

           

Numerous studies, including my own research on how couples successfully repair their love relationships, confirm that the ability to respond to a lover’s emotional signals builds secure and lasting bonds. These studies are part of the revolutionary new science that has, in the last 15 years, outlined the laws and logic of love. This science has progressed to the point where we cannot only help a couple move into satisfaction, but build the kind of secure connection where simply holding a partner’s hand calms your brain and lessens pain, even in the face of the threat of electric shock.

When logic and science show us the way, we can shape and heal romantic bonds. Using an intervention called emotionally focused therapy (EFT), we’ve found that 70 to 73% of couples can completely repair their relationship and 86% can make significant and lasting improvements to their bond. During EFT, we show couples how the habitual way they send out signals to their partner triggers wired-in threat responses, so that neither partner feels safe enough to reach for the other. We then help them identify their emotional needs for belonging and support, and communicate them in a way that pulls their partner close.

A typical couple I see are like Paul and Amy. Paul is a smart, focused man in his mid-forties who has made a fortune with his cutting edge computer company. He walks into my office with his wife, Amy, who has announced that, after 10 years and two kids, she is about to leave him. He tells me, “I can figure anything out, but I just don’t get why she is so angry with me. I do all the tasks and solve the problems around the house. But I never get it right. She is never happy with me. It’s like I have no tools—my head can’t figure this one out.”

I tell him. “You know how to focus and pay attention; you know how to put things together in a way that makes sense. It is just a question of changing the program a little.”  He smiles. Amy looks at me, doubt all over her face. But four months later, she too is smiling. What has Paul learned?

He learned that love is an exquisitely logical survival code designed to keep special others we can depend on close to us and that his intellectual explanations and emotional distancing were danger cues for his lonely wife. He learned to let his wife know when her criticism hurt rather than exiting into logic and distance. Reading the research of Nancy Eisenberger from UCLA helped him grasp how his brain coded rejection from his wife as a threat to survival, responding in the exact same way as to physical pain, cueing his freeze and flee response.

He discovered how to tune into the emotional channel, share his fears of rejection and explicitly ask for the reassurance he needed, and encourage his wife to do that same. We call this a Hold Me Tight conversation and across nine studies it consistently predicted successful relationship repair.

Paul had the usual reservations about asking for caring. He, like the rest of us had been taught that needing loving connection was somehow a weakness or a sign of immaturity. Research shows that those of us who can effectively turn to others for support are the most confident, resistant to stress, most able to risk, explore and reach career goals, and also the ones who have the most positive sense of self.  The new research on mirror neurons fascinated him and persuaded him that it was important to turn towards and look directly into Amy’s face to trigger these neurons in his brain and allow him to directly feel in his body the emotions he saw in her face. This way he could grasp her emotional reality, read her intentions, and move in harmony with her.

He told Amy that he shut down to deal with his sense of bewilderment about how to respond to her and that he needed her support. “And I get that I have to stay in the emotional channel and let you know I am there for you,” he began. “That is what matters in love. I don’t always have to have the answer or solve the problem. Just really being there and helping each other with our emotions is the solution.”

 Dr. Johnson’s new book is Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships

The Power of Authenticity to Create Intimacy

  Written by:

 John Amodeo, PhD  Author of Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships

We long for acceptance, love, and connection. But oftentimes we don't know how to create it. We may push away the love we long for.

Love and intimacy don't blossom by trying to pull it toward us or manipulating people. Connections thrive as we create a climate that's conducive for them. Love and intimacy have a greater opportunity to grow as we cultivate a climate of authenticity.

Being authentic in relationships is easier said than done. It requires that we tend closely to our actual felt experience. Rather than defend and protect ourselves, it means finding the courage to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and then show that to a person we want to be close to.

Dr. Eugene Gendlin, whose research led to the innovative approach known as "Focusing," ( see http://www.holisticcounsel.com/focusing/ for more information) found that clients who made the most progress in psychotherapy (despite the orientation of the therapist) were those who were contacting and speaking from their actual felt experience. They paused, stammered, and groped for words or images to describe their deeper experience rather than just talking from their heads. Things shifted and opened up as they stayed with their authentic experience from moment to moment.

Apply this principle to relationships: When we share what we're experiencing with each other, intimacy is more likely to arise. Dr. Sue Johnson, the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples (EFT), invites couples to contact and share what they're really feeling and wanting -- and she helps clients find the words to convey this. Through the power of such authenticity, conflict often yields to deeper connections.

Couples may enter my office complaining that they're having a communication problem. Although there is often truth in this, more fundamentally, they are usually having a self-awareness problem. They are in touch with their anger, their blame, and their perceptions about their partner (they're selfish, insensitive, or bad), but they're not connected to the tender feelings and longings beneath their criticisms and accusations. And they're not skilled at communicating their authentic experience in a sensitive, respectful way.

Blaming and analyzing others pushes them away. It doesn’t create the safety necessary for deep communication. It covers up what they're actually experiencing, which is usually something more vulnerable, such as sadness, fear, or shame -- or a longing to connect in a deeper way. Finding the courage to contact and convey this deeper experience, perhaps with the help of a couples therapist when necessary, is a key to resolving conflicts and creating a climate for a richer, more vibrant intimacy.

There are layers to our authentic experience. Being authentic means taking the elevator down inside ourselves and noticing whatever we happen to be experiencing right now. It may change from moment to moment.

For example, we might be authentically feeling anger. As we stay gently present with that rather than act it out, it might shift into something else. We might notice sadness beneath the anger, or an unmet need for kindness and closeness. If we can be patient with ourselves -- allowing the time necessary to uncover what most authentically lives within us -- we can then share that, which might invite our partner toward us and create a richer, more fulfilling intimacy.

Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested

Monogamy?

According to Dr. Sue Johnson, author of:"Hold me Tight " and" Love Sense": Monogamy is getting a bad rap these days. We're told that we should all grow up and accept that it's impossible and that we're just naturally promiscuous. Monogamy is more and more portrayed as a state of deprivation, where deadening familiarity robs us of magic and thrills in the bedroom and beyond, and cheating is viewed as inevitable.

But most of us (about 75% of us, according to several different studies) do not cheat on our partners. And, even though, until recently, we had no map or any kind of scientific understanding of love to guide us, more than half of us manage to stay together for a lifetime.

Rigorous survey data from the University of Chicago also shows that long-term committed couples are the happiest, most satisfied, have more sex and report that their sex lives are more thrilling. Here are five reasons, why monogamy — especially now that bonding science shows us how to shape and hold onto love — is no dysfunctional delusion. It is simply the best way to be.

1. It's in our nature to hold onto and protect the bond with a chosen mate.

We are mammals who must collaborate closely over time to rear extremely vulnerable young. A clear preference to mate, stay close to, groom, care for and protect one partner is the norm in such mammals. This does not mean that recreational sex never occurs; it means that it's an occasional side show, a deviation from an adaptive norm, not a better option.

2. Love is an ancient survival code designed to keep a trusted loved one close.

We now know that this need for safe haven connection with an irreplaceable other is our most compelling drive, one that has shaped our chemistry and our nervous system. Sex in mammals is a bonding behavior. We mate face to face, touch and caress, and we are flooded with the bonding hormone, oxytocin, when we “make love.”

Oxytocin turns off fear, turns on reward hormones and moves us into calm contentment. No wonder we long for love. When usually monogamous mammals like prairie voles are given drugs to block oxytocin, they are more likely to stray; when given extra oxytocin they practically groom their mate into the ground.

3. The cost of infidelity is high.

Partners are generally unable and unwilling to share the one they love. Sam, like most partners tells me, “I don’t even know why I did it. It wasn’t like I was consumed with lust for my secretary or was hankering after a different partner. I had lost my connection with my wife, Kim. Nothing seemed to work between us. I was depressed and lonely. Taking my secretary out for coffee was comforting and it felt good that she liked me. I told myself that Kim wouldn’t find out and that it wouldn’t really change anything. The whole thing just seemed very separate from my family.”

Sam denied and compartmentalized, but he was wrong about Kim’s response. She felt traumatized and betrayed. Since we have such a deep need for a secure bond with a lover we can count on, it is natural and inevitable that Kim experiences Sam’s affair as a significant threat. She asked Sam to move out. With help, this couple were able to move into forgiveness. So yes, you can reconcile after an affair, but often the damage is irrevocable.

4. A secure bond with all its mental and physical health benefits requires focused attention and timely emotional responsiveness.

This is hard to pull off if you are investing in more than relationship at a time. Amy tells her husband Jacques, “I want to come first. You don’t even have time and energy for me, let alone a mistress. You ask me to accept this and adapt, but we spend all our time setting rules and fighting over who gets your attention and when. I can’t count on you to be there for me. You have to leave.”

5. Most arguments against monogamy stress the “sex with the same person becomes a bore” mantra.

One study out of my research center shows that when couples become more open and emotionally connected, their sex life improves. Recreational sex — sex without emotional engagement — is way overrated. It's like a dance without music. Flat. One dimensional.

The partners who report being the most open to one night stands and short term sexual relationships are usually into avoidant bonding strategies. They tend to be phobic about depending on or being vulnerable to others. In bed they focus on performance and “hot” sensation.

Ironically, studies report that these same people enjoy sex less and have less frequent sex than more involved bonded partners. The evidence is, securely attached, fully engaged lovers, are happier and more caring.

They also have better sex lives; they are more open to exploring their sexual needs, they communicate better in bed, and can co-operate and solve sexual problems together. They dance in a more attuned and responsive way, in bed and out of it.

The idea that passion has a "Best-before" date and is incompatible with long term love was trendy before the new science of love came on line. Now it’s out of date. The take home message is: be monogamous and shape a joyful, secure bond with your partner. Don’t worry, you’re not missing a thing. If you learn to make sense of love, you can fall in love again and again with the same precious lover. You can have lasting, caring, intimate connection AND the time of your life in bed. This is delight, not deprivation.

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

I found this interesting article by Alain de Botton in the New York Times and though it might be of interest to you.

IT’S one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person.
 

Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?”

Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working; perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.

Our partners are no more self-aware. Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating.

For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text. And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity, abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors. The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need to account for itself.

What matters in the marriage of feeling is that two people are drawn to each other by an overwhelming instinct and know in their hearts that it is right. Indeed, the more imprudent a marriage appears (perhaps it’s been only six months since they met; one of them has no job or both are barely out of their teens), the safer it can feel. Recklessness is taken as a counterweight to all the errors of reason, that catalyst of misery, that accountant’s demand. The prestige of instinct is the traumatized reaction against too many centuries of unreasonable reason.

But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as grown-ups find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right — too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable — given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy.

We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate.

Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage.

Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person.

We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning.

We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.

This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded.

The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners.

Alain de Botton, FRSL is a Swiss-born, British-based author and television presenter. His books and television programmes discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life

What is all this about love and romance anyway… and how does love work?

Dr. Sue Johnson says:

Love is not some kind of weird morass of sex and sentiment that comes and goes mysteriously.  It’s an ancient, wired-in survival code designed to keep those you can depend on close.   It’s the human survival strategy par excellence.  The bonds between parent and child and between adults are our safe haven in a potentially dangerous and random universe.  There are now hundreds of studies that show this and also tell us what the key elements in these bonds are what defines them, makes or breaks them.

This map shows us how to actually shape and create love to the point where trained guides, can now take a relationship that is going down in flames and show couples how to turn it around into - No, not just a comfy relationship - but a vibrant, close, loving bond. Moving out of despair and disconnection into the kinds of bonds we all dream about and long for.

For years we had studies showing that our way of working with couples shifted relationships into less conflict and more satisfaction.  But this is not the same as showing that it is possible to deliberately sculpt attachment - the special, deep emotional bond that our brain codes as crucial to survival.  This kind of bond predicts:

•         Strong sense of self
•         Good mental health
•         Resilience under stress
• 
  

It is now possible to deliberately isolate the key elements in love, such as emotional responsiveness, and in a short time to systematically guide two disconnected people to shape these elements so as to change the security of their attachment bond.

Terry and Tim (fictitious) came into our office talking about divorce. “He never talks” says Terry.  We have zero connection.  I don’t know why I stay.  I am lonely and mad all the time. “Yep, that is about right” replies Tim.  “All you do is complain and demand stuff from me and tell me how damned disappointing I am.  So I just shut down and turn you off. Just 8 weeks later, Tim and Terry see each other differently.  Their dance and the emotional music directing that dance has changed.  They can now see how they trigger fight and flight responses in each other, and how each of them gets stuck in defensives and distance.  After another few weeks or so, they start doing something incredible-they begin to build a loving, responsible bond. In just 20 weeks we didn't just change our problems. And we didn't just fall back in love, she says.  We went to a whole new level.  We never knew love could be like this.

Our study showed that, whether your secret insecurity is that you are anxious and always worried about being abandoned or dismissed, or that you are usually numbed out and defensively denying your need for closeness, this process that we call Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) works and moves you into new levels of emotional connection. The big shift is that people open up emotionally and become more attuned and emotionally responsive to each other's vulnerabilities and needs.  And we all know that this is what love is all about in the end.  It`s all about emotional presence, being there for each other, no matter what.

Couples Therapy

Ever tell your partner to"'grow up!"? Just can't get a sentence finished before they rudely interrupt? You can feel your blood pressure rising. Your heart's racing. You tell yourself,"enough is enough- I've had it " You are just trying to explain yourself and your partner appears to be going "crazy"! The
proverbial gloves come off and a shouting match begins. As usual there are no winners. You can cut the tension in the room with a knife, it's so bad. Whose turn will it be on the couch tonight? All this stress just from trying to have a conversation! It's become unbearable.

Well, you both were certainly communicating. The problem is, it was negative. It became destructive. From experience you know it will just keep repeating itself unless something seriously changes - what is a person supposed to do?

Step back and let me bring you both to a time when being together was all you ever wanted to do.  I know right at this moment that's hard to believe, perhaps you are not even sure that's what you want.

You've come this far, let me help you. My position is neutral. My environment is safe and secure and I respect both of your opinions. Let's work together and I'll help you recapture the love and intimacy you once shared  You will learn how to communicate positively, respectfully and constructively, only now it will be deeper because you'll both use the tools I'll teach you. You'll learn the art of listening, to be heard and to understand your partner.

MARRIED TO DISTRACTION

by: Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., Sue George Hallowell, LICSW, with Melissa Orlov

In our fretful, speed-up world, we can’t turn back the clock to the days of Royal typewriters,un-answered telephone calls (no voice-mail), or time spent alone without “electronic devices.”  But we do need to learn how to manage the chaos and opportunities that surround us.

Without knowing it or meaning to, we are training ourselves to be constantly on the alert for interruptions, to seek out messages incessantly, to process data rather than discover, think or feel and in general to lose the capacity to ponder, pause, imagine, or give full focus to anyone or anything for more than a few moments.

Indeed, impatience and worry may be our national mood.  Who can wait?  Waiting is so yesterday.  Today is hurry and rush.  There is so much to do, so much to worry about.  We have reprogrammed our nervous system; now we demand speed. Milan Kundera: “Speed is the form of ecstasy that technology has bestowed on modern man.”  Speed makes focusing difficult.  If you are not careful, you end up paying partial attention to everyone and everything.

When this new physics enters a marriage, you may start to feel lonely and resentful.  You might wonder where the man or woman you married has disappeared to.  You might also wonder where your own life went.

Speed, overload and anxiety have created an elephant in the room. This elephant is the force of distraction.  It can dominate all our lives.  How many times have you said to your mate or heard him or her say to you words similar to these:

“You say you don’t have time to talk now; but do you ever have the time to talk?

“I am sorry, I am completely spaced out on that; what were you saying?”

“We are busy all the time; but are we happy?”

“I am trying to be patient, but I really need some kind of emotional closeness or I am going to lose something important that I don’t want to lose.”

“I love you, I really do, but I hardly see you.”

“Sex, what’s that?”

“You laugh at people going to see a marriage counsellor, but I think they are brave.  We may benefit from seeing a therapist, but where would we find the time?”

 A new pressure has built up in couples. It’s the pressure to make time for each other. The more attention shatters, the more relationships suffer. Couples can start to feel distant and annoyed without understanding why, then they do what we all do: we blame one another.  But the root cause is the new world of distraction that’s grown up around us.
Modern life has turned people ruder than ever, with less sympathy, more self-centeredness, less emotionally available, and less able to relax and in general more difficult to connect with comfortably.

The impact on couples can be catastrophic, but it does not need to be. If you want to preserve love, you must:

-Insist on time with the person you love and make extended time for each other.

- Learn to say no to temptations.

-Have a clear vision of the life you want, what matters to you the most and make time for  that, with iron-fisted determination.

 

Family Therapy

Journey of transformation

Have you noticed how most of our “buttons” seem to get pushed by our family members? As challenging as the dynamics of the family can be, they can also help propel us to work on ourselves and to move forward, to evolve emotionally and spiritually.

And so sometimes when a client comes in, it becomes evident that in order for the client to move
forward, the entire family needs to be involved in the therapy process, especially in the case of a young person, like a teenager.

Seeing how the family interacts with each other, can give the therapist a clearer view of why the
client has difficulties in overcoming his/her problems. This process will help the client to not only gain new insights into her/himself, but to also learn how to communicate more harmoniously within the family. And by helping family members communicate with each other in a positive way, issues from both the past and present can be resolved in a peaceful way.

We are interconnected with our family members, genetically and karmically, but within that, each one of us is also playing out our own individual part. We are beings who need to follow our own path within the bond of the family. Family karma versus individual karma. This can create quite the balancing act, especially if the family’s path is very different from our own.

But if we are lucky, we can bring other family members on board the journey of transformation.

Are You Feeling Lonely in Your Marriage?

Have you ever found yourself in a relationship where everything seems to be fine on the outside, but where you feel lost and lonely on the inside? You are together, you have children, friends and family and still the core connection with your mate is missing. You are just going through the motions. Somehow the one you’ve built your marital foundation with is not there for you on an emotional level. After years of discontent and miscommunication, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to re-capture the joy of attachment, bonding and closeness with your partner.

When couples first come in, they are often pretty distraught and fed up with the cycle of attack and withdrawal. It's a vicious cycle which they can't break out from. This cycle is natural and common. One partner becomes increasingly demanding and clingy, unintentionally pushing the person away. They wonder: Do I continue living this way or do I call it quits now?

There is a third option: To repair, refresh and renew your relationship now with your partner. When a therapist becomes involved, their role is to listen carefully and find out where the couple has gotten stuck. Resolving the emotional disconnection will help the couple much more than quick fixes for the problem of the week.

If you are in a troubled relationship, and feel it is time to involve a counsellor, it is time to discuss it with a professional therapist.