Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

5 Reasons To Have Pre-marriage Counselling Before Getting Married

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pre-marriage counselling manchesterI read with great interest last week that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to have premarital counselling before they get married in April. They will receive this counselling from the Bishop of London, Dr. Richard Chartres, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. This is a couple that will have enormous pressure placed on their marriage.  From having their relationship analysed, dissected and speculated about endlessly in the press and by demanding jobs that require long periods of time away from each other, I guess they are going to need all the help and support they can get.

But what about us ordinary mortals? Why should we bother with marriage counselling before we are even married?  Having worked with couples in crisis it is becoming more and more apparent to me that learning “relationship skills” at the beginning of the journey can save a great deal of pain, upset and distress further down the road.

In this post I will outline five reasons I think all couples, straight or gay, who intend to make a long term commitment to each other should consider premarital counselling.

  1. Pre-marriage counselling can teach you how to talk to each other. The central focus of my work with couples is teaching them how to talk to each other so both can stay safe, both feel heard and both learn to listen. Learning these skills at any stage of the relationship is going to be transformative. Why not learn it at the beginning rather than when things get tough? I teach couples Imago couples dialogue to do this, other therapists may use different techniques.
  2. Pre-marriage counselling can explain why you chose each other in the first place. In Imago Relationship Therapy, the theory is that we choose our partner to allow ourselves to heal childhood wounds. In order to do this we have to choose someone with both good and bad attributes of our parents and key influencers in childhood (read more about this in Dr. Adam Sheck’s post here) .  The down side of this is that once we have made the commitment to stay in a relationship, such as marriage, it’s likely that we are going to start noticing the negative stuff our partner displays more than the positive stuff. If we have had pre-marriage counselling and understand this will happen and why it will happen, it allows us to ride it out and appreciate that it’s at this point in our relationship that we have our best opportunity for growth.
  3. You learn about what events in the journey are likely to test you out as a couple. For straight couples this could be the birth of the first child or a new role as a step-parent, for gay couples it may be dealing with family pressures or how to manage homophobia directed your way as a couple. What ever it is, pre-marriage counselling gives you a “heads up” and creates a space for you to plan some strategies to put in place should the issue come your way.
  4. You will learn about how to resolve disagreements. We all learnt strategies to get our needs met as children. As adults these strategies may not be appropriate any more. Pre-marital counselling teaches how to deal with differences of opinion or even downright disagreements. In Imago Relationship Therapy the technique you would learn to do this is called a “behaviour change request”. It’s a safe way of communicating your needs and desires to your partner and listening in turn to theirs. It gives both partners the information needed to change their behaviour as a gift for their partner.
  5. You get to express your feelings of love and affection for your partner. That’s why you’re making a long term commitment to each other in the first place right? In Imago “appreciation dialogues” give the opportunity to thank your partner for things they have done for you that you’re really liked and just outright tell your partner how great they are! If you can get into that habit at the beginning of your relationship, you’re on the road to success straight away!

Premarital counselling is much more common in the USA than in the UK and I would love to change that. It amazes me that we go into something as important as marriage or civil partnership without preparing in any way for the emotional difficulties that are inevitable in a long term union with another human being. So, for the price of a wedding cake, go invest in a pre-marriage workshop or set of counselling sessions in your local area – it may be the best investment you could ever make.

Are There Lizards In Your Relationship?

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Your Brain and Your RelationshipWhen workign with couples I use Imago Relationship Therapy. Imago places a great emphasis on safety. An Imago couples counsellor will work hard at keeping both partners safe and ensure that they keep each other safe as they are talking. This post looks at why it’s important to feel safe in our relationships and how this allows growth for both partners.

Let’s start at the beginning, and I mean the very beginning for us humans. We are going to talk about the human evolutionary journey. There is now plenty of evidence to suggest that our brains formed in three stages;

  • First our lizard brain formed (the brain stem) – we were pretty basic creatures at this stage so needed tactics to stay alive. When under threat this part of our brain tells us to fight, run away, freeze (think rabbit in headlight) or submit.
  • Next came our mammalian brain (the limbic system) – this allowed us to have emotions, become social animals and form relationships (think wolves in packs).
  • Finally our logical brain (the cerebral cortex) – this is our thinking part, the only animal with a bigger cerebral cortex than humans is the dolphin (so don’t play chess with them ‘cos they will beat you). This is our speech, writing, maths, time and logical process centre. It’s the part of the brain that allows us to make decisions and veto those biological urges we have that may not be useful for us, e.g playing dead when sitting examinations has never been a great strategy if we want to progress up the education ladder!

I guess you can see where this post is now heading! When we apply this model to our relationships it becomes obvious that shouting at our partner is not going to get us what we want. If they get scared then old lizard brain kicks in and you may as well be talking to a gecko! Their brains are not going to have the capacity to think things through and they are just going to be focusing on survival. Logic and mammalian brain are switched off and they get ready to run away, do nothing, attack back or just agree with everything you say in an attempt to shut you up. Been there? I know I have!

Everyday strategies to avoid lizarding your loved one!

Many of these techniques are naturally built into Imago Relationship Therapy, but you don’t need to be working with a therapist to do them. Try the following:

  • Book an appointment with your partner when you want to talk about something important to you. It may be that they are ready to listen to you right there and then. If not, agree a time when both of you are in the right frame of mind to discuss the issue.
  • Avoid criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness when talking to your partner. Once you introduce any of these bad boys into the conversation you are going to be talking to a lizard faster than you can say “Godzilla”! Check out my post on these four relationship wreckers here.
  • Stick with “I” statements. Talking about yourself rather than your partner is much less confrontational and will keep your partner safe.
  • Have a soft start up. Ease your way into the discussion rather than hitting your partner full in the face with your demands! “I realise you are working really hard to bring money in for the family and I miss you when you aren’t around at dinner time” feels very different to “you are always bloody late for dinner you selfish pig”! John Gottman found that he could predict the outcome of an argument from the first sentence very accurately. Soft startups allowed discussion to happen (lizard free), whilst harsh startups pretty much always rapidly descended into arguments where both partners felt hugely wronged.
  • Repair as you go along. Once more, Gottman found that couples adept in the art of repairing whilst arguing stayed together. It was one of the most common skills found in couples that had been happily married long term. A repair attempt might be something like “yeah – I could see how you would think that, I was pretty grouchy yesterday” or “I know you are stressed at work at the moment and you don’t mean to snap at me”. It’s basically putting yourself in your partner’s shoes and validating their point of view.

If you can do a few of the suggestions above you are well on the way to a lizard free relationship. You’re not going to get it right all the time, no one does, but these techniques can make a significant difference to the feel of the relationship and make it a safer place to be. With safety comes the potential for change and growth for you both.

Five books that could change your life!

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5 books that could change your lifeThere are many books out there on therapy, self-help, counselling and personal change so how do you know which ones are worth reading and which ones are best avoided? Personal recommendations count for a lot and I often get asked what books to read. Some of the following five books have been recommended to me and I have happened upon others by luck, chance or good fortune. I see it as my turn to pass on those recommendations, or that luck, to you.

The five books listed here have changed my life for the better. That sounds dramatic but it’s true. I’ll explain how each one has changed my life during the brief review of each book.

If you click on the book picture it will take you straight to amazon if you wish to have a look at it there. I will declare upfront that I have an affiliate link set up but the link is really only there to speed things up for you and to allow me to display a graphic of the book on my site without breaching any kind of copyright.

 

Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments This is the first book I ever read on Transactional Analysis and as such it holds a special place in my heart. It was the start of my Transactional Analysis education and it contributed greatly to me becoming a TA psychotherapist. My first therapist recommended it to me and he also introduced the concepts contained within the book to me during my therapy sessions with him. The whole process led to a paradigm shift in the way that I saw the world and stresses, anxieties and jealousies that I had had since I was a child melted away. Having therapy had such a profound impact on my life that I chose to train as a therapist from that moment on. I think this was also so I could better understand for myself just how therapy works and how I could use it to help other people’s lives change for the better.

Born to win is a well written book with clear explanations of TA theory. I still remember reading it and having those “ahhh, that’s why I do that!” moments. It’s less textbooky than TA today and there are plenty of exercises in there to encourage you to try the theory out for yourself. If you are having TA psychotherapy then understanding the theory does help. I think it sometimes speeds the achievement of your goals up because it provides a framework to hang ideas on to. This would be a great book to start that learning process off.

Achieving Emotional Literacy by Claude Steiner.  This is a special book for me because it helped me understand how to become more emotionally literate and it explains stroke theory brilliantly (a stroke is a unit of recognition, like “hello” or a wave or a kick up the backside). I have already reviewed this book more fully in a previous post so if you want to read a pretty detailed account of this book then go read that post here. Suffice to say I love this book and I see Steiner as a bit of a guru. He’s kind enough to give it away free too so now you have no excuse not to read it!

The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living by Russ Harris.  Speaking of guru’s, whilst being trained in TA I met a great guy trained in CBT and Acceptance and Commitment therapist working with substance abusers in Manchester. He introduced me to ACT and it fit brilliantly with my interests in TA, Buddhist philosophy and mindfulness techniques. The Happiness trap by Russ Harris was the first book I read on the subject, and of all the ACT books I have now read, most definitely the easiest to read.

The book explains how you can use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. It makes really good sense and gives practical tips on managing your negative thoughts, reducing your urges to carry out unproductive behaviour and setting values based goals that you can achieve now rather than results based ones that only give temporary fixes of satisfaction. ACT techniques encourage the giving up of struggle and the acceptance of all of our feelings. This book is so well written you don’t need to have any therapy knowledge to get loads out of it.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  This is a book that I stumbled upon initially in audiobook form. I liked it so much I ended up buying a paper copy too so I could browse more easily through it. I deliberately mention it after “The happiness Trap” because it has many of same principles in common. Some of the best work I have ever done in creating a strong team and a vision within that team was stimulated from reading this book. It’s not a therapy book, it guides you through the process of deciding what you want in life (values based in the same way as ACT), prioritizing what really matters and explaining how you can get there.

Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix.  Once more I have to thank my first therapist for recommending this book to me. It’s important because it has changed the way I view how a relationship should be and Imago therapy itself has given me a lot of great techniques I can use as a couples therapist with struggling couples. In my opinion, it is the book to read if you are having relationship difficulties and you want to understand why. It suggests new ways to communicate with your partner and also gives good exercises you can do together to strengthen your relationship. I go into more detail about the ideas behind Imago therapy in my post “How Imago Couples Therapy Can Transform Your Relationship” So check that out for more information.

So there they are – five books that have changed my life and can change yours if you let them. Happy reading!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What books have changed your life? Please let me know in the comment section below.