Building legitimate self-esteem takes time and effort and this sign is basically a lie. It’s what I call “blowing sunshine”. You’re not important, special, amazing, or extraordinary merely by walking into a room. No more than you are a professional athlete merely by walking into a gym. The good news is that you CAN be […]
Category: Relationships
The basics Effective communication in marriage is one of the most important things to figure out, and one of the hardest to do consistently. When couples have trouble communicating during conflict, this can be one of the most frustrating of events. In marriage counseling, one of the tasks the marriage counselor takes on is helping […]
I see a lot of couples for marriage counseling, and one of the top requests is to get help with communication. Apologizing is a necessary part of effective communication. What often happens is that communication breaks down even before a conversation starts. This can happen because your spouse has an idea of how you’re going […]
One thing that often comes up in marriage counseling is the idea of having a successful argument where you give your spouse constructive criticism. When living together, problems will arise but how do you talk about it without your partner shutting down? In my experience providing marriage counseling to various couples, the shutting down often […]
While counseling a young man with a tendency toward self-doubt, we discussed how we tend to view events that occur to us through certain filters, which in turn affects our self-esteem. If you have low self confidence, you tend to dismiss genuine compliments from others as “just trying to be nice”or trying to make us […]
Below is an article written by a married woman who caught herself criticizing her husband over trivial things rather than focusing on his positive qualities. It was ruining her relationship. She realized her attitude toward him was causing him to feel unloved, unvalued, and basically treated like a child. In her case, her husband had […]
How Solution Focused Counseling Works: When couples come to counseling to resolve marital issues, they often hope the therapist will be able to help the other person realize how wrong they have been and admit to it, then do things differently from now on. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way. I’ve rarely observed someone who can […]