Apparently I'm all about relationships at the moment...! I've spotted another interesting article which highlights how to argue better with you significant other. Apparently, couples who use anaylitical language when they argue fair better, so that means using words like "think", "understand", "because" or "reason". Well to be precise the article says that men fair better, women don't. The article is based on research that links language use and stress responses, a fascinating area of research that I'd like to take the time to learn more about, the language we use to talk about, well everything, always piques my interest.

You can read the article here.

If you're interested in learning better conflict resolution skills, I can recommend starting with Michael Rosenberg and the non-violent communication techniques he's developed. The principle is SO simple, it's easy to pick up (although, obviously its the practicing it that takes work!).

I got through the first "week" of In Treatment last night...great show, it gives as real an insight in what being in therapy is like as I've seen on the big or small screen ever. I must say, I don't currently work with couples and the session where the therapist is working with a couple who can't decide whether or not to keep their baby put me off ever wanting to! Claustrophobic is a word that sprang to mind when I cringed my way through that episode.

And speaking of couples counselling, I spotted this in the weekend papers...The whole IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) programme jars somewhat with me. A one-size fits all approach ie: CBT for everyone doesn't sit well with me and I'm also astonished at the amount of money going into this in terms of training when there are loads of underused therapists out there with sufficient and necessary training already...why not just recruit them???

Lots of people start counselling thinking they're going to be advised on what to do, what not to do, what do more of...less of etc.

Therapists and counsellors can help in lots of ways but the one thing we always stop short of is giving advice to clients. Why...? Well, let's think about a scenario familiar to most of us. You're chatting to a friend about a pressing issue, you really want to get it all off your chest, you've just got going, you're just beginning to open up and your friend cuts in and starts saying "EXACTLY the same thing happened to me! What you need to do is this..." Therapists don't do this, doing this makes you, the client/person who wants and needs to talk, feel unheard, diminished and silenced.

Therapists are usually operating on the assumption that they DON'T know what it's like to be you. Even if we've known you for a while, we're always checking our assumptions at the door and we're ready, willing and eager to learn something new about our clients. So if therapists are operating on the assumption that we don't know what it's like to be you (but we're always trying to find out!), how could we be so arrogant as to assume we know what advise would work for you? Therapy is also a place to feel heard, as with the friend example above, is therapists were to dish out advise and send you packing, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't feel listened to. You might feel like a project being worked, but you wouldn't feel heard.

So, if you want my advise...don't go into therapy expecting advise.

Back from a holiday, that is and will be posting up more soon. Lots happened while I was away, most shocking for me to learn about on my return was the shooting on an army base in Texas by a military shrink. I'm still trying to get up to speed on the story.