Seeking self, dropping anchor

I was asked recently what is the most common challenge I see couples facing in my practice and I found it surprisingly easy to answer... can you guess?  Telepathy. The dictionary describes it as "the supposed communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses" . I'm not sure about you but I am yet to meet someone who can prove to me that they are indeed telepathic and able to read the minds of others. And yet, almost every couple that sits in front of me in therapy are behaving in ways that suggest they have the gift, and spoiler alert, it is not leading to enriching & satisfying relationships.  A fictitious example: Julia arrives home from work to her partner Rob. The house is a mess & Julia thinks to herself "Aargh, Rob is so lazy! He never helps out around the house, he knew I had a big meeting today couldn't he have at least tidied up a bit before I got home? He clearly doesn't care about how important my day was." Julia ...

The fourth factor impacting our capacity to regulate is relationships. This is the last one of this little series & potentially the most important! Most would say that this one is all about feeling understood, accepted & valued by those we care about & that this calms us down… which is not untrue! However this type of thinking can lead to dependency on others for our ability to remain calm. I have a slightly different focus on this one which comes from a Bowen family systems concept called ‘differentiation of self’. This concept refers to our ability to stay connected but autonomous in the face of relationship stress. A well differentiated person “can stay calm and clear headed enough in the face of conflict, criticism, & rejection to distinguish thinking rooted in a careful assessment of the facts from thinking clouded by emotionality.” In contrast “people with a poorly differentiated self depend so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others that they either quic...