Relationships
Relationship and Communication Issues
Relationships are an important part of most people’s lives. Connections that matter can include work associates, acquaintances, close friends, FWB, lovers, spouses, and polyamorous partners. In your life, if any of these is undergoing a challenge, you may want to seek therapy together.
Creating successful relationships is often a matter of learning about yourself, and learning appropriate skills. When each person in a relationship knows their tendencies, personality traits, needs and desires, it can help honestly assess what factors are contributing to relationship challenges. Clear communication can be a enormous asset in creating relationships, yet it is
something that very few people recall having explicitly learned. Gender and culture differences can play huge roles in influencing communication patterns as well.
Working with relationships is a core piece of how MFTs work.
Individual therapy can help you to focus on your part of relationships:
- Examine why the relationships you form may not be as satisfying as you would like.
- Explore why you are not finding relationships that you want.
- Resolve difficulties with emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy.
- Identify & change behaviors that undermine the success of your relationships.
- Find solutions and fulfillment in all your relationships.
Therapy with one or more friends or partners can help you all:
- Celebrate what is working well in the relationship, and speak candidly about what could be more satisfying.
- Develop skills in “fair fighting” also known as effective conflict resolution.
- Evaluate or negotiate the terms of your relationship, whether it is monogamous, open, polyamorous, or a good friendship.
- Talk about sex: how to enhance what’s working & what your options are for what is not feeling satisfying.
- Plan for the future in a way that your relationship can expand to support the growth and changes you’re hoping for.
Therapy can be helpful in creating happier and more meaningful relationships. If you want to explore the possibility of working together, please call me for a free telephone interview to get a sense of what it might feel like to work together. If, during that conversation or a subsequent appointment, it becomes clear that we would not be the most effective match, or if your needs fall outside of my scope of practice, I will be happy to provide you with appropriate referrals to other qualified practitioners.
Links related to Relationships and Communication:
- An article describing skills and tips for good communication.
- A website with articles & resources related to polyamory.
- A website hosted by a non-profit on ways to build healthy relationships.
- An article describing basic conflict styles & some tips.
- This article from the UT website presents some guidelines for effective conflict resolution.
- A free online test site that will give you a basic idea of your personality type. This uses the Myers-Briggs personality types, based on the work of Carl Jung.
- View additional links on this topic here.