Married couples communicate in a myriad of ways throughout the world. Different countries have cultural norms that people conform to, and these norms directly influence how individuals in intimate relationships communicate. These norms also affect other behaviors and attitudes that significantly affect relationships. Chinese and American cultures are quite different, and therefore, it is assumed that couples from China might have different communication styles and beliefs about their relationships than American couples. These diverse views are important to understand in order to better address and treat the issues that plague Chinese couples in America.

To find out how attitudes and communication patterns shape the overall satisfaction of Chinese couples compared to American couples, Hannah C. Williamson of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently led a study evaluating these factors in a sample of 41 Chinese newlywed couples and 50 newlywed couples from America. Taking into consideration that American couples are more inclined to conform to individualistic ideals and value intimacy and personal and romantic expression over the social expectations of extended family harmony and approval, as Chinese culture dictates, Williamson expected that the American couples would be more positive than the Chinese couples. This finding was not realized. Instead, all of the couples showed equal levels of positivity.

However, the results did show that the Chinese wives held more overall negative attitudes toward their husbands than the American wives. This directly impacted the levels of relationship satisfaction in the Chinese participants. Williamson believes this could be due to the collective nature of the Chinese culture, which dissuades people from directly expressing their feelings to intimate partners and family members. This nondisclosure of emotional experiences can hamper open communication and cause partners to hold on to resentments, thus negatively affecting the relationship. In contrast, American couples showed higher levels of relationship satisfaction, perhaps due to the more expressive and individualistic behaviors encouraged in American culture. Williamson believes these findings can help clinicians better understand the factors inhibiting communication in couples whose values differ with those of most Americans. She added, “The culture in which a relationship occurs therefore may be an important factor in determining how individuals behave toward their spouse and how they assign meaning to this behavior.”

Reference:
Williamson, H. C., Ju, X., Bradbury, T. N., Karney, B. R., Fang, X., & Liu, X. (2012). Communication behavior and relationship satisfaction among American and Chinese newlywed couples. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027752

“I’ve been suffering for years,” Marcelle said. “When I tell Andrew that he’s hurt my feelings, he gets angry. Can you imagine that? What kind of human being gets angry when he sees his wife crying?”

This is a good question, and one that I get asked often. The answer is that a person like Andrew, who gets angry at being told that he has—once again—done it wrong, is a human who has never heard a word of praise and experienced more criticism in his life than he knows what to do with.

Such a person—often, but not always, a man—is highly conflicted. In moments when he does not feel put on the defensive, he cares deeply for his wife, loves her, and doesn’t want her to hurt. On the other hand, when he thinks he’s being attacked, he reflexively circles the wagons to protect himself.

[fat_widget_relationships_right]

“So finally, I got good and angry myself,” Marcelle went on. “How much of this can I take? I get mistreated and I can’t even express myself. That’s not right! That’s not fair! I deserve better, so I told him a thing or two. I let him have it. And, frankly, I felt much better after that.”

That’s a typical pattern—and highly destructive.

The Elusive Satisfaction of Retaliation
Marcelle has every justification in the world to feel hurt. It is also human for her to be angry at the cause of that hurt when he is so unsympathetic. But her reaction in this scenario is wrong. For one thing, she’s hurting herself more by lowering herself to his level. If she acknowledges that his anger is hurtful, then her anger is hurtful too. If she acknowledges that anger displays a lack of humanity on his part, then it displays a lack of humanity on hers as well.

Later, alone with her feelings, Marcelle will confide that the good feeling of “giving it back” was short lived. Over time, the idea that she had betrayed herself by stooping to his level gnawed at her innermost being. She had always liked herself for her own kindness and goodness. “Now who am I?” she wondered. Not only did she reduce herself to a level that she did not respect, but in doing so, she also became alienated from herself.

Many victims of mistreatment feel this way. They feel estranged from the person they thought they were, they don’t like the person they’ve become, and they’re still depressed over the way they were treated. They add depression to depression. Being mean and striking back is completely self-defeating.

How Retaliation Makes Bad Behavior Worse
There’s another, even worse problem with Marcelle’s reaction: it ensures that Andrew’s behavior will also get worse. Now that’s bad.

Andrew doesn’t want to be the bad guy that he is, but he has no clue how to make the awful feelings go away when he is repeatedly reminded of his failings. When he hears what comes across to him as a criticism, he is thrown into a pit of despair. After all, if he knew how to handle the problem in the first place, he would not have created it. Growing up in a home in which such things as compassion, sharing, consideration, and respect were not taught or modeled, he is unaware of how to deal with situations which call for these traits. How can he fix a problem he’s clueless about?

But Andrew does know the one thing he learned very well growing up: how to defend himself, strike back, or tune out. It’s only natural that when he feels attacked, he’s going to do what it takes to prevent those old feelings from rushing in. What better smokescreen than for him to attack back?

Will he feel better? No, just as Marcelle didn’t feel better when she retaliated. Will the marriage improve this way? Obviously not. What should be done?

Alternatives to Retaliation
Marcelle has to switch her approach from telling Andrew what he did wrong to what she wants him to do. It means changing a negative sentence to a positive one. This might not seem hard to do, but listen to what Marcelle has to say about it: “What about my feelings? Are you telling me to stifle my feelings? He’s my husband; shouldn’t I be able to tell my own husband that he hurt my feelings?”

Marcelle has a point. She should not have to stifle her feelings; she should be able to express them to her own husband. But we are not operating in a fair and just world. Her husband simply cannot hear this until he has healed from his past pain.

So Marcelle’s real job is to deal with her “shoulds.” Theoretically, she should be free to express herself, and in reality, she shoots herself in the foot when she does. What are Marcelle’s options?

• Marcelle has to make a list for herself of healthy ways to self-soothe such as doing affirmations, practicing relaxation and deep breathing, getting sufficient sleep and exercise, and deriving pleasure from her work and daily tasks. She can also journal or talk to a marriage counselor who is pro-marriage. All of these serve both as channels for her bad feelings and as ways to empower herself to feel good, despite the tough hand that she was dealt.

• Marcelle should learn to assertively ask for what she wants in very specific terms, such as, “When I come home with groceries, please help me with them, and please smile at me when you do.” She herself should be pleasant and smiling when making these requests. Andrew did not have the benefit of learning how to handle interpersonal relationships growing up, so part of his attraction to Marcelle was that she was so skilled at them. He is actually looking to her for a way out of the labyrinth. Furthermore, by being pleasant in her request, she is also modeling the very behavior she wants—and putting in a teaspoon of sugar to make the medicine go down.

Retaliation is not one of Marcelle’s options, but she will find that if she follows the options above, she will be empowered and happier, even before Andrew has started to “get it.” Eventually, he will “get it” and then they will both be happier.

Couples seek therapy to achieve better communication, increase trust, and enhance intimacy, among other reasons. Surprisingly, almost half of couples who enter relationship therapy do so with the goal of determining if the relationship is viable enough to continue. Although there is much research examining how therapy goals influence outcome, little attention has been given to the relationship between viability goals and outcome in couples therapy. To this end, Jesse Owen of the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Louisville led a study that looked specifically at how treatment goals expressed at the beginning of therapy affected eventual outcome with regards to maintaining the relationship.

Using data collected from 249 couples treated by various therapists, Owen looked at goals of improving the relationship compared to goals of clarifying the relationship’s viability. Owen examined intake paperwork to determine goals and discovered that the partners who had a goal of improvement had better outcomes than those who sought clarification. Specifically, couples who entered therapy to find ways to improve the existing relationship were nearly 80% more likely to be together six months after treatment than the couples who entered therapy wanting to know if they should separate or not. More than half of the couples who wanted clarification at the beginning of therapy had split up six months later.

Owen believes that these results underscore the impact of goal assessment, both for the couple and individual, at the beginning of treatment. Additionally, Owen emphasizes that the clinician has a significant influence on outcome, noting that even when a couple’s primary goal is clarification, they may consider other options as a result of the clinician’s hope and encouragement. The re-evaluation of goals throughout treatment is essential to achieve a positive outcome, even if that outcome is dissolution of the relationship. “The complex intersection of varied hopes, goals, and expectations, occurring often within an emotionally charged atmosphere, requires that clinicians ‘dance’ simultaneously with different partners.” Owen added, “Determining and tracking goals from the outset appears likely to help ensure that the therapist does not step on too many feet too often.”

Reference:
Owen, J., Duncan, B., Anker, M., Sparks, J. (2012, February 13). Initial Relationship Goal and Couple Therapy Outcomes at Post and Six-Month Follow-Up. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026998

After 5 years of sobriety, in 1985, I began to notice a pattern in my sexual relationships: Even if I really liked someone, I couldn’t go more than 3 months before my attraction to them fizzled. I would then find some reason to end the relationship, although I never really understood why, and it made me feel bad. Thankfully, while I was leading a weekend retreat on Spirituality in Recovery, one participant pressed for bringing the subject of sex into the process.

Although I was unprepared, it gave me the opportunity to address the issue, and I shared my struggles with the group. When I asked if anyone else identified with the issue, all hands went up. I immediately felt a sense of relief, having previously thought I was uniquely flawed. And then I felt angry that no one had told me about this before, which launched my enthusiasm to shift the primary focus of my work. I began to create healing techniques for underlying trauma and sexual challenges.

The sexual-spiritual split, a deep psychic schism within almost everyone, prohibits loving relationships from forming and enduring. The chasm between sex and love, caused by generational, cultural, religious, and early programming, planted seeds in our unconscious that makes merging with another virtually impossible without the specific healing that new perspectives and experiences can offer.

In the previous article (Part One), I describe the subtle powers of Source Energy, our innate intelligence, to direct us forward. I have chosen sexual healing as the next pathway for expanding our access to Source Energy, although there is no particular linear course. Sexual energy, primal and fundamental to our nature, fully awakens our sensorial nature that always knows our best next step in life. A shift in perspective in our relationship toward the life force in sex can expand our Source Energy.

Like most of us who grew up in the Western world, I internalized sex and all references to it as shunned experiences to keep secret. Many of us received discordant messages in our formative years: love, family, and good deeds provide a happy, acceptable life. Conversely, anything having to do with sex, or even our bodies, was cloaked in a wall of shame and secrecy. While experiences vary, our collective consciousness suffers from this split, locking us out of our own rich, informative, multidimensional sensuality.

There are five key elements to dissolving the sexual/spiritual split:

Shifting Concepts: S.E.X.

Our erotic energy pathways have suffered trauma and distortion. To heal those wounds by utilizing expansive Source Energy, we must gently put our old concepts about sex aside. Most of us never developed a healthy, conscious context for having erotic pleasure. We clumsily fall into sex, gradually shaping ideas about it from what we have observed, and from our own, perhaps awkward, experiences.

When barriers dissolve, we are more likely to have more of what could be called “sacred” or “transcendent sex” and an openness to meaning and purpose for all types of lovemaking, including with ourselves. In paying attention to old sexual identities, we can rediscover, or in some cases reinvent, a new meaning of sex. Our willingness to detach from outdated conditioned thinking is the foundation for transforming sexuality to the sacred.

To help us step out of the cultural box, my partner and I created the abbreviation, S.E.X., for Soul Energy eXchange. It suggests we can choose to enlighten our sexual experiences by focusing on energy that comes from our souls, not just our bodies, and thereby designing a new outlook on pleasure. For those who are willing, it does take a bit of work. It’s rare that I’ve met anyone with an ongoing rich and fulfilling sexual life who did not have to go back in their history to create new contexts for their erotic experiences. But the payoff is huge.

S.E.X. Primary Energies

There are four primary forces in Erotic Ritual’s Soul Energy eXchange (S.E.X.): love, pleasure, lingam, and yoni, which are Hindu Sanskrit terms for penis and vagina. Though lingam energy is typically male identified as drive, pursuance, initiation, and aggression, it’s an energy shared in both genders. Yoni energy, feminine, receptive, creative, and artistic, is also found in both sexes. Love is an energy transmitted from the heart. It can be felt through hands of a lover or from a father or mother to a child. It is gender-neutral. Love means losing ourselves in the beloved. Pleasure takes many forms, but erotic pleasure can be defined as stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain through visual and tactile stimulation. While some have a low threshold for erotic pleasure, others may find everything erotically pleasurable.

The kind of love we are exploring is the love that moves us to listen and intuit what our lover wants, to care about the other person’s needs. It is best to have the constant energy of love as the foundation for everything in life. The energy of love can be triggered by the energy of pleasure, but it is at its greatest when love is present first.

We have all experienced limiting conditioning in the expression of our lingam and/or yoni energies. Most of us experienced some sort of trauma that blocks our love and pleasure energies as well. Unlocking trauma and toxicity of shame and melting frozen erotic energies are pathways to the sacred. Judgment- free experimentation, using all four of these soulful forces, leads us on a path to the divine, to earth energy, and to a greater connection with the universe.

Perhaps more than in other rituals, through Erotic Ritual we learn that we are all expressions of a much larger source of communal energy. It melts barriers and we feel less isolated. Notice when you are having an erotic experience there is always giving and receiving of energy. Sometimes it’s reciprocated or sometimes one is consistently giving or receiving, and either is fine. Allow yourself to be really present in any prolonged erotic exchange and you will find yourself in a circle of energy. (The yoni expression fully experiences the lingam expression, and vice versa.)

Sexual Concerns

The very private issues that people have shared with me about sex have ranged from not feeling that they are desirable, to experiencing a sexual apathy, erectile and/or orgasmic dysfunction, or feeling detached from a loving partner. Sometimes it’s an obsession with body parts that they just don’t like or think something is wrong with.

Many people carry much the same type of burden, sometimes silently. The principles of Source Energy can have a very beneficial impact in renegotiating and resolving these hardships. With the right resources, including therapy in some cases, the barriers to erotic fulfillment will dissolve, creating possibilities for a blissful engagement with one’s self and with another.

When the sex in a monogamous relationship is unsatisfying, a substantial foundation is at risk. If the condition lingers, with sex becoming almost nonexistent, then the relationship is compromised. Often couples aren’t equipped with the tools to communicate sensitive issues. Their avoidance, sometimes lasting years, continues the downward spiral. Addressing these problems with the assistance of Source Energy can enhance those very skills.

Happily, mine is a loving, growing, and sexually fulfilling relationship, lasting many years. All of our efforts have paid off. Creating sacred time and using it for shame-free sex while opening our hearts, along with taking responsibility and respecting ourselves, have all been key. Sexual loving intensifies consciousness and pure love. In that vast, nurturing ocean there is no ego, nothing to defend, only a sense of just being and connection.

Communication in these sensitive areas can at first feel like hard work. With practice, it eventually becomes quite natural. When my partner and I explored having a committed relationship those many years ago, my primary request was that our sexual relations be the first priority in our union. Even in a number of long-term relationships I’d been in there was the sex-spirit split, along with undeveloped communication skills, causing sex and sensuality to wither. They were left with a sense of deadness in a potentially thriving relationship.

Instead, having made the commitment, we began a life of focalized conscious S.E.X. Expansiveness and sexual gratification became a planned, sacrosanct part of our time together. While it might seem to defy spontaneity, let me suggest that there is a significant payoff. Respecting existing realities—being tired, stressed, too busy, or distracted—doesn’t mean spontaneity is stifled. Rather, without earnest communication of our needs and desires, or without planning, we cannot build rich, enduring erotic lives.

Sexuality, Higher Consciousness, and Fantasy

Although it could feel clumsy, it is crucial to learn to express what we need and desire, as well as what we fantasize about. I like to call it reclaiming adolescent awkwardness, to allow people to go where it might be difficult, in order to heal the sexual-spiritual split, a requirement in forming intimate relationships that are authentic.

In sexual counseling, many are curious about where their fantasies come from, often feeling shame for having them. I tell my clients good fantasies are like rainbows, mysterious and beautiful, sometimes fleeting, and they are to be respected. Their origins may vary from abuses early in life to Freudian, or they may relate to recollections of pleasure from our past. Sometimes they mysteriously come from no conscious recollection whatsoever. Focalizing Source Energy filters the shame out of our fantasies and allow us to fall more deeply in love with ourselves. Self-love is essential to grow in sacred sexuality. Having fantasies doesn’t mean we’re bad or that something is wrong with us, as we don’t have to act on them. Only shame is Godless. Removing the shame from our fantasies transforms them, and that contributes to keeping a long-term relationship sexually alive.

Natural Resistance to S.E.X.

With all our knowledge we still encounter resistance to a loving fusion of our sexual and spiritual energies. The delicate nature of exploring repressed sexual history is likely to trigger that very resistance. When we appreciate the essence of our resistance to removing shame, our fantasies can be an entryway to joyous energetic harmony, where we can experience full-body orgasm along with deeply felt spirituality. Full-body orgasm refers to a burst of the four energies in S.E.X. that can take over every dimension of our physical and subtle energy being. When this happens, we can experience expansiveness and sometimes formlessness that is sublime. It is a full-body encounter that is uniquely restorative when we feel depleted and deeply relaxing when we are tense.

If we can consent to the reality that energy and its many vibrations and frequencies make up our physical reality, we can learn new skills to heal, with an efficient pathway to our inner wisdom. When we energetically experience resolution in our bodies from sexual barriers, we land in the divine center of Source Energy. As we tap into it, the more it begins to lovingly lead our lives.

Related articles:
Part I: Source Energy Optimizes Life – Finding Source Energy
What Do Your Sexual Fantasies Mean?
Fanning the Spark of Sexual Passion

Being considered a “perfect child” by one’s parents feels fantastic. Basking in the glow from parents’ approval and love can feel safe and special, like one is living in a magical world where everyone is happy and satisfied. These feelings are very seductive. The child is usually not aware that they pay a price in order to maintain the parents’ continued extraordinary approval. That price is the giving up of one’s unique sense of self in order to comply and be the child and then the adult that the parents adore. Being kept on a pedestal distracts from being aware that one has wants and needs that are not defined by one’s loving parents. This interference with developing an individual self can result in difficult and/or empty relationships as one becomes an adult.

Here is Grace’s story. After Grace and I said our goodbyes during our last session, after 5 years of working together in therapy, I began to think about her journey from the pedestal to the development of a unique self. Grace had become a person with her own separate, individual needs, thoughts, and feelings.

Grace came to see me for therapy when she was 28 years old. She was a pretty young woman who described herself as feeling depressed and confused. She told me she was unhappy with herself and her life. She expressed puzzlement about her feelings, as she described herself as having a successful job, good friends, and a wonderful family. She wished she had a steady boyfriend, but she dated and had been in two almost-year-long relationships. Those relationships “just sort of petered out” and she wasn’t sure why. She shrugged and said, “Something seems off about my life. Nothing feels satisfying; I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

As Grace and I worked together in therapy, Grace began to describe how she always felt her life was wonderful. She was an only child and was especially close with her mother, who always referred to her as the perfect child. She told me that she felt special to both her mother and father. They idolized her and believed she could do no wrong. In fact, she told me she did no wrong. She was happy to do whatever they asked: set the table, be home on time, practice piano, not hang out with friends they felt were not a good influence. Grace felt her parents knew what was best for her and she complied.

In therapy, Grace began to talk about how it felt to be seen as so perfect by her parents. She told me she really liked it. She felt safe and loved when they would tell their friends what a good daughter she was. They were so proud of her good grades and her outstanding abilities on the piano and flute. When I asked Grace if she had ever felt like skipping piano practice or coming home later than expected, she looked surprised by the questions as if such behavior was unimaginable. Then she responded that she never behaved that way.

One day, Grace came to our session wondering about why she didn’t have any differences with her parents. She noted, for example, that most of her friends went away to college. She went to a local school and lived at home. She had no memory of wanting to go away to school but realized that now she regretted staying home for college. Grace’s sense of regret about her life began to pervade our work. Over time, Grace posed a number of questions to herself and to me.

Grace wondered if she didn’t consider the possibility of going away to school because she knew her parents wanted her to stay home. She wondered if she majored in music because her parents were so thrilled with her music making. She wondered why she went with her parents on vacations rather than taking vacations with her friends in college. One day Grace began to cry in our session. She was remembering her middle school friend Fran, who her parents didn’t like. They told her she should stop seeing Fran when they overheard her use a curse word. In our session, Grace became angry at herself and her parents. “How could I have agreed to such a thing? Fran was my best friend!” I asked Grace why she thought she should go along with her parents. What did she think would happen if she asserted what she wanted? Sobbing, Grace said she didn’t know. Her parents were good people; they loved her, why couldn’t she say what she wanted to them? Then, Grace stopped crying and gasped: “Oh! I would disappoint them.” I asked “What would be so terrible about disappointing them?” Grace looked very sad and was silent for a long time. Then she looked at me, tears returning to her eyes: “I wouldn’t be the perfect child!”

As Grace and I explored what it would mean to give up being the perfect child, it became clear that such an idea was frightening to her. She loved the feeling of making her parents glow when they saw her. She believed she kept them happy as long as she continued to be their good and perfect child. If she stopped being compliant and who they needed her to be, she worried they would become sad and hurt, and she believed this would harm them. She also would feel guilty. Talking about Grace’s concern and need to keep her parents happy led Grace to the realization that she not only wanted to make them happy, but she was worried that if she didn’t keep them happy, they wouldn’t continue to think of her as so amazingly special. Grace began to understand that to give this up felt like she would be losing their love. She was willing to consider, however, that in fact, she probably wouldn’t lose their love, but that maybe it wouldn’t continue to feel that she was quite so amazing.

Feeling less anxious about the idea that her parents would be hurt and that she would not be loved, Grace began to notice that the way she related to the people in her life was similar to the way she related to her parents. She didn’t like to disappoint or make anyone in her life unhappy. She considered whether the people in her life seemed to like her so much because she always went along. She realized that she didn’t express what she wanted if she knew it would conflict with others. One day she excitedly came into our session and said “I think the reason my relationships with men don’t work out for me is that they never really get to know who I am because I never know what I want and I am always avoiding conflict.” She said with a smile, “I am never satisfied because nothing that happens in the relationship is about me!”

Grace’s smile told me a lot. I congratulated her on the discovery she made and our work turned to focus on Grace’s wishes, desires, and needs for herself in the world. While Grace was eager to embark on a journey of discovery to learn more about herself, she was understandably anxious about how this would affect the relationships she was in. Would the people she was close to, her parents, friends, and new boyfriend, still want her in their lives? Would they love her? Would she hurt and disappoint them? Would it feel like love to her if she didn’t feel she was the most special person to the other in the relationship? These were all important and real issues that Grace would have to contend with.

Over the next 2 years, Grace gradually began to learn what she wanted and liked, what she hated, and what thrilled her. She discovered a passion for cooking and went to school to train as a chef. She weathered her parents’ disappointment that she gave up a career as a musician. And she came to believe she had the right to recognize and follow her own dreams. Her parents didn’t glow as much as they did when Grace first came to therapy, but they didn’t stop loving her.

Grace’s friendships changed. Over time and in spite of her anxiety, Grace pushed herself to reveal more of her wants and feelings as she tested the waters and developed more of a voice with her friends. Some welcomed this new Grace and were excited to learn more about her and make room for another voice. Others were not so welcoming to this new assertive Grace, and some friendships didn’t last. Grace’s dating life changed too. She felt more engaged with her boyfriend. She said “Now the relationship is about us because I am more of a whole person.”

When Grace described her new feelings and new ways of relating, she realized that she is much less compliant as a way of being in the world. She no longer felt perfect in her relationships. She knew she had to continue fighting her resistance to keep her needs quiet. Now Grace feels much more authentic with her family and friends.

Grace often smiles at me ruefully and sighs: “I do sometimes miss the feeling of being so special. Now I struggle to express what I want and it’s hard to accept that sometimes my needs aren’t met. But it is worth it. What I didn’t have, that I do have now, is I feel like a person. I usually know what I want and how to get it. I am not so scared that people won’t like me or that I will disappoint someone. In my relationships, I try to talk about what I want and feel. Sometimes it’s hard, like when I have a fight with my boyfriend or when I feel my parents disapprove of my decisions. But now I make decisions. I don’t go along automatically. I like me. How wonderful is that!”

Grace terminated therapy with the ability to continue the process of discovering and growing her unique self. While she was not yet able to assert herself as much as she wished, she was committed to the struggle to tolerate her uncomfortable feelings and risk that others might not always have the feelings she wished they would have.

That is very wonderful!

Related articles:
The Undeveloped Self and the Difficulty of Relationship
The Pink Elephant of Perception
The Fear of Hurting the Other and the Inhibition of Self

Families need to be together. After all, the family as a group exists to provide support, nurturance, food, shelter, resources, and a stable future to each member. While most families have their ups and downs, even stressed, impoverished, chaotic families want to live with one another. When is it in the family’s best interest for members to separate from one another? Can leaving the family home for a short while ever bring healing to the relationships in the long run?

Family separations occur in American culture in formal and informal ways. Formally, families can legally be ordered to separate by the courts because of domestic violence, child sexual, emotional, or physical abuse or neglect, chronic drug or alcohol abuse, and/or failure to educate and when there is a threat to the life, health, and well-being of one or more family members. Typically, less-intrusive assistance has been attempted at many levels before a court order occurs, including weeks or months of child-centered school counseling, family therapy, marriage counseling, social work support, addiction treatment, spiritual community support, or elder advocacy.

All of these actions occur at local, county, and state levels because we as a society believe that we have a stake in supporting and sustaining healthy families. State laws vary but generally have been written with family reunification as the end goal of this intervention process, wherever possible. Violent fathers, neglectful or addicted mothers, and abusive siblings can and often do change and grow into healthier, happier parents, spouses, siblings, and grandparents. We want families to get along well and have what they need to contribute to the world. No one benefits when families are so chaotic and dysfunctional that it takes dozens of people and thousands of hours and dollars to try to help.

[fat_widget_right]More informal separations occur every day, particularly among highly distressed married couples. Unable to live in the same home without physical or emotional pain, one member of the couple leaves the home temporarily and lives elsewhere. Unlike a formal, legal intervention of family separation, this kind of separation is less likely to change the marital interactions at all. What it usually does is create less fighting and conflict in the home, while increasing the stress of the separating spouse and any children in the family. The only person who may feel any relief is the remaining spouse, and this relief is generally temporary. The focus is shifted to the dozens of life details that, once shared, have to be renegotiated, from grocery shopping and bill paying to getting a child to baseball practice.

Unless a separated couple gets professional support and assistance immediately, the family begins to reshape around the absence of the separated parent. Children feel neglected and forgotten, no matter how diligent the separated parent is in spending time with the children. There is just no adequate substitute for living together, and the children’s behavior often suffers. The couples will simply shift their conflict away from one another in the short term and have no real plan of action for getting everyone back together. Because separation only tones down conflict and doesn’t solve it, I almost always suggest that separated couples who want to remain married work at getting back together as soon as possible, and always with professional family or marital therapy. If this is not the chosen path, statistics predict this couple will end up divorcing.

Separation is often a necessary choice when family behaviors become violent, abusive, or dangerous. But in nearly all cases, families should be helped to heal and reunify as soon as possible. Separation is not the best course of action unless it is the only course left for health, safety, or stability’s sake. Every one of us needs to feel like we belong and to be part of a group of people who know, appreciate, sacrifice for, and value us most of all. At our best, these are our families. It’s worth the effort to make them as healthy, whole, and loving as possible.

Related articles:
Three Truths Every Couple Needs to Know About Marriage
Want Family Therapy? These 4 Problems Should Be Treated First
Harness the Power of the Marriage Bond

Many people, but primarily young, educated, Western women, struggle to sustain a positive body image—for a multitude of reasons that have been discussed in previous posts. Often a negative body image leads to a poor relationship with the body and other aspects of self. It is associated with impoverished self-care and unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits.

Having a negative body image is related to general low self-esteem and depression or anxiety. Women with poor body image often struggle with boundaries in relationship to self and others. In this post, I will attempt to shed some light on the issue of boundaries related to poor body image, a concept often discussed and infrequently understood.

Women with poor body image tend to have a compartmentalized approach to well-being. For example, they may be overly focused on certain parts of the body or particular goals, such as weight loss, while devaluing other important aspects of overall health and fitness. People who have poor body image demonstrate an all-or-nothing approach to wellness, swinging from one extreme to the other, sometimes within the same day. They tend to have an exceptional level of acquired knowledge about what is healthy and set idealistic goals based on this knowledge and also are frequently disappointed and blame themselves when they are unable to attain these goals.

The lack of a holistic perspective is evidenced in an inability to balance fitness with relaxation, healthy food choices with enjoyment of food, and so on. Not surprisingly, it is common to hear that they have dissatisfying relationships with others. The all-or-nothing tendency is implicated in their sense of being overwhelmed in relationships. They sometimes become preoccupied with the other person, swinging from feeling too close to feeling uncomfortably vulnerable even feeling lost in a relationship and wanting to cut it off.

The biggest and most obvious issue I see in working with women with poor body image is that most of the information used to make decisions about relationships and well-being comes from external sources. A total and complete lack of trust in the body and the self’s ability to regulate is obvious in their decision making. There is usually a clear history in the development of this lack of trust with regard to personal, familial, and cultural messages that have been internalized. (A full discussion of these factors is beyond the scope of this article). A lack of trust in the body and in the self leads to poor listening and misinterpretation of the cues that emerge from within. After a prolonged period of not paying attention to these signals, one’s ability to understand and act in accordance to one’s own needs becomes weakened. The needs of others become the focus of too much energy and attention, often referred to as a boundary issue.

Boundaries can be physical, mental, or emotional. Clear boundary violations are easy to identify and are well known as something that is usually morally or legally wrong and/or clearly harmful to another person’s safety, integrity, or well-being. However, there is a huge gray area between what is ideal and what is harmful, and sometimes subtle violations can lead to hurt, shame, self-doubt, and low self-esteem. Violations usually happen by the person who is in a perceived position of power, as in the obvious case of an adult taking advantage of or imposing his or her personal needs on a child, or a doctor over a patient. But there are other relationships in which people can feel vulnerable and open to influence, harmful or positive. In these more subtle cases of power and vulnerability, the delivery of emotional (or more direct) messages about the self can also lead to unhealthy attitudes, self-doubt, and low self-worth. For example, people in positions of perceived or felt power who regularly directly or indirectly impose their opinions and choices can influence others to have doubts about their own choices.

A healthy boundary between people is a perceived buffering zone, whereby a felt sense of acceptable difference exists. Respectful support of differences by people in positions of perceived power and influence can help a person grow a strong sense of self and hence the ability to re-enact these perceived boundaries in other relationships. Good boundaries lead to healthy awareness of needs of the self and also positive choices that enhance the sense of self and relationships. Supporting an individual’s development involves a strong sense of self and honoring differences in others, an open attitude of acceptance and humility. A supportive stance involves allowing another person to feel, think, struggle, learn, and identify what is right for him or her without unwelcome advice or control tactics or too much distance or silence.

Recognizing and accepting differences, a supportive stance, involves sharing personal views and opinions with a sense of humility and recognizing that they are indeed personal and individual and should not be imposed on others. Offering help when it is asked for and refraining from taking over, micromanaging, or rescuing another person is important. Healthy boundaries lead to healthy relationships, and healthy relationships lead to healthy development of individuals.

Where the development of healthy boundaries has been challenged, an individual will often be overly dependent on external information and feedback to feel safe in their decision making and hence may have a poorly developed or negative sense of their own worth. In the case of the person with poor body image, this person becomes adept at information gathering, using perceived feedback to set expectations for the self that are often unrealistic. Perception itself is flawed and is often skewed towards negative, self-fulfilling ideas of self-worth. By engaging in a selection bias, people with low self-esteem will seek out and attend to cues that confirm what they think they know about themselves that is usually negative. In addition, they may believe it is possible to please others all of the time, which is clearly faulty.

Emphasis on interpretation and internalization of other people’s expectations is a recipe for impoverished self-worth. Living according to perceived notions of other people’s expectations often leads to repressed resentment, disempowerment, and disappointment. In some cases, the only way to assert the self is in a passive-aggressive manner, which is usually not received well by others. While indeed it is healthy to have a sense of social expectation and be kind and thoughtful towards others, these behaviors need to be enacted based on a clear and healthy sense of self, which requires an awareness of personal thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and needs and the differences between self and other. Healthy self and healthy relationships interrelate and influence the development of both. The development of clear boundaries has a positive impact on individuals and on others with whom they have relationships.

However, the responsibility for nurturing clear boundaries falls on individuals in a position of power of any kind. Most people in some domain of their lives are in a position to help or hinder the development of another person. It is important that we always be aware of the difference between our own needs and feelings and those of others and to refrain from overstepping and imposing or, conversely, mistakenly taking on responsibility for other people in a way that invalidates or challenges their own development.

Where boundaries were violated, or not properly developed, psychotherapy can help to personalize new ways of being that include more emotional self-awareness and self-regulation, as well as assertiveness and effective communication skills. Healthy boundaries and self-esteem are achievable goals.

Related articles:
Our Bodies/Ourselves
The Vanity Myth: Eating Disorders and Beauty
Self-Esteem and Standards

Parallel process is one of many elements included in psychotherapy supervision. In supervision, a therapist relays their client’s issues to their supervisor. The supervisor then takes on the role of the therapist and the therapist in training; the trainee then assumes the role of the client. “Without endorsing unconscious determinants, parallel process is also recognized as an important aspect of supervision in developmental and interactional models of supervision,” said Terence J.G. Tracey of the Counseling and Counseling Psychology Department of Arizona State University and lead author of a recent study. “The focus of the present study was on examining the processes of supervision and therapy conjointly. Specifically, we sought to determine whether parallel processes existed in supervision, and if so, their relation to therapy outcome.”

Tracey and his colleagues examined 17 supervision sessions and looked specifically at affiliation and dominance. He found that in nearly every session, the therapists and supervisors changed their behaviors according to the theory of parallel process. “Therapists in the role of trainee altered their behavior away from their usual in supervision to act somewhat more like particular clients did in the previous therapy session,” said Tracey. “This was also true for the supervisors, who would act somewhat like the therapists in the previous therapy sessions with those particular clients. This pattern for therapist and supervisor was found for both dominance and affiliation.”

When parallel process occurs, Tracey insists that clear communication is essential. “The supervisor may choose to communicate with the trainee about how the trainee (in the therapist role) and client are communicating, as well as how the trainee and supervisor are communicating,” said Tracey. “In this way, the supervisor makes the implicit aspects of the parallel process more explicit for the trainee.” Tracey added, “The results of this study will help inform future theory and research continuing to elucidate the extent to which the process of supervision replicates the process of therapy and vice versa, as well as the means by which awareness of these parallel processes can be deliberately and appropriately used to facilitate the parallel goals of client improvement and trainee professional development.”

Reference:
Tracey, T. J. G., Bludworth, J., & Glidden-Tracey, C. E. (2011, December 19). Are There Parallel Processes in Psychotherapy Supervision? An Empirical Examination. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026246

Extradyadic involvement (EDI), also known as infidelity, occurs in many relationships. At times, the infidelity is known to both partners, and at other times, only the participating partner is aware of the EDI. Regardless, EDIs have significant negative consequences. “Many negative emotional and behavioral correlates of EDI have been documented including partner violence, acute anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and symptoms similar to those of posttraumatic stress disorder,” said Christina M. Balderrama-Durbin of the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado. “Relationship distress and dissolution are also commonly associated with EDI, with infidelity being the most frequently cited cause of divorce.”

Poor communication, often exhibited in couples with EDI, can also be a predictor for infidelity. “Dissatisfied couples are more likely to engage in negative conflict communication behaviors including criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and withdrawal,” she said. The most common pattern of communication in conflicts is known as the demand/withdraw pattern. “During conflict interactions, distressed couples often display a dyadic conflict pattern in which one spouse blames, nags, criticizes, or pressures the other for change, while the other spouse withdraws or avoids conflict,” said Balderrama-Durbin, who observed demand/withdrawal behaviors in couples who had a disclosed EDI, couples with an undisclosed EDI, and couples with no EDI.

After observing 170 couples during a conflict, Balderrama-Durbin found that the couples who had undisclosed EDIs used demand/withdrawal behavior the most frequently. “Specifically, male and female demand behaviors, and male withdraw behaviors, were significantly higher within couples where there had been an unknown EDI compared with those in a relationship with no history of EDI,” said Balderrama-Durbin. She also discovered that the participating partners with undisclosed EDIs were more demanding than those with disclosed EDIs. “Conversely, demand behaviors were higher for nonparticipating partners who knew his or her partner engaged in EDI compared with nonparticipating partners who did not know his or her partner engaged in EDI.” Balderrama-Durbin added, “The present study affirms that even undisclosed aspects of a couple’s relationship can be associated with observable negative conflict communication behaviors. Findings indicate the importance of investigating unique interaction patterns in relationships when an EDI has not yet been revealed or discovered.”

Reference:
Balderrama-Durbin, C. M., Allen, E. S., & Rhoades, G. K. (2011, December 26). Demand and Withdraw Behaviors in Couples With a History of Infidelity. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026756

“Like father, like son.”

“Like mother, like daughter.”

These sentiments are often expressed with great joy and pride. Many parents are delighted and honored when their children seek to emulate them. As children grow older and think about what they want to be when they grow up, some choose to be in the same occupation as the parent.

When children opt for the same work roles as their parents, they may have the advantage of a role model who can show them the ropes, provide connections for school or jobs, and set the stage for what it is like to be in the parent’s job. Often, sharing the same job with a parent can increase the attachment between parent and child and make the relationship closer. Sometimes, though, when parent and child have differing ideas about how the work role should be performed or conceptualized,  conflicts might undermine the relationship. Under these circumstances, it may be difficult for the parent to accept that, while their child is drawn to the parent’s work, they have their own ideas about how that work should be done.

Alan and His Father

Alan came to see me about the conflict he was experiencing working in his father’s business, a chain of sporting goods stores. At the time he sought therapy, he had been working for his father for five months. It was especially important to Alan that I understood that he felt like he was working for, not with, his father. He admitted that he was surprised how much he liked the work. It was a fun environment to work in and he could even envision himself taking over the store someday. But he was concerned that he would never be given enough authority or autonomy to  feel like he could implement his ideas. For now, he didn’t feel he could really make the business into his vision of what he wanted it to be. His father had a completely different way of thinking about the stores.

Growing up, Alan had loved going to work with his father. He would help his father stock the shelves and talk about the latest equipment. They would go over every detail of the most recent sports game they had watched together; they were both intense fans of the same teams and this helped to create a profound bond between them.

But as Alan and I talked, some of the underlying issues connected to his conflict about continuing to work for his father began to emerge. Alan began to realize how difficult it was for him to let his father know that he wanted something that was different from what his father wished for. He recalled that, growing up, he didn’t like to get into arguments with his father, so he either just went along or never voiced his own wishes if he thought they would result in conflict.

He remembered how, on the rare occasions that he had tried to assert his own desires against his father’s ideas, his father had become very cold toward him. In middle school he became interested in hard rock music and wanted to learn to play the guitar. His father derided the music as having no value and refused to buy the instrument or pay for lessons. It wasn’t until Alan stopped expressing his wish to learn to play the music that his father resumed his friendly, jovial relationship with him.

After high school graduation, Alan went to an out-of-state college to study business administration. His parents were very supportive and paid his tuition and board. Overall, Alan described his home life as satisfying. Toward the end of Alan’s college, his father began to ask him about his future plans. Although one of Alan’s professors was encouraging him to apply to a company he had some connections with, Alan’s dad began to push his idea that Alan could put his business skills to good use in the sporting goods business. He invited Alan to come and work for him.

Alan’s first thought was, “How am I going to be able to tell him that I don’t want to do this?” Feeling anxious, Alan told his father he would think about it. But his father kept trying to convince him, and Alan began to waiver. Feeling pressured and worried about his relationship with his father, Alan’s agreed to give the sporting goods business a try for a year and then decide if he wanted to stay on or get into the corporate world.

Alan Learns to Assert His Ideas

I asked Alan when the last time was that he and his father had a disagreement, other than this recent conflict about his work. Alan told me that he couldn’t think of one. After their differences about music, Alan didn’t engage his father when they were in disagreement, so Alan’s father didn’t know that Alan had different points of view. Now, Alan believed his father thought that everything was okay and assumed that Alan would stay on in the business even though the agreement was to see what happened after one year.

When Alan realized that it had been a very long time since he tried to assert his own desires against his father’s wishes, he wondered if it was worth a try to speak with his father and address his concerns about his role in the business. He was anxious about how his father would respond to his need to have more authority and to be a partner, not an employee. He worried that if he brought it up, his father would become cold and rejecting as he had in the past. In spite of his worry, Alan decided to risk his father’s reaction. He hoped that if he could convey how much he shared his father’s love for the store, perhaps their differing ideas about the business would be more acceptable.

All Alan wanted was for his father to be able to listen and take his thoughts seriously. He told me, “I have to remember that I’m not eleven years old anymore. If my father gets cold and rejecting, I don’t have to give up what I want to please him. I know that he still loves me. I have to remind myself that I am not doing anything bad to him by being different.”

Self-Assertion is Not an Attack

Alan’s realization captures what a child needs to come to understand about their self-assertion: it is not bad to assert one’s unique, separate self to a parent. While a parent may feel hurt or disrespected, those are feelings, not facts. The child’s challenge is to tolerate the parent’s feeling by being respectful, understanding, and empathic. The child should recognize, “I understand that my parent feels like my differing ideas are an attack on him, but I know that is not how I feel. They are just my ideas.”

Some parents can find it in themselves to understand that their child’s difference from them is not a statement that there is something wrong with the parent. Rather, the child has developed into a separate person who may disagree with the parent. Hopefully, they can both respect the other person’s thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, there are some parents who find it impossible to consider a child’s individuated, separate self as anything but an attack on their own way of seeing the world. In such cases, there may be nothing a child can do but understand that this is just how the parent feels, and that they can’t take responsibility for the parent’s wounded feelings.

Alan did speak with his father. After much discussion, he was able to help his father understand how he felt when his father treated him like an employee. He began to understand Alan’s wish to work with him, not for him. Alan and his father continue to talk about their work relationship and Alan is much less afraid to speak his mind. He is much happier at work and with himself. It is a work in progress.

Many couples I work with come in with a large amount of stress and difficulty. The causes vary, but the behaviors people use to respond to the upset are often predictable. People who start out loving each other sometimes find themselves so burdened by stress and difficulty that they end up feeling frustrated in the relationship.

Research suggests that up to a third of married individuals report low marital satisfaction, and approximately 20% of all married couples experience marital distress at any given time. These numbers reflect what therapists see daily in their practices.

No one starts out being frustrated. Frustration comes after being unhappy, sometimes for a long time. Often, couples with the best intentions end up not being able to explain themselves to each other, or they won’t say what they really want to say, and as a result they feel tense, stressed and oftentimes frustrated.

The most frequent problem reported by unhappy couples is poor communication. Frustration can appear in many ways. It may come out as a curt answer to a question. Maybe it’s a rolling of the eyes, or a “whatever” response to a partner, or no response at all. Frustration can also be felt when one person ignores the other altogether.

Sometimes frustration is a slammed door, or a sigh. It’s a sign of exasperation from the frustrated person to the other telling them something is very wrong. It also broadcasts unhappiness and discontent. And it’s a problem. It keeps the frustrated person trapped in difficulty and leaves the other partner in the dark regarding the source of the problem.

What would be helpful is to discover how to talk about what doesn’t feel good in the relationship. Unfortunately, this is often difficult for couples who have not communicated with each other for a while. Over time, the breakdown in communication evolves into increased arguing, stonewalling, defensiveness, and contempt. Distressed couples tend to engage in these negative patterns of communication often and are unable to successfully repair the relationship after an argument.

If you find yourself answering your mate with frustrated gestures, you might want to think about what is happening to you. I am pretty sure you used to have very soft, loving responses in the early days. Maybe as time passed you found yourself unable to express your thoughts and feelings to your partner without worrying how he or she might react. It’s possible you may even have started keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself, not wanting to bother your mate. But the more you kept your thoughts and feelings inside without speaking them, the more you might have felt yourself becoming stressed and uncomfortable.

This is the body’s natural response to too much tension. Marital stress can alter endocrine, cardiovascular, and immune function—key pathways from troubled relationships to poor health. This tension is a clear message about what it feels like when you can’t express yourself and you keep your feelings inside. You might have a sensation of all your feelings being trapped inside your own body and you can’t let them out, like you are frozen. You keep yourself suppressed and you suffer. At first you might be able to manage your increased stress. Maybe you exercise more or take up an activity. Maybe you yell at the kids instead or a co-worker. Perhaps you overindulge; too much alcohol, drugs, or food.

The more you figure out how to manage your challenges, the more you might be looking at your partner with disdain. You may start to believe that he or she just doesn’t care about what you think and feel. Individual and couple responses vary greatly; That’s when people start with the one word answers, or the disinterest, or the shaking of the head. These behaviors tell the other person you are not interested in them. These reactions indicate that you are unhappy.

If you are unhappy in your relationship, take stock of how you are feeling right now. Ask yourself, “Am I stressed and unable to talk to my partner about what is bothering me?” If you answer yes, start looking at the ways you do talk to your mate. Are you short and abrasive? Do you dismiss him or her? Do you just not bother because you don’t think anything will change?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you

So how do you change your situation? You just took the first step; you recognized it. From here you might want to talk to someone: a friend, family member, religious mentor, or counselor. Get your long held feelings from inside yourself outside of your head by communicating them. Try to understand what is preventing you from talking to your mate about these feelings. Learn why you stay silent.

There are effective treatments for marital distress. No one begins as a perfect partner and a successful marriage depends on a number of skills, such as the ability to understand one’s own behavior and motives, to understand one’s partner, to argue and problem-solve productively, and to effectively negotiate differences—all of which can be enhanced by working with a marriage and family therapist.

You will likely feel better even after just a few sessions. You could also learn different ways to communicate your feelings that may give you confidence. When you leave your old behaviors – the eye rolling, sarcastic responses, non answers – and replace them with true expressions of your feelings, a number of things might also happen. Your stress and tension may decrease, and it’s possible you might even begin to experience some happiness, and that might feel pretty great.

When to Seek Professional Help

Over 98 percent of clients of marriage and family therapists report therapy services as good or excellent. After receiving treatment, almost 90% of clients report an improvement in their emotional health, and nearly two-thirds report an improvement in their overall physical health. A majority of clients report an improvement in their functioning at work, and over three-fourths of those receiving marital/couples or family therapy report an improvement in the couple relationship.

If you’re experiencing persistent relationship frustration, consider reaching out to a qualified couples therapist or marriage and family therapist. They can help you and your partner develop better communication skills and work through underlying issues contributing to your frustration.

For immediate support, you can:

Contact the Find a therapist directory

Call the SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 for mental health resources

Reach out to your healthcare provider for referrals

References:

1. Regan, P., Walsh, S., Horton, R., Rodriguez, G., & Kaufman, L. (2025). Contextualizing marital dissatisfaction: Examining profiles of discordant spouses across life domains. Frontiers in Psychology, Collection date 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11961942/
2. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. (2021). Marital distress fact sheet. https://www.abct.org/fact-sheets/marital-distress/
3. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (n.d.). Marital distress. https://www.aamft.org/AAMFT/Consumer_Updates/Marital_Distress.aspx
4. Heim, C., & Heim, C. (2025). How long-term couples cope with chronic stressors and adverse life course events in marriage: A qualitative study. The American Journal of Family Therapy, Published online: 18 Feb 2025. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01926187.2025.2459688
5. Shrout, M. R. (2021). The health consequences of stress in couples: A review and new integrated Dyadic Biobehavioral Stress Model. PMC, PMC8474672. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8474672/
6. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (n.d.). About marriage and family therapists. https://www.aamft.org/AAMFT/About_AAMFT/About_Marriage_and_Family_Therapists.aspx

Shyness is a behavior that can cause problems for children and adults. But adolescents, who experience elevated emotional turmoil, are more vulnerable to the symptoms of extreme shyness. “Although they might be easy to overlook, they probably experience much private unhappiness, as adolescent shy behavior is linked to loneliness, having fewer friends, and other internalizing problems such as anxiety, low self-worth, depression, social phobia, and eating disorders among women,” said Neira van Zalk of the Center for Developmental Research at Orebro University in Sweden. Shyness has also been shown to cause stress in social situations, leading to social anxiety that can result in negative thoughts, impaired job performance and general dysfunction. These symptoms can be caused by a number of factors, but recently, researchers have begun to examine how parenting styles influence the development of shyness in children. “As a number of reviews show, different forms of socially fearful behaviors, such as shyness, behavioral inhibition, social anxiety, social withdrawal, and reticence, are associated in young children with two forms of parental psychological control: intrusive control and criticism or rejection,” said van Zalk. Parents who are over-controlling, although their intentions are good, may shield their children from stressful life situations, thus prohibiting their ability to develop coping skills and self-regulation. Another factor linked to childhood shyness is the amount of warmth exhibited by parents. Studies suggest that children who receive praise and warmth experience less anxiety, stress and loneliness than children who receive little parental warmth.

Van Zalk and a team of researchers analyzed data collected from several waves of a larger study conducted on Swedish adolescents. The teens were interviewed for symptoms of anxiety and shyness, and reported how they perceived the parenting they received. “In this study,” said van Zalk, “We found that the more shy adolescents were, the more intrusively controlling, rejecting, and less emotionally warm they perceived their parents to be over time. There was also some evidence that the more youths perceived parents as intrusively controlling, the more their shyness increased over time.” Van Zalk added that the teens with the most severe shyness received the least parental warmth. “Why would shyness elicit these behaviors from parents? One possible explanation is that parents mistakenly see the adolescent’s social isolation as intentional and that they tend to do this more as youths age,” said van Zalk. “Their lack of warmth and rejection might reflect frustration or concern that is not expressed properly. Another possibility is that some correlate of shyness helps to explain parents’ critical, rejecting reactions.” Van Zalk added, “Maybe parents whose children show shy behavior can help by being aware of their children’s oversensitivity and their own responses to their children.”

Reference:
Van Zalk, Nejra, and Margaret Kerr. “Shy Adolescents’ Perceptions of Parents’ Psychological Control and Emotional Warmth: Examining Bidirectional Links.” Merill-Palmer Quarterly 57.4 (2011): 375-401. Print.