Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

What To Expect From Couples Counselling

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what to expect from couples counselling in ManchesterMany people are unsure of what to expect when they come for couples counselling.  In this post I will outline what you can expect if you work with me at Manchester Psychotherapy.  I use Imago Relationship Therapy in all my sessions.  Imago Relationship Therapy presumes that you are both OK, you both have needs that you are trying to get met, and that you are both well matched to help your partner get their needs met.

One thing I will not be doing is allowing you to come and spend time arguing.  You probably do lots of that at home and there is no point paying me to watch you do it!  The vast majority of the time you will be in dialogue with each other and I will be guiding you.

A typical session will look like this:

Arrival – focusing on getting you grounded and ready to listen to your partner.

Intentions – What do you want to achieve from this session?  How do you need to be to achieve it?

Dialogue – One partner will talk (we call this sending) and the other will listen (we call this receiving).  The receiver will mirror what the sender has said back to them, validate and empathise.  Can you imagine what that feels like?  Your partner will be listening to every word you say and mirroring it back – demonstrating that they really were listening.  Contrast this with the diatribe that usually happens in a relationship where one person talks then the other person talks back, usually invalidating what their partner has just said. Being listened to, validated and understood feels fantastic! Once the sender has finished sending the roles are swapped and the receiver now sends, often responding to what they have just heard from their partner.

When sending the focus is on owning feelings, staying away from blame and keeping your partner safe.  Senders use “I feel” statements or “the story I’m telling myself..” sentences to do this.  It’s my job as the therapist to make sure both partners do not feel attacked or criticised.

Towards the end of the session couples will move into appreciation dialogues – what they like about their partner either during the session or out of it.  This brings the positive into your awareness and reminds the couple of why they are together in the first place.

If you are in couples therapy then about 90% of what you have in your relationship is likely to be working.  The trouble is that we often can only see the 10% that’s not, just like a sore toe can make our whole body feel rotten.  Imago Relationship Therapy aims to bring that 90% back into your awareness.

So how do couples resolve disagreements in Imago Relationship Therapy?  When partners have things they want their other half to change the dialogue process will focus on “behaviour change requests”.  This is a way of dialoguing about something that you want done differently in your relationship and explaining what feelings go on for you when your partner behaves in that way.  These feelings are often linked to childhood and so there is some exploration of that area too.  Once the information about the issue has been sent the sender will also suggest ways in which their partner can do things differently. The receiver gets to choose which ones they may be able to “stretch into”.  If the receiver can’t see any other way of doing things then they couple will dialogue about that.

I’m sure you appreciate that this post can only cover the bare bones of what happens in a session. Imago Relationship Therapy provides an effective way of structuring couples therapy and keeps the process safe for both partners.  It’s about healing the wounds and bringing you together.  There is no sitting around slagging your partner off to the therapist or wallowing in all the bad things that have happened between you.  The aim is for you to be leaving the session feeling more positive about your relationship than when you came.  There will be times when you want to dialogue about painful events in your relationship and this will be done in a way that your partner can really listen, stay safe and avoid defensiveness.  By doing this wounds start to heal and the couple learn that their partner is an essential key to their own growth and happiness.

I’m going to finish this article by stating that I love doing Couples counselling, I feel passionate about it.  I think the Imago Relationship Therapy model I use is beautiful and I love seeing the couples I work with connecting with each other on a deep level whilst using it.  If your relationship is under pressure then I would love to work with you to help you realise the great relationship you could have too.

Ego states, urges and me – part 2

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ego states and transactional analysis weight lossPart one of this post introduced the idea of ego states.  I’m going to look at my super strong desire for iPhone 4s and iPads from an ego state perspective.

My Free Child ego state really wants to buy buy buy!  My Controlling Parent is saying in no uncertain terms that I am not allowed to splash the cash down the local Apple store because I can’t afford it.  My Adapted Child follows the instructions of the Controlling Parent and a conflict is set up.  This is a similar thing to what happens when we go on diets.  Carole Rayburn wrote an article in the TAJ explaining the whole sequence – I’m going to paraphrase below:

Our Controlling Parent tells us that we are too fat and we need to cut down on the cakes, sweets, chocolate and other foods that we love to eat and are bad for us.  Our Adapted Child complies but is not very happy about it.  We put up with this for a certain amount of time or until we reach a target weight.  Once we get there things shift.  Often the Rebellious Child clicks in and we go back to our pies, chocolate or crisps.  Before we know it we are back to our original weight and feel sad that we have failed, yet again to “Control” ourselves.

Carole suggests that the answer is to stop being so hard on ourselves and nurture instead.  Our Nurturing Parent needs to team up with our Child and give permission for the Adult – the sensible part of ourselves, to regulate our weight.  Our Child needs to be soothed by our Nurturing Parent and believe that they are not going to be deprived and that there is enough food to go round.  Then slowly that need to shovel food into our faces as if it’s the last ever time we will be able to have them will subside.  I’m not pretending that this is easy to do.  Research by Lister, Rosen and Wright (1985) examining a group of women using this method to lose weight showed that in the initial stages most put weight on.  It takes time for that Child part of ourselves to feel safe enough to take this new approach. This is one possible approach I would take when providing therapy to a client with these sort of issues.

In part 3 of this post, I look at an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy method for managing our urges, called Urge surfing.

Read part one of this blog post here.

References:

Lister, M. Rosen, K. and Wright,  A. (1985) ‘An Anti-diet Approach to Weight Loss in a Group Setting’. Transactional Analysis Journal 15, 69-72.

Rayburn, C.A. (1978) ‘On the Importance of Self Stroking in Weight Control’. Transactional Analysis Journal 8, No 3 227-228.

Buy the Book: Transactional Analysis: 100 Key Points and Techniques

Ego States, Urges and Me-part 1

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ego states in transactional analysis

I want one and I want one NOW!

The Apple iPhone 4 will be available to buy from the 24th June and I am very excited!  I want to run to the nearest Apple store and get in the Queue already.  I want to hand over my £200 and sign up for that 2 year contract despite the fact that when I look at it, when I really think about it, the iPhone 4 isn’t really much different from the iPhone I own now.  For me it’s the same with the Apple iPad.  I have been down to the store and held one in my hands.  I have caressed its smooth, glassy body.  I have imagined myself sat on my sofa, surfing the web like I’ve never surfed before!  I realise I am what’s referred to distastefully on the internet forums as “An Apple Fan boy”.  There is definitely something about their products that increases my desire to splurge large amounts of my hard earned cash.  What’s going on?

I want to address this question over a series of blog posts.  The subject is too big for one blog post and as I write it, it even seems to have grown too big for two!  So I will split it into three posts that will link together.

Part 1 – urges and ego states

Part 2 – How we can use what we know about ego states to calm our urges

Part 3 – Urge surfing, the ACT approach to urges.

Part 1 – Urges and Ego States

It doesn’t really matter here whether we are talking about an iPhone, iPad, a new car, a new hand bag, clothes or even tasty chocolate biscuits.  There is something in our human make up that allows us to become fixated, all be it temporarily.  Most of the time for most people it’s not a problem provided we stay within the limits of what we can afford, but what can we do to quell these urges when they threaten or physical, emotional or financial health?

What can we do to quell these urges when they threaten or physical, emotional or financial health?

In Transactional Analysis we often look at human personality from the perspective of ego states.  The ego state model is useful because is gives us something to hang our ideas onto.  It’s a model of personality.  At the risk of upsetting many TA therapists, I am going to boil the ego state model down to the simplest level possible (TA aficionados are welcome to post comments, please keep the swearing to a minimum!).

Our thinking, feelings and behaviour can be divided into several parts.  These are known as Parent, Adult and Child ego states.  The normal convention is to capitalise when discussing ego states and use lower case when referring to real parents, adults and childs (I know, it’s not a real word but I kinda like it!).  The ego state model I am writing about is referred to as the functional model – how we use the ego states to relate to others and ourselves.

Our Parent ego state pretty much repeats what we heard from our childhood caretakers.  It is full of information from them about how to view see the world and how to react to it. This information can be Nurturing (NP) or Controlling (CP). There are positive and negative aspects of Controlling and Nurturing Parent.  It’s good to have a Controlling Parent to tell you to stop and check before crossing a road but not so good to hear that Controlling Parent in your head all the time telling you that you are doing things wrong. The Nurturing Parent that allows overindulgence in chocolate (or IPads) can be doing you a disservice, but the Nurturing Parent that tells you or someone else who has been working hard to take a break can be very useful.

Our Adult ego state is able to take in the here and now reality of the situation.  It processes information and regulates most of the things we do.  When we follow instructions or drive a car, our Adult ego state is happily and fruitfully engaged.

Our Child ego state can be compliant and well mannered or rebellious and badly behaved.  In TA terms both of these would be classed as “Adapted Child” (AC) as in both situations we are adapting to the environment around us, either positively or negatively.  The other way the Child ego state functions in is called “Free Child”(FC).  The Free Child likes to run barefoot on a sun drenched beach, play and laugh with those nearby, cry when sad, shout when angry.  The free Child is not restricted by what others think.

There are entire books written about ego states, various models and theories about how they work or even if they exist at all so if it is a subject you are interested in I would recommend more research.  TA today by Stuart and Joines would be a good place to start.

In my next article I am going to explain what may be going on in my ego states when I think of that Apple iPad.  Please comment at the bottom of this article and press all of the other pretty buttons to send it to other social media sites!

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net