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A Friend Is Not A Therapist

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A-Friend-is-Not-a-Therapist

We are powerfully bound to our friends, as their leaving painfully reminds us. Following too many departures, we may be inclined to pull back from further efforts to establish significant friendships.

But denying yourself the companionship and intimacy a friendship offers can be more debilitating to body, mind and spirit then their leave-taking. Our friends are our safety net, acting as a counter when feeling sad, rejected, enraged or crazed. In study after study medical researchers are finding that people who have friends they can turn to for advice and assistance, have lower risks of depression and addictions, and a greater capacity to cope with radical changes and reversals in their lives. Regardless of the hidden agendas that may shadow a friendship, it cannot compare to the complexity of expectations and emotional baggage that are part and parcel of pair-bonding relationships. While adjusting to the idiosyncratic needs, habits, foibles and differences of one’s partner requires steady work, accepting the differences in friends takes little, if any, work.

We need our friends to be simply our friends, not our partners, which frees us to be more our spontaneous selves with them. Friends can also provide emotional support and respect and so can help to reaffirm our self-worth.

But friendship can also be a drag, taking on pathological elements that are emotionally and sometimes physically draining. It may be prudent to terminate a friendship when friends become overly clinging or dependent on you for emotional well-being. Also draining are the friends who seem to get themselves into a never-ending series of crises from which you feel you must rescue them. For friendships to be fulfilling, they should make you feel better, not worse.

A friend is not a therapist. Few friendships can survive the openly honest, often intense and always client-focused work that is the very heart of therapy. Therapy works in part because, unlike friendship, it is not mutual. Within the safety and confidentiality of the therapist’s office, a client is free to explore and reveal their most private selves without risk of judgement or rejection.

When a person is feeling too depressed or overwhelmed or work stressed and challenged to respond with the reciprocity required of friendship, the therapy relationship exists explicitly to support them through their turmoil and assist them in unearthing the sources of their own resources, abilities and potentials.

Caught in the Middle, Children and Divorce

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Caught in the Middle, Children and DivorceParental conflict is hard on children at any time, all the more so when their parents are separating or divorcing. And when the former spouses are unable to establish a cooperative, responsible co-parenting relationship with each other following the divorce, the negative impact on their children is compounded.

The good news however, is that separation and divorce need not be a catastrophic experience for children. A majority learn to adjust to the initial disruption of their family without many psychological and social scars and become well-functioning adults. Contributing factors to a child’s positive adjustment to separation and divorce, especially during the first year, are strongly associated with the degree of parental conflict to which a child has been exposed. Many studies have documented a correlation between parental conflict, it’s duration and resolution and a child’s stress levels, as well as post-divorce adjustment. When both the residential and non-residential parents are aware of the potentially harmful impact of exposing their conflicts to their children, they endeavor to shield them from such disputes. In the heat of separation and divorce demands, protecting children from emotional distress and frustrations requires parents to be able to work with their own emotions and those of their children, seek support from family and trusted friends, and/or a qualified therapist or divorce coach while pursuing healthy outlets. Creating a stable home life during this time of upheaval benefits everyone concerned.

When parental conflict becomes intense and frequent, the stress on the children mounts as well. Some parents have difficulty establishing boundaries between themselves and their children, so the children may often overhear or are witness to parental anger and aggression around ongoing conflicts. Especially when the disagreements concern them, emotional and behavioral difficulties in the children are likely to develop. Conversely, when parents model healthy conflict resolution for their children, through negotiation and compromise, it can enhance their social skills.

Not all expressions of conflict are overt however. Parents who model withdrawal or discourage open dialogue with their children around the separation and divorce issues are encouraging unhealthy internalization of their negative feelings. Better to encourage children to feel safe asking their questions and receiving answers that are clear and concise, without blaming or making harsh judgments or snide remarks about the other parent. Denigrating a parent puts a child smack in the middle of a loyalty conflict that children find extremely distressing.

Other examples of being caught in the middle include having to carry messages between parents, feeling disloyal by being pressured to answer questions about the other parent’s behavior, or hearing derogatory comments about the other parent.

Parents who are not able to separate their emotional needs from their childrens needs, cannot protect them from their own hurt and agitation. Rather than focusing on the child’s needs, such parents may confide in their children or turn to a particular child for comfort. This is known as parentification and places a tremendous burden on a child.

Moderate levels of instrumental parentification such as cooking meals, looking after their siblings or doing housework can teach a child responsibility, while moderate levels of emotional parentification such as comforting siblings, can teach a child empathy. High levels of parentification demands are associated with adjustment problems. For girls from high-conflict divorced families both types of parentification are associated with girls’ depressed and anxious behaviors; for boys, high levels of emotional parentification by fathers are associated with sons’ depression. (Heatherington).

There is a strong association between children’s mental health and parental conflict, even when children do not display awareness of the conflict. When a child is alienated from a parent or exposed to contentious child custody litigation or visitation battles or other failed parenting responsibilities, emotional and behavioral problems such as anxiety or depression, aggressiveness, or poor impulse control are likely to surface or increase.

Children often feel responsible for their parents separation and conflict and may try to intervene in the conflict. Ineffective parenting will increase their stress, which may be reflected in signs of guilt, sadness, manipulation, declining academic performance and problems with friends, phobias or compulsive behavior.

Helping parents help their children adjust to divorce includes guiding parents to move beyond their anger, reduce their parental conflicts and triangulation of the children to develop agreement on rules and predictable expectations that minimize stress on their children, develop more effective parenting skills and foster a healthy connection between family members during divorce, and a positive adaptation to the relational changes post-divorce. Such cooperative parenting also encourages healthy self-esteem and effective communication skills not only in their children but in their parents as well.

Possible Stress Reactions in Children* Age: Signs of Stress Birth to 3 Regression, separation anxieties, eating and sleeping problems, tantrums, aggression, possessiveness, withdrawal. Preschool Irritability, “too good behavior,” aggression, need for physical contact, sadness, self-blame, fear of abandonment and loss of parental love. Ages 6 to 12 Sadness, fear of abandonment, guilt, anger, fantasizing reconciliation. Adolescent Open hostility at parents, acting-out behavior, school difficulties, aggression or withdrawal, difficulty with peers, dependency on others. *Adapted from Kersey, k. (1986) Helping your child handle stress. Washington, D.C.: Acropolis. Heatherton, E.M. (1999) (Ed.), Coping with divorce, single parenting and remarriage.

Are you a workaholic or a hard worker?

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Workaholism

Are you so involved with work that other important behaviors and activities, both personal and interpersonal, are excluded or minimized most of the time?

Is your work the all-encompassing preoccupation in your life? If work is controlling you to the point of self and other defeating extremes, you are a work addict or workaholic.

And like people suffering from other socially accepted addictions, you reinforce your compulsive behavior daily. You may be promoted for your efforts, but there are costs.For example, one study ascertained that 74% of workaholic partners were likely to have affairs, while 48% of workaholics were less likely to have affairs than non-workaholics. The apparent reason why the workaholic has fewer affairs is, predictably, lack of time. However the deeper reason is a wish to avoid the increased demands that an affair would entail. And since the workaholic is minimally intimate with his or her partner, it is understandable that spouses of workaholics would go outside the relationship to find intimacy.

Workaholics have tremendous difficulty expressing their feelings and are given to conflict avoidance, sulking and silence rather than confrontation. They tend to be fearful of any closeness that will bring him or her face to face with emotional intensity and possible rejection. When their partner steps up their needs for intimacy, this tends to further reinforce the workaholics commitment to work hard. Not surprisingly, relationships with people in a work environment are much easier for the workaholic to handle.

The workaholic deals with stress in a variety of ways. Alcohol and caffeine are used and abused primarily for utilitarian reasons. The caffeine lifts the individual into the day, because the work schedule and hours required are viewed as highly demanding. And alcohol acts as a decompression chamber, a way to escape the stress, come down and switch out of work mode.

Doing Therapy With the Workaholic / Characteristics of the Syndrome

When doing therapy with the workaholic, the primary goal is not to get the individual to transform the working habits into a more leisurely framework.

Work to the workaholic is the process by which significant meaning in life is realized. The therapist’s role is not to take away that source of meaning, but to focus on helping the workaholic develop an interpersonal world in which they can experience themselves more fully and relate to others in a more natural and spontaneous manner. Discovering they can be liked and cared for being themselves can result in the workaholic feeling significant and being appreciated in his or her life.

An additional goal of therapy is to assist the workaholic to surrender the addiction, and replace it with the pleasure and significance that work can provide. For the workaholic who has been successfully involved in therapy, work often becomes an arena where spontaneous and creative self-expression can be experienced.

Therapy for the workaholic does not remove work as the source of security in life. Instead, therapy tries to bring meaningful, significant and genuine relationships into the world of the workaholic. Thus, the value of work to this individual is altered; it is no longer the structuring life force, but rather becomes one of many avenues for an individual to enjoy and find meaning in life.

General Characteristics of the Workaholic Syndrome:
There is an over-involvement in the area of preoccupation (work);
The workaholic has the illusion that he or she is indispensable;
The workaholic tends to be viewed in the family as a self-sufficient, highly responsible and highly resourceful individual.

These characteristics receive a great deal of reinforcement throughout childhood.The workaholic tends to hit the floor running. He or she starts the day from the moment the alarm clock sounds, wasting no time easing into the day. Time is planned so that every minute is controlled and scheduled. Emergencies and sudden changes in the schedule are disruptive and not easily handled. The workaholic constantly weighs the effectiveness of daily activities and often keeps a productivity scoreboard. He or she has tremendous difficulty with unfinished business or tasks. If it is necessary to leave work without completing something or at least having it under control, the addict carries the unfinished work home, continues the work on his PC, and frets about it until the task is completed or can be resumed. This often means that social or family activity and sleep are disrupted.The workaholic arrives at work earlier than most people and stays later. Lunch is often eaten quickly, or skipped altogether. If lunch is eaten, it is usually functional and structured around business. This individual is restless and feels as if time is being wasted if he or she does not rush from place to place. They are often (secretly) judgmental of others who do not fit this mold. The workaholic has great difficulty planning, preparing and taking holidays, and when they are taken, they are often cut short. Away from the office, he or she may call the office daily, and for many, at least two calls a day are deemed necessary.The workaholic has little time in his or her schedule for socializing. If it is not work-related, socializing is viewed as a waste of time, especially if it is arranged with people who do not value time as highly as the workaholic.

At the root of this addicts extraordinary work ethic are feelings of inferiority and a fear of failure and of rejection, which fuels his avoidance of close and intimate relationships. A drive for external approval often masks a lack of belief in self-worth and self-acceptance. The tremendous difficulty these individuals have of letting go of routine, out of office hours, is that a sense of extreme emptiness surfaces whenever he or she is confronted by unstructured time.

Earlier in life, a workaholic child’s efforts at limit setting and saying ”no” usually caused intense negative parental reactions and were squashed. Hence learning to set limits helps the workaholic to establish workable psychic space between what he or she ought to do, wants to do, can do and will do.

Therapy can definitely help the workaholic to create more freedom of choice in his or her life.

Coaching for a change

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Coaching-for-a-Change

 

Squarely aimed at self-empowerment, the goal of a coaching partnership is to help a person tap into, and actualize, their deepest vision of who they are.

Coaching happens when you are trying to achieve something that seems out of your reach, that moves you beyond your existing skill level, knowledge or comfort zone. A coach acts as your thinking partner and facilitator in this endeavor, planning s t r e t c h goals collaboratively, to enable you to move along the path of your choice, in order to create results for a richer, more fulfilling present and future.A coach offers focus, guidance, support, challenge, structure, ideas and materials in order to enable a client to discover and then actualize their personal and professional potentials and possibilities. I coach by listening actively, endorsing, validating, creating strategies and asking questions which clarify and foster thinking outside the proverbial ‘box’.

I will encourage you to take positive action while creating the time and space for bringing your goals to the top of your agenda. In coaching, life is a verb.

How is Coaching Different from Good Therapy?

People usually seek therapy to resolve a difficult situation, overcome a fear, change a self-devaluing behavior or pattern of interaction, or overcome a personal or professional problem. When the problem is resolved, or the specified therapeutic goals are realized, the therapy is considered complete.

Coaching, on the other hand, is not problem focused. Coaching is fully future-oriented, providing a context in which to imagine and then to manifest a more fulfilling life, however you define it. Basically a Changing Lifestyles or Divorce / Post-Divorce coach helps you bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.