Cracking the Code of Love

These are highlights from an interview between Shane Parrish (Farnham Street) and Dr. Sue Johnson.

The full interview is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws-4Oy0ongU

Dr. Sue Johnson is a researcher, clinical psychologist, and the developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy. In this interview, they discuss how to create, protect, and nourish fulfilling sexual and emotional relationships.

In this discussion, they walk through the life cycle of human relationships, from early infatuation to dating, marriage, and beyond while taking short detours to explore many of the hazards that are common in each stage.

Sue talks about finding, sparking and rekindling connection with our partner, why emotional responsiveness is critical to a healthy relationship, and she shares the recipe to a great sex life that all the popular online and magazine articles are missing.

Here are a few highlights from their conversation:

Many of us have no idea. We don’t know what we’re looking for. We just don’t want to be lonely anymore and we want somebody to have fun with and we want someone to have sex with. We’re caught up in the society thing of girls are supposed to look like this and guys are supposed to look like that.

What I’ve always tried to tell my children is, you can be attracted to lots of people in a very superficial way and you’re going to experiment with relationships, you are, because you have to get to know this dance, and you’re going to make mistakes. But what you really need to do is listen to yourself and listen to when you feel safe and when dancing with someone is easy and makes you feel good, and when you can be vulnerable for a moment and that person tunes in and cares about your vulnerability. That’s the person to go with.

Of course, things go wrong and they fight, they hurt each other and that’s a relationship. If you dance with somebody, they’re going to step on your feet. They’re going to go left when you expect them to go right. It’s just the way it is. The point is, in a good relationship, you can recognize what’s happened and you can tune in and you can repair it. It’s emotional responsiveness. That’s the basis of a secure bond.

Emotional isolation is traumatizing for human beings. You’re not wired for it. It’s a danger cue for your nervous system.

Attachment tends to be hierarchical. We can love more than one person, but in terms of who you turn to when you really need, in terms of where you take your vulnerability, it’s usually hierarchical. We have our special one and most people want to be the special one for somebody else, and most people want a special one. That’s the person that you turn to.

Distressed relationships are always the same all over the world at every age. Where are you? Where are you? Do you care about me? Do I matter to you? Will you respond to me? Will you be there when I’m vulnerable? Am I safe with you? Where are you? Where are you? And when the answer is, “I’m here,” you can deal with almost anything.

Emotional responsiveness is an abstract word that captures a lot. It’s the ability or the willingness that someone has to tune into emotionally and to allow themselves to tune into your non-verbals or your words, and to allow themselves to feel what you’re feeling and who respond to that in a way that you feel that you matter.

You’re more vulnerable to the person you love than anyone in the world; That’s part of being in love. On the other hand, if it’s a good relationship, you’re safer with this person than anywhere else in the world. That’s the paradox of love.

Relationships are live things. They’re live moving organisms, and they’re like every other live thing. If you starve them of attention, and ignore them, and leave them on a shelf for years, then you turn around and try to pick them off the shelf, well, I’m sorry, but they’ve shriveled and died.

The best thing you can give your children is parents who know how to support each other and stand together and help each other. Not only that, but you give your children something more valuable by doing that. You give your children a vision of what a good relationship looks like.

Dr. Sue Johnson (Dr.Sue Johnson), a clinical psychologist and the developer of EFT or Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy. The EFT model is considered to be one of the most effective evidence-based therapy methods available and is currently taught to over 3000 health care professionals every year. Countless couples’ relationships have been repaired and strengthened because of Sue’s work.

Sue is also the author of several books, including Love Sense and her breakout bestseller, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, which is hands down the best relationship book I’ve ever read.

Is Unconditional Love Possible?

What we're really asking each other for, and what we should seek instead.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were loved and accepted exactly as we are? Many times during psychotherapy sessions, my clients have uttered some version of, “I just want to be unconditionally loved! I want someone who can accept me with my flaws and foibles.”

I’m very sympathetic to the desire for a partner who is not prone to fixing and changing us.  As psychologist Harville Hendrix has stated, one purpose of adult relationships is to heal old childhood wounds.  A common wound is not feeling seen and accepted as we are. Love relationships can help heal childhood deficits by allowing us feel welcomed, wanted, and embraced as we are.

Each individual, however, has their own set of vulnerabilities and needs; there is a limit to what others can accept about us. Clinging to a demand that we be unconditionally loved might give us license to be self-centered or destructive. If we have affairs or are emotionally abusive, can we expect our partner to keep tolerating such damaging behavior?

It’s a pleasant fantasy to desire someone always to be there for us, regardless of how obnoxious we might be. Could our plea for unconditional love be a convenient way to use romantic or spiritual language as a way to cling to our narcissism and avoid noticing how we affect others?

What Self Do We Want Others to Love?

Sure, we want to be accepted for who we are. But are we truly being who we really are? Or are we being a self that has been defensively constructed to avoid the vulnerable aspects of who we are? Have we built walls of defenses and mistakenly taken this fabricated self to be our authentic self?  And then proudly insist that people accept and love this distorted, reactive self?

The notion of unconditional love raises tricky questions. Are we expecting our partner to love our nasty, prickly self? Is being angry and critical hiding something deeper that we don’t want to face or feel? Might our aggressive outbursts reflect a defensive pattern whereby we hide more tender parts of ourselves?

Criticism and contempt have been identified by researcher John Gottman as reliable predictors of relationship distress and divorce. If we have a pattern of lashing out in anger when we don’t get our way, we may insist that we want to be accepted for that. But how might you feel if your partner lashed out unpredictably, perhaps when you’re feeling most vulnerable? Even a saint would have difficulty experiencing love during such moments. 

We may hide our true feelings because we don’t want to feel uncomfortably exposed. Consequently, our feelings may come out indirectly. Distancing from what is alive inside us may explain why we feel irritable, moody, or angry sometimes… It takes a quiet inner strength to expose what is vulnerably alive inside us. We can relate to others in a more direct, fulfilling way as we become mindful of what we’re really experiencing and show our true feelings and wants without misdirection, games, or shame about who we really are.

I have found Eugene Gendlin's research-based approach known as Focusing to be especially helpful in uncovering deeper feelings.

Dancing with a Difficult Partner

You want to be loved as you are? That’s understandable. You want to be accepted with your human flaws and limitations? Of course! It’s easier to garner compassion if your partner can trust that you’re making a sincere effort to become more aware of your true feelings and longings.

If you have a challenging partner, you might recognize their tendency to be reactive and critical. Your love might prompt you to explore this together rather than separate, which includes looking at your possible contribution to cycles of conflict. But it would be unrealistic to practice unconditional love in the sense of accepting hurtful behaviors without voicing how they affect you and asserting that it’s not okay to be treated this way. This would be self-neglect, not unconditional love. In some situations, it might be easier to love unconditionally from a distance rather than remain in a partnership that is destructive.

If your partner pleads with you to seek help through couples therapy, you might want to consider it. Perhaps see this as an invitation to uncover and reveal more of who you really are—and to learn how to do so together in a constructive way. It’s difficult to see ourselves and our interactional dynamics clearly without reflections back from a wise, caring guide. I have found the research-based approach of Emotionally Focused Therapy  for couples (developed by Dr. Sue Johnson ) to be particularly beneficial. As the sage Rumi suggested, “Without a guide it will take you two hundred years for a journey of two years.”

Mutuality

Children need our unconditional love. But mature love is nourished through mutuality. Just as our garden needs ample sunshine and watering, we are sustained by respect, understanding, and nurturing.

John Amodeo, Ph.D., MFT, is author of the award-winning book, Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships  

If you like this article or know someone who may be interested in it, please feel free to forward it to them.

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.

What Every Couple Should Know about Emotions

by Les Greenberg

Emotions are what relationships are really about.

Emotions are the glue that make people stick together and that bring us all the positive feelings that make us want to spend time together. They give us the spark of passion, the comfort of belonging, the pride of feeling special, and the enjoyment of feeling known and understood.

Unfortunately, emotions are also what make relationships difficult. They can overwhelm us, they can shut us down, and they can make us say and do things that give us a sense of being out of control.

A relationship can bring out the best and can bring out the worst in our human nature. They can lead a president to risk his reputation for a night of passion, and a football player to murder his wife out of jealousy and anger.

No wonder then that many people have an ambivalent relationship with their emotions: They both fear them and like them.

But no matter what your opinion is, it is clear that you need to learn how to understand your emotions and know what to do with them in order to be successful in your relationships with others.

The Fundamental Thing You Need to Know about Emotions:

One thing that was really helpful to me when I first started to study how emotions really work was the distinction made between primary emotions and secondary emotions. This distinction helped me understand my own emotional reactions much better and it has become one of the key principles of the many forms of emotion focused therapies that are currently being used to help individuals and couples.

Once you understand this distinction, you will have one of the most important tools at your disposal to turn negative interactions in your relationship around.

Primary Emotions and Secondary Emotions:

A primary emotion is the first emotion we feel in response to a particular event in our environment. If we wanted to state it simply they refer to how we really feel.

In many situations, however, our primary emotions get covered over by secondary reactions to our primary emotions.

If I feel hurt or sad about my partner saying that he prefers to spend a night on the town with his guy friends, rather than a relaxing night at home with me, I might have an emotional reaction to feeling sad or hurt.

I might for example feel guilty because I don’t think I should need anyone and have learned that I should never prioritize my own needs over those of others.  However, I could also feel embarrassed or ashamed because I believe it is pathetic and weak for me let someone else have this kind of sway over me.

Another possibility would be that I feel angry that my partner does not want to hang out with me and get resentful because I do not want to feel pushed aside and demand to be a higher priority than his friends. All of these secondary reactions to my primary emotions transform this emotion into something else than what it initially was.

Secondary Emotions Distort How We Really Feel:

If I feel guilty about wanting more of my partner’s time and attention, I can then no longer express my sadness at not having my need met. The guilt blocks me from expressing my sadness. It may also block me from even admitting to myself that I feel sad, and so I may not even have the ability to comfort myself and deal with my sense of loss or disappointment on my own. Because the primary feeling gets blocked by the secondary feeling, I end up distorting my own original experience. This means that the original emotion cannot be resolved and can no longer be used to guide my actions. 

My primary emotion goes underground, and instead gets replaced by my secondary emotion, which may now lead to a quite different reaction. Instead of saying “it kind of hurt my feelings when I think you would rather spend time with others than with me”, I now instead end up withdrawing emotionally (guilt: I should not express my needs, I don’t deserve to have my needs met), or reacting with anger (I don’t deserve to be treated this way)

Les Greenberg, is a professor emeritus of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada and also director of the Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic in Toronto

How to Achieve Empathy

In couples counselling often one partner may not show any empathy for the other.  This can create an obstacle towards repairing a rupture in the relationship. Or they may not know how to achieve empathy.  Empathy is putting yourself in the other person's shoes.  Here is a link to Brene Brown's interpretation of Empathy.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses the questions:

How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw&nohtml5=False

If you want to learn more, please view my blog on empathy:

http://www.torontocounselling.blogspot.ca/2015/06/do-i-really-need-to-be-empathic.html

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.

How Couples Counselling (EFT) can help You

Longing to have the close connection that you had in the early days of your relationship?

Couples start out loving, but when things go wrong, they very often end up angry, insecure, distant or numb.  All couples fight about money, sex, the kids, etc….all the little things that feel so stupid to argue about.  But there is more to it than these issues, something underlying that is hard to figure out or know how to fix.  What are these things “deep down” that are so hard to define?

We believe there is a common theme that lies beneath all relationships, struggles-the need to feel connected, safe and secure in the arms of your lover.

IN spite of loving one another, you and your partner can get caught up in unhealthy communication or behaviour or patterns to the point of feeling completely stuck in the same arguments time and time again.  Or perhaps you avoid difficult conversations because you are afraid of starting a fight.  Both patterns increase tension and conflict in your relationship.  As therapists, we find that most couples are trying to solve their problems without a safe, secure connection.  But it most often leads to more of that “dance” of negativity which has engulfed the two of them.

My training in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples makes having an emotional safe environment a priority in my office.  Once you feel safe to open up to your partner, the cycle is broken and a new emotional connection emerges.  You will begin to feel the intimacy and trust grow as you speak about your deepest needs.

Regardless of the state of your relationship, EFT can help you break out of the old negative patterns for good.  It allows couples to move from painful disconnect to a new way of understanding themselves and each other- viewing your partner as a safe haven and a secure base from which to face the world!