A Fun, Quick Exercise For Couples To Help You Show Each Other Love

When a couple starts counseling they often are in a state of Negative Sentiment Override. If you aren’t familiar with Negative Sentiment Override, think of it like a lens in which all the things your partner does, or all the things you do, get filtered through this lens that you or your partner is always wearing. This lens takes all the things you do, words you say, and mixes it up so that your partner (or you) take it in as something negative or hurtful that your partner is doing or that you are doing. It’s like a set of glasses that makes your partner look like a total, dysfunctional, jerk.

Negative Sentiment Override can be fixed. Couples therapy can help you take off that really awful pair of glasses and start to help you see your partner (or help your partner see you) as they really are.

One way that Gottman helps couples to work through Negative Sentiment Override is by having couples thinking of their interactions with one another as bank accounts. When we do nice things for our partner, that goes into a bank account. When we say nice things to our partners, that goes into a bank account. When we have a huge fight or misunderstanding with our partners, that’s a withdraw from the account. The more deposits we have, the more likely we are to see our partner as being our friend, someone we care about, our team member.

One activity that I often assign for couples therapy homework is to take the Love Languages Quiz. The author of the 5 Love Languages took all the ways that people show love to one another and categorized this behavior into 5 types of love. For example, gift giving and words of affirmation are types of Love Languages.

I have couples take the Love Language Quiz to learn the ways that they best receive love and the ways that their partner best receives love. Knowing this information helps you to put the effort where the money is (think back to that Gottman Love Bank Account I shared above).

Once you take the Love Languages Quiz, share the results with your partner and have your partner share their results with you.

Next, using the information you got on your quiz, create a list of 5-10 things that your partner could do that would help you to feel loved by your partner.

Some examples are:

Words of Affirmation: Say “I love you” before we go to bed, tell me when I look nice, Say “thank you” when I’ve done something around the house.

Gift Giving: Pick up my favorite dessert from the grocery store, research and buy new comfy slippers for me since I live in slippers through work from home.

Acts of Service: Do the dishes, clean the cat box, pick up around the house.

Quality Time: Watch my favorite TV show with me once a week, go for a walk with me.

Physical Touch: Hold my hand when we go for a walk, give me a kiss before you leave, give me a hug a couple of times a day.

The actions that you put on your list should be a mix of items that take 2 minutes or less and bigger items that your partner may have to put in more effort on. Try and make at least 1/2 your list items that take 2 minutes or less.

Once the list is made by you and one by your partner, post the lists on the fridge or some other place that you and your partner frequently look at.

Now the challenging part of this exercise - do one item off of your partners list, each day. You can do the same item a couple of days in a row, or you can mix it up.

By structuring affection, couples learn to be more mindful of the ways in which they show love and attention to one another. Couples are often surprised by how little they show one another.

Does Online Counseling Really Work?

Does online counseling really work?

This is one of the most common questions I get. Online counseling absolutely does work and often times can be even more effective than doing in office counseling.

How online counseling works

Online counseling works much like in office counseling works only you meet with your therapist using a HIPAA compliant website or program (think Zoom) that allows you and your therapist to both see and hear each other.

The therapist is still able to read your emotions, make connections with you, and help you towards your therapy goal.

Sometimes online counseling can be more effective than in office therapy.

When doing couples therapy, it is not uncommon for couple’s to come into therapy having tried couples therapy once before only to have a bad experience that left them leaving the office and continuing to fight.

With online counseling you and your partner do not need to be in the same place. This sometimes can help to defuse the emotional tension and creates a break for the couple to work through any emotional and physiological arousal that may have occurred during the time of the session.

When doing in office couples work it can often feel like you need to respond to your emotions in the moment and continue to respond to them until you work them out with your partner. This is not always true. In fact if you or your partner is emotionally flooded it is necessary to take a break from the conversation for at least 30 minutes before coming back to it. Online counseling helps to create that space to allow you to take breaks, think about how you want to respond to your emotions, and to come back to the discussion with your partner once you are more clear on how you want to respond to your emotions.

Online counseling can be a great option for busy Bay Area couples. Let’s face it, the traffic in Berkeley, Oakland and surrounding areas is a nightmare. Online counseling provides the freedom to schedule your sessions during a lunch break, before or after working hours, in off hours time for example while you are doing your laundry.

If you have any questions about online therapy and how it works, feel free to reach out via email. In January of 2020 I will be opening my calendar again to phone consultations and new client’s.

Gwendolyn Nelson-Terry is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California. Gwendolyn provides couples counseling and relationship counseling to the San Francisco Bay Area, Oakland, Berkeley, Orange County, and Los Angeles area.

Feelings: Good or Bad?

You may have noticed throughout my blog and website that I refer to feelings as uncomfortable and comfortable.  That’s because we therapists believe that feelings are neither good or bad, they just are. An uncomfortable feeling might be sadness, anger or anxiety.  A comfortable feeling might be joy or happiness. Noticing the ways that feelings show up in your body can help you decipher if they are comfortable or uncomfortable.

Frequently when a person experiences many uncomfortable feelings they start to develop defenses to those feelings or they start to look for ways to numb those feelings.  Some common defenses to feelings are; overworking, drinking, avoiding, and sometimes even anxiety can be a defense.

Learning to work through our defenses and to experience the core emotions below our feelings is a key step in being able to work through uncomfortable feelings and in being able to let them go.  Finding a way to access your feelings and to sit with those uncomfortable feelings is important.

This week, as your homework, think about some of the defenses that you might have developed over time that keep you from being able to experience your core emotions.

3 Ways Therapy Can Help Your Relationship

Each couple brings in a unique set of challenges and experiences that dictate their needs in couples therapy.  Your therapist can discuss with you what your needs are and can help you and your partner create goals for couples therapy.  Along with those goals that you create with your therapist there are some benefits that just go along with doing couples therapy.  

There are no guaranteed outcomes in therapy and your therapist can’t promise resolution to the problem that brought you in.  However most people that do go to couples therapy report an increase in relationship satisfaction.

Couples therapy can help you learn the right way to argue so that the problem doesn’t get bigger.  This is a huge benefit to couples therapy. This goes way beyond just using I messages when in an argument with your partner.  What I tell my couples is that I messages are an art - they go way beyond “I feel angry”. Think about some of the I messages you’ve given in your life.  Chances are one or two of them have deteriorated into you statements without you even realizing it. They may have looked something like “I feel angry when YOU forget to clean up after yourself.  I am not your mom”. See how that might look like an I statement but after some examination it’s a little more clear how that turned into a you statement. If you’ve done this don’t get upset with yourself - I messages are hard.  A trained couples therapist can help you to learn the art of a softened startup which is basically learning nice ways to bring up potentially conflictual topics with your partner. A therapist can also help you learn how to de-escalate an argument that has gone south.  Learning the right way to argue now will save you a ton of frustration in the future. Even if you and your partner don’t have any major issues between the two of you now, learning how to argue will save the two of you from having small problems turn into much larger problems.

Couples therapy can also help you to build your friendship.  Of course you are friends with your partner, you have this relationship for a reason after all.  There is some part of you that does like this person. But as we grow and change so do our partners.  Couples therapy helps people to keep the friendship in focus and provides a space and opportunity to learn about some of the ways in which your partner may have changed since the two of you started dating.  Friendship is a key component to helping couples get through tougher times in their relationships.

Couples therapy can help you learn how to talk in a way that will help your partner listen.  This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the softened start up. If we go into a tough conversation with guns blazing, ready to take down our partner because we are pissed chances are our partner will run the other way and we will be left even more frustrated because not only were we mad about the situation but now we feel unheard.  Honestly, who likes that feeling? A trained couples therapist can help you learn how to speak in a way that helps your partner to listen. In return the therapist can help your partner learn active listening skills so that when you do speak, they can really hear what it is you are trying to communicate.

Are you ready to start working on your relationship? Call today to schedule your free 15 minute phone consultation and find out how therapy might be able to help your relationship. (619) 383-1900.

Why can't I just talk to my friend? Why go to a therapist?

Why can’t I just talk to my friend (or mom, or sister, or partner)? Why go to a therapist?

Great question!  Talking to a friend, sister, or partner sometimes is enough.  But sometimes it just doesn’t cut it. When things are really challenging and the struggle has been going on for a long time, leaning on friends and family may not be the best way to work through your problems.    So why can’t you just talk to your friend, partner, sister?

First, your friend, sister, partner, mom can’t be impartial.  These are people in your life who know you very well. When you talk to them about your stress, your depression, your anxiety, it is impossible for them to be impartial.  A therapist can provide you with a safe space to explore your feelings, gain insight into what is going on, why it is going on, and can help you to identify a clear path towards feeling better.  Coming to therapy is not just about venting your problems, it’s about experiencing those feelings, learning to understand them, and working through them so that you can move on and put them in the past.  

Second, more than likely your friends and family will want to fix the problem for you.  That is wonderful, kind, and totally understandable. If I saw my friend or daughter hurting, I’d want to fix it too.  But if the problem was an easily fixed problem, you would have already done it. Going to therapy allows you space to really explore patterns in your relationships, in your moods and feelings.  Therapy helps you to gain clear insight into how some of your choices and actions are impacting your mood and feelings. Once patterns are identified and goals for feeling better are set, then the process of learning how to change some of those patterns starts.  There is never any guarantee with therapy, sometimes you feel worse before you feel better. A therapist can not promise you that you will feel better but most people that go to therapy report gaining some value from it.

Lastly, your pain may be too much for them to manage.  Think about it. When we witness someone we love struggling, it’s like a dagger to the heart.  Their pain becomes our pain. This is the same for your mom, your sister, your partner. It’s one thing to have a bad couple of days and to struggle.  But when a big problem comes up, a really tough one that you’ve maybe struggled with for a long time, a problem that brings you some deep pain, it may be a lot for your friends or family to keep holding that pain for you and with you.  A therapist is a person that is there to sit with you when you are going through tough situations and feelings. A therapist is a trained professional that knows how to walk with you into those dark places and have those tough conversations.  A therapist can hold space for you, hold your emotions and struggles, so that when you are with your partner or your family or your friends, you can really be present with them and enjoy them.

I’m not saying don’t talk to your friends and family.  In fact for many things friends and family are just the right amount of support, but sometimes people need a little more support.  

I offer a free 15 minute phone consultation and would be happy to talk with you about how I might be able to help.  Because I work online I am able to meet with clients all over California and Missouri. If you are located in California or Missouri and have been considering therapy call (619) 383-1900 or email gwendolyn@gwendolynnelsonterry.com to schedule your free 15 minute consultation.  

Exciting Updates

Things are changing around here!  

I'm sorry I have been a little bad about being consistent with my blogging lately.  Next week I will return to posting regularly on Wednesday mornings.  In the meantime I have been contributing to online blogs, you probably read the one from last week that I posted "Tips for Talking to Your Therapist" and this week I have another great one for you to read.  This article is all about being vulnerable in your relationship, such a hard thing to do!  It's from the Bustle website and features tips from many different therapist's and some comments from yours truly.  Here is a link to the article if you are interested What To Do If You're Having a Hard Time Being Vulnerable In a Relationship also on Bustle 13 Small Changes You Can Make this Weekend to Reduce Your Anxiety.

As for what's new around here, I'm now offering online therapy to clients.  I know how busy life can get, especially for parents and working women trying to have it all.  I respect that you have a hustle and need to get shit done.  The great thing about online therapy is the flexibility it allows with scheduling.  Lunch hour sessions, no problem.  Sessions before you go to work, girl, I'm an early riser and can get online for a 7 am session if that works for you.  I also reserve a limited number of evening spots for my online peeps.  Send me an email if you want to schedule a session and try it out - Gwendolyn@GwendolynNelsonTerry.com

The other thing that's new around here is that I now accept Cigna health insurance and I hope to be able to start taking MHN and Tricare insurance soon.  Check back for updates if you are wanting to use your MHN or Tricare insurance.

By the way - Most Cigna plans will cover online therapy sessions.

That's it for me today.  I hope you all are having a wonderful week and I hope everyone has an amazing weekend.  Next week, blogs will start being posted on Wednesday mornings again.

Interested in giving online therapy a try or ready to schedule a session to meet in my office?  Call today to schedule your session and get started on the path to feeling better (619)383-1900.