Blogging on Good Therapy

By Delyse Ledgard, MA, RCC

Click here to contact Delyse and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“For each person who volunteers to live the life of a tool, lest he turn out to be a knife, there is another who threatens to become a wound.” ~Sheldon Kopp.

In coming across the above quote recently I was reminded of the pain caused by being caught up in this cycle. Back in my mid twenties I was a walking wound, and to compensate I tried to take care of others and become the tool to their healing. Thankfully I have come a long way over the years even though there are times when I can get drawn into this dynamic. I have found this description a useful way to understand how we are caught up in being dependent on each other’s happiness. Partners will move between these three positions creating relationships based on powerlessness and fusion.

When I began my training I was first acquainted with this system in relationships as having three positions, persecutor, victim and rescuer. It is useful to conceptualize each position as a separate person for description, but more accurately they are aspects within our psyche that are activated in relationships. We express them in reaction to what we perceive and experience in others. However, you may recognize that you gravitate towards one characteristic in particular. Here is a description of each of these positions. (more…)

Jennifer Bullock, M.Ed., M.L.S.P.,LPC, NCC

Click here to contact Jennifer and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

In our current over-scheduled, over-pressured world, families are confronting problems they have little capacity to do anything about. We can tend to cope by getting stuck in a narrow range of behaviors and responses even if they are not helpful. A child who has learned to have temper tantrums when she is angry, and her parents who have learned to punish or pamper her, are stuck in maladaptive, non-growthful environments—‘a bad play’. It’s like playing the same part in the same play on the same stage day after day.

A key component in this play is often our children’s behavioral, emotional and leaning difficulties that are so disruptive or dysfunctional - all we want to do is stop it. As parents, educators and fellow child / family therapists, we can understandably respond by focusing on getting rid of the most glaring and painful symptoms. Another way to handle these situations is to focus on development as the key to transforming our lives and our children’s lives—including maladaptive behaviors. (more…)

by Mitchell Milch, LCSW

Click here to contact Mitchell and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

Among other things, a good marriage is a salve against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It is also a shelter from the storm of Murphy’s Law and, a safe haven of mutual support and security where we insulate ourselves from the impersonal and frightening unknowns of life as we chart our courses toward the future. Marriage is the quintessential security blanket in that it makes real the illusion that we are important and special and thus, will be cared for until death do us part. So, we venture out into a world of exciting and frightening tomorrows armed with a protective mantra, “No matter what happens everything will be alright.”

In my private practice I have observed how marital crises that eventuate in separation and divorce rip these security blankets to pieces. In best cases, the loss of a spouse may for several years leave us at least, on occasion to re-experience ourselves as young children separated from our mothers minus our security blankets. Thus we can feel ill equipped to care for ourselves let alone to take on added responsibilities as a single parent. (more…)

by Pamela Simmons, LPC

Click here to contact Pamela and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

It happens every week. I walk into the bathroom. There is no toilet paper on the roller. The good news is there is a new roll of toilet paper sitting right on top of the roller! Does anyone else face this dilemma? At church last Sunday, among the four of us talking, three of us are the official and only changers of the toilet paper in the house. One woman said she walked into her daughters’ bathroom and found three rolls stacked on an empty roller. Changing the toilet paper is probably the easiest of household chores, so those of us allocated that responsibility should be relieved. Instead we are annoyed. Does no one else know how to do it? Is it too much to expect that one could put a new roll of toilet paper on the roller? It’s a brainless job.
For many a mom, taking care of the home is a form of loving our families and we find joy in it. BUT—are we creating monsters of the next generation who will enter marriages expecting Hilda Housekeeper to take care of everything? Are our children and husbands blind about all we do and then cannot function when we are gone? How do we handle this? This is more than toilet paper. The issue is not the tissue. This is about the balance of power and balance of managing a home. Many couple and family fights are about chores. How do we as families address the notion of community responsibility, roles and expectations? There is a way not to do it and a way to do. (more…)

by Mary Ellen Barnes, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Mary and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

The conversation began easily enough, “My brother is bleeding our parents into the poor house with his unending demands for money - money to support his addictions – and they don’t seem able to stop giving it to him, even though he isn’t getting any better. What can we do?”

Or we hear from the parents themselves, “How can I get my spouse to stop giving our adult daughter money she just spends on booze or drugs? Her promises are worthless and the demands endless.”

It’s not an uncommon condition. Parents are living longer, some adult children make childishness a career, and it isn’t easy to say no to a son or daughter, regardless of their age. Then add in the grandchildren, hostages held for ransom as your child essentially blackmails you into supporting their drug and/or alcohol abuse: “Give me the money or I will kill myself,” or “they will starve,” or “we’ll be on the streets,” is the implied or actual threat, yet the money does no good. (more…)

by Edward W. Wilson, Ph.D., MAC

Click here to contact Edward and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

As a family member becomes increasingly alcohol dependent, most families find themselves wishing they knew what to do. Initially we all tend to look the other way and hope that we’re wrong, but eventually most of us will start getting angry as the side effects begin to spill over into our lives. Then were also, probably, going to feel guilty about being angry. It is, after all, a disease, isn’t it? How can we be mad at someone who is ill?

Lewis Thomas, M. D., essayist and late Director of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, once wrote that in medicine the most difficult part is knowing that “frequently the best we can do is to stand back and quietly wring our hands.” For many of us, that is how we respond as the problem grows. And sometimes it is the best that can be done. (more…)

GoodTherapy.org maintains a list of psychotherapy & counseling approaches for the purpose of informing people about different forms of therapy. We’re currently updating this list of therapy models and we’ve just finished our update to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy is an empirically supported treatment for conduct-disordered young children that places emphasis on improving the quality of the parent-child relationship and changing parent-child interaction patterns. You can view the update to our section on Parent-Child Interaction Therapy and/or view our entire list of psychotherapy & counseling models . Enjoy :)

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,
Today we were pleased to present the first teleconference in the GoodTherapy.org Winter Teleconference Series: An introduction to the Internal Family Systems model (IFS) of Psychotherapy presented by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., the developer of the IFS model. Thanks to Richard who volunteered his time to present to GoodTherapy.org members this fascinating and beautiful approach to helping people heal.

To support those of you who attended today’s teleconference and who may have more questions or would enjoy having a forum to discuss the IFS model with others, we created this blog entry to serve as a forum where you can post your questions, leave comments, and engage in a dialogue about it. I hope all people will feel welcome, whether you attended the conference or not, to join us in the discussion. Having trained in the IFS model myself and being intimately familiar with it both inside and out, it will be pleasure to monitor the comments and answer as many questions as I can. I also welcome other IFS trained practitioners to join me in answering questions and taking part in the dialogue.

To view the comment or make your own, simply scroll to the bottom of this particular article and click on the “Comments” link.

For more information about the IFS model and their training programs, please visit the Center for Self-Leadership. For a quick overview of the IFS model you can go to our list of psychotherapy & counseling models and click on the link for Internal Family Systems Therapy.

Enjoy,

Noah :)

Noah Rubinstein, LMFT, LMHC
Co-Executive & Clinical Director
http://www.GoodTherapy.org

GoodTherapy.org maintains a list of psychotherapy & counseling approaches for the purpose of informing people about different forms of therapy. We’re currently updating this list of therapy models and we’ve just finished our update to Family Attachment Narrative Therapy. Family Attachment Narrative Therapy was developed to help resolve difficulties experienced by behaviorally disturbed children and their adoptive or foster parents. You can view the update to our section on Family Attachment Narrative Therapy and/or view our entire list of psychotherapy & counseling models . Enjoy :)