Portland Counseling with Core Energetics Body-Mind Therapy

Couples and Marriage Counseling

How do you sustain, amplify, or re-capture the wonder and deep interest of the soul-to-soul, "in-love" connection that you experience (or at one time experienced) with your spouse or partner? The experience that told you "this is the one I want to spend time with" most likely held a kind of promise for you - an expectation that it would continue in a strong and vibrant way. How do you keep that vibration ringing?

I assume that you are reading this page because you are considering engaging in couples or marriage counseling and are looking for a therapist or counselor for this important work. Some couples may wait until the 11th hour to seek counseling - when difficulties seem likely to dissolve the union. Some others may be looking for marriage counseling to strengthen an already satisfying relationship and make it even more satisfying. Wherever you might be on the continuum of well-being and satisfaction as a couple, I have some methods and principles to offer that will assist you in increase the good feelings that you share with each other while you reduce tension in your relationship.

The paragraphs below describe how I work with couples in my counseling practice in Portland, OR from both the practical and theoretical points of view. You are welcome to read the full text or click on the outline links below to skip to your specific interest.

There are some general principles that I apply to all of my counseling work including couples or marriage counseling. These include building a safe and supportive environment where you can share your authentic feelings, and working with intention, awareness, ability and practice to facilitate the change that you desire.

Support: In my work with couples, I establish a supportive and safe container where you can examine and understand your life together. A supportive and safe environment is necessary if you are to honestly and productively bring forward the underlying feelings, ideas, and beliefs that are shaping and defining your experience in the relationship. Why is this so? In a word - vulnerability.

Trust/Safety and Vulnerability: Honest sharing about authentic core feelings, especially feelings relating to topics like abandonment or worthiness, places us in a vulnerable position which we may understandably fear. I work to facilitate this honest sharing and understanding from a place of security and trust so that you can productively (and safely) open up the topics that are important and relevant for your situation. I build this place of security and trust for your couples/marriage counseling sessions and also focus on facilitating its spread beyond the sessions so that it can exist in you between sessions.

Facilitate Change:  I see change unfolding and taking root as a result of the inter-working of intention, awareness, competence/ability, and practice. Shifting one's intention and will, developing greater awareness of the inner workings of self, increasing one's ability and competence to include new capabilities in the self and new levels of skillfulness in relating, and then putting it into practice (practice, practice, practice) all combine to make lasting change. I specifically focus on these four elements in my work with people: intention, awareness, competence/ability, and practice.

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What is the outcome that you would like to have from your couples work? Early in the sessions, I will work with you to define what it is that you would like to improve by engaging in couples counseling. This goal setting process usually means talking about what has been working well and what is not working well. About where you find satisfaction and happiness and about what has been disruptive. It's a useful way to bring out the issues that led you to seek couples counseling. For example, here are some general goals that I have held in mind for some of the couples I have worked with:

• Rediscover or create the dreams, shared meanings, and delights that make your relationship rich and fulfilling.

• Increase or re-capture the good feelings, deep friendship, love, sexuality, and mutual respect between partners.

• Improve communication so that you are better equipped to work together happily in solving life's problems as a couple.

• Improve conflict skills so that differences need no longer be harmful, painful interactions. Find the capacity to accept and tolerate differences.

I work with you to help formulate your own goals and wishes for your couples counseling, applying various methods as we go along. Occasionally, we will check in about your goals and how your work with me is helping you to meet them. Over time, and with learning and experience your goals may shift, so we revisit them to keep them relevant and alive.

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The methods that I use in a specific situation will vary depending on the circumstances and dynamics of the couple that I am working with. The therapeutic methods that I use include Core Energetics, Voice Dialog, and principles from Self Psychology, particularly empathy and mirroring. I use these methods to focus on specific elements of your relating and on making change to these elements that will help you to meet your relationship goals. The elements of focus may range from the seemingly simple (communication patterns) to the more complex (family of origin issues, psychodynamics). Lets take a look at this continuum of relationship dynamics in the paragraphs below. I'll add some examples to help illustrate these ideas.

Some of the causes of tension in relating can be addressed by greater awareness of communication patterns and by making change to communication. Although changes in communication skills may seem simplistic or obvious, change at this level can have a powerful effect when you also give attention to the underlying meaning that is inherent in communication patterns. The shift in communication style can ripple through the rest of one's self and reinforce other aspects of your couple's dynamic.

Similarly, couples can adopt behavioral changes, another level of change that may seem superficial or simplistic at first glance. For example, parents with young children might institute a once-a-week night out away from the children to give themselves time to connect, or a couple might exchange lists of wished for behavior changes and adopt one change from the other's list. Like communication skills, these simple changes can have a powerful underlying effect when awareness of the deeper meaning is given attention. When coupled with awareness and when used to reinforce intention, behavior changes can not only relieve short-term tensions but can touch us at deeper levels that ripple through the rest of the relationship.

Developing greater emotional skillfulness can play a strong role in improving relationships. Emotional skillfulness includes learning to differentiate between one's core emotional experience and the thoughts, judgements or deflections that often arise during emotionally charged situations. For example, a man whose wife failed to appear at his community theatre's opening night performance may feel sad or anxious at her absence. Feeling the sadness and hurt in the moment is very different from the man mobilizing thought processes to absorb the emotional energy and distract him in thoughts like "I'm a pathetic performer - it's no wonder she didn't want to see me" or "Here we go again - she's always undermining me".  In this example, rather than spend the emotional energy on reducing his self-esteem or on unproductive blame, the sadness and hurt can be grieved and accepted, then used productively to illuminate his vital unmet needs. Awareness of the unmet needs can be used to examine how his and her needs are currently met in the relationship; what needs are still unmet; and how those needs can be best met for the betterment of the individual and therefore of the couple.

Another example of emotional skillfulness that is relevent for couples is the ability to identify and contain emotional reactivity. The man in the example above could react with anger at his wife in order to protect himself from feeling the even greater pain of his sadness, hurt and perhaps abandonment. In couples counseling, I may work with and support the man to identify and feel his reactivity so that he can genuinely feel the underlying core feelings of sadness and hurt. We might then look at his family of origin and face the even earlier pain of abandonment that lingers from those days. The wife in this case may benefit well from communication skills that assist her in not taking responsibility for her husband's feelings, and from her own developing emotional skillfulness in staying grounded in her intact sense of self while witnessing her husband's rage and sadness.

There are many other relationship dynamics that I investigate with couples depending on their particular needs, goals, and circumstances. Other dynamics include the role that unmet real needs plays, developing skills for productively getting needs met, practicing empathy, the role that unconscious beliefs play, unconscious negative beliefs and destructive tendencies, family of origin issues, and individuation and sense of self. The list could go on as could the list of examples. The examples are as rich and varied as the variations of humanity.

The methodology of Core Energetic body-mind work is particularly effective when applied to difficult relationship dynamics since it opens up the unconsciously held attitudes and beliefs that are behind the dynamics we find most frustrating and entrenched. These unconscious attitudes form part of our individual character defense system, which Core Energetics body-mind work focuses on opening up in transformation and integration.

I also apply Core Energetics in identifying the helpful and positive dynamics that work well and in making those positive dynamics even stronger and more rewarding.

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My sessions usually begin with some check-in about how things are going for you and about what might be the relevant topics for the day's session. In the early sessions, we will both be working at getting to know each other and bulding the "therapeutic alliance" - the relationship that is the safe and supportive environment for our work together. We will be discussing your needs and goals in those early sessions and defining what are the relationship dynamics that brought you to couples or marriage counseling. I meet you with empathy during this process and throughout all of our meetings.

As your relationship dynamics and patterns are brought forward and understood, I'll bring in the principles and therapeutic methods that I discussed above to facilitate understanding and integration that promotes lasting change. For example, I'll work with you to develop awareness - perhaps a deeper awareness of your unspoken contracts as a couple, or a deeper understanding and awareness of what makes up some troubling dynamic, or perhaps awareness of an unmet need if failed attempts at meeting it have been troubling. Core Energetics body-mind work can be effective in helping you to understand the thought processes, beliefs and structures that are behind feelings and behaviors that are difficult to understand. Along with awareness, we will focus on your intention - the positive and also the negative intentions that may unconsciously be guiding your behavior.

As trust is built and your couples counseling work continues and becomes more clear, I'll use the various methodologies I described above to facilitate understanding, change, and integration as your situation requires. For example, Voice Dialog may be used to help you to re-own disowned or disavowed aspects of self, broadening your capacity and capabilities in the relationship. The self can be strengthened by cultivating the "aware ego" or "observing witness" using Voice Dialog techniques. Or, Core Energetics principles may be applied to help illuminate some troubling aspects of intention that bring you into conflict as a couple. Or, Core Energetics techniques could be used to help you move through a defended place into an underlying feeling that is more central and authentic.

The list of examples could go on and on. All of my couples or marriage counseling sessions are different and unique - tailored to meet the needs of the unique individuals and couples that I work with.

I often assign couples "homework" to do between sessions. This may include physical exercises from Core Energetics such as breathing exercises, stretching/strengthening, or some dynamic movement. Sometimes I may suggest reflective reading from a book or a lecture related to your situation. Or, the homework may be to find time to connect with each other and set aside the hard work you are doing. My intention with "homework" is to suggest ways for you to continue the work you are doing in couples counseling during the week so that your work is supported beyond the sessions.

I hope that the paragraphs above have given you some general idea of how I work with couples. You most likely have your own particular questions, related to your specific situation. I welcome you to set up an initial consultation meeting with me at no cost, so that you can meet me to get answers to your questions and assess our fit.

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Finding a therapist who is a good fit for you is important for effective counseling and therapy. Some research has shown that the quality of the therapeutic relationship that is formed is the strongest indicator of success for the therapy. Some researchers have concluded from the evidence that the quality of the relationship is even more important than the methodology used for successful therapy.  Clearly, the relationship that you form with your therapist is a strong component of effective work.

I offer an initial consultation meeting at no cost so that you can meet me to assess our fit, discuss your situation and get answers to your questions, or perhaps help you with a referral to best serve your needs. Many of my clients have found this initial consultation meeting to be a useful way to evaluate whether we are a good fit for establishing an effective therapeutic relationship.

I invite you to contact me in email or by phone (503-963-8600) to get anwers to your questions or to set up an initial consultation meeting at no cost in my Portland, OR office.

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Final Word - An Inspirational Meditation

I end this page with some contemplative words on marriage or committed partnerings that a dear friend shared with me.  The author is unknown, so these words are unattributed.