Author, Psychologist
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Step-parenting is tricky, not least because it means blending two cultures, cultures which can have as many hidden, nuanced differences and preferences, as obvious ones. They may have different communication styles, different ideas about humour, making rules, how to run the home, and different expectations about parent-child interactions and sibling relationships.To make things trickier, the subtleties and …
When couples look for marriage help they’ve often been going around in circles of frustration and resentment for so long that part of my job is to remind them how to speak nicely to one another. It’s odd really because the same people can usually communicate perfectly nicely with all the other people in the life. …
There’s nothing more desirable, universally attractive and yearned for than to love and be loved. Love is the fundamental core of our needs and desires, after all other dreams are quenched or drop away. Love is a very particular gift of heart-presence and focus – it’s not a thing but an action of body, mind and …
Therapist Aaron Beck was the grandfather of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – a system of therapy which in a nutshell, teaches people to recognise the patterns of thinking that aren’t serving them well and to question unhelpful thoughts and feelings rather than just going with them willy-nilly and spiralling into down moods. Many therapists, like myself, combine ideas …
Jealousy pangs occur for almost every couple at some time. However, if jealousy becomes part of an ongoing cycle of anger, suspicion, distress and insecurity in a couple, it needs dealing with on a deeper level before it erodes core trust in each other and dampens closeness and desire in the relationship. It’s important to …
Keeping sex creative makes sense because eroticism thrives on novelty, many varied and new experiences. By creative – I don’t necessarily mean acrobatics in the bedroom – simply variations on sex aside from intercourse. Sex is creative – even when it’s not about creating new people – it’s almost a place we go to that exists as much inside our imagination as in …
Surviving infidelity is a heartbreaking, brain-searing, crazy-making time for couples to navigate. I often meet couples for the first time in their scorched earth, post-affair period because they need my help as a therapist then like never before. Recovering from any betrayal of trust is slow and painstaking and the more intimate the betrayal, the more raw the pain, shame, rage …
Marriage Therapy research has found that pulling away or treating each other harshly when you’re under pressure are the greatest predictors of divorce. Here’s a peek at what I call the S.O.U.L strategy for handling challenges and disagreements with soul-to-soul respect and closeness, rather than reactivity. Years as a couple therapist has confirmed for me …
Is your relationship more difficult than enjoyable? Maybe you need some relationship help to figure out what to do to make it better, especially if you keep going round in circles together, rehashing the same issues. Sometimes we can’t make sense of our relationships, or even our own insides. We’re just too close to the …
“Will it last?” It’s the question that can’t help crossing most people’s minds when a couple announces an engagement. There are a few good indicators of which relationships are going to see the distance and which are likely to be doomed. Years of helping couples as a therapist means I’ve seen the good, the bad and the …