The Marriage Counseling Blog

Knowing what type of therapy you need is an important factor in your eventual healthy outcome. Your expectations for therapy will include your preconceived notions of what therapy is as well as your desire for change and understanding in your life. Your therapist is also entering into this counseling relationship with you on the basis of your needs and desires.

If you entered into individual therapy because you were depressed and anxious, but you are really only interested in how that is affecting your marriage then your expectation is to fix your marriage with your issues seen only as an aside. In order to properly address your desires, marriage therapy would have been a good alternative for that side of the discussion, while individual therapy would have been appropriate for the depression and anxiety.

Marriage And Family Therapy for Relationships

Marriage and Family therapists are well trained in the complexities of relationships and how those dynamic interactions consistently alter the environment of the relationship. Not all individual therapists are trained in marriage and family therapy practicing, so care should be taken when you are researching a therapist and that you are engaging a therapist who is experienced in helping those who share your particular issues.

If you are depressed, anxious, or having trouble with your life on a personal level then an individual therapist is an excellent choice for you. If you are having troubles with your marriage or relationships then choosing a highly skilled marriage and family therapist is a great choice.

Getting the most value for your time, energy and money is the calling card of the frugal lifestyle that Americans are adopting as the free spending days of the past have caught up to us. Getting the best value means taking advantage of everything offered to us, and this includes marriage counseling.

Marriage counseling requires a real commitment to understanding the driving issues in your relationship and the changes that you can make to that relationship in the future.

Some couples enter into marriage counseling with a “quick fix” mindset, wanting a repair to their marital problems in one or two sessions without any extra time or work being put into it, but in order to produce lasting change, you have to commit.

Lance said:

Carl and I are busy. We have demanding careers and lifestyles, so we had hoped that counseling would be pretty quick and get us back on track with the minimum of fuss. Really, I had hoped we could get our problems fixed in a session or two. When I think about what a rush we were in back then, its hard not to laugh. I know now that it took years for us to develop these problems and it would take a lot of sessions in order to correct those habits. We have a greater understanding, now, that a marriage is a lifelong commitment and you can never stop trying.

It’s important to realize that marriage counseling is not a quick fix or something that will happen overnight.

Finding the special someone that you can share everything with is one of the major driving forces behind the desire to form relationships. For a lucky few, meeting their best friend evolves into marring their best friend. This does come with its own potential issues, however.

Best friends and spouses, while sometimes the same person, share something very important, a common trait that follows every relationship. Eventually, people change, forcing relationships to evolve to keep pace with that change. We must grow as individuals and as couples in order to keep pace.

Couples therapy is one of the many resources that help couples who have grown from being each others best friends into being angry strangers living together.
Val and Harrison were married for 4 years when they began couples therapy. They had met as teenagers and been the main source of support, guidance and comfort for each other for years. As they grew as a couple, however, they found themselves growing apart and growing resentful when the support and love they needed was no longer available.
Val said:

I always knew Harrison was introverted. I did most of the talking for years! But as time went on, that quiet-ness just made me lonely instead of outgoing. If I didn’t have our kids to talk to, I think I would just about lose my mind. I don’t even know if Harrison has an opinion… he doesn’t say!

Val and Harrison needed couples counseling to help them navigate the path from best friend to real partner. They each worked with the counselor to learn how to communicate better and to once again respond as supportive partners.

Your marriage counselor will help you and your partner find ways to make your relationship last by practicing healthy, simple techniques every day. Most marriages that are seen in marriage counselor’s offices are there because of years of relationship neglect and the formation of poor communication and relating habits.

Changing these marriages requires making real changes in the daily habits of both people involved. New habits have to be formed, and these take time, too. Just as the old habits took years to create, time is an essential factor in creating healthy habits.

The best way to start your new, healthier relationship habits is to start them, literally, at the beginning of every day. This means making a concerted effort in the morning to practice the steps that you have learned in couples counseling and take an active role in your relationship even in those first minutes of the day. . Say a kind word, act and react positively to make the environment a better place to support your new start.

Laugh when you can. Laughter is one of the best ways to diffuse the tension during a heated moment and most couples find that if they can take a moment to see and feel the humor in the situation, they can avoid escalation of conflict. Laughter can provide, opening the doors for a calmer discussion.

Take the time to use the skills and techniques provided by your marriage counselor and make over your relationship, every day!

One of the most frustrating times in a troubled marriage can occur if one partner refuses to attend marriage counseling sessions. A marriage is essentially the partnership of two individuals, but when the marriage begins to sour, both must put aside selfishness and try to repair the damage done and rebuild.

What happens if only one person is willing to work towards rebuilding the relationship?

Dr. Marty Tashman is a marriage counselor who has seen this happen many times with couples. He understands that a marriage can be put on the track towards healing, even if the only person makes the move to attend counseling and seek help. In fact, he even has tips for persons who are attending marriage counseling solo:

Here is what I can teach you even if your partner doesn’t come in for counseling:
1. How to better understand your partner even if they don’t speak to you.
2. How to effectively influence your partner when you do talk with them.
3. Learn how to deal with your partner when they won’t listen to you.
4. Get support for a difficult situation.
5. How to help your children in a household that has conflict.
6. Learn how to handle difficult situations like: your partner’s anger, addiction, or In-law problems.

Many times, the difference between a couple separating and a couple staying together to stick it out is a simple act of initial change. Often, when one partner sees the other trying to change and better the relationship, they do join.

Individual therapy helps people find the support and guidance that they need to make the kind of changes in their lives that they feel are important to their lasting happiness. While most people talk about couples counseling and marriage counseling, Individual Therapy is seldom as openly talked about. The truth is that many individuals are seeking out therapy in order to help with relationship issues.

Sharon had been in 11 relationships in the past 3 years. Every relationship had been passionate and dynamic but none had lasted or provided a sense of stability. This is what Sharon initially had to say in Individual Therapy:

I’m a lesbian, and I really thought that it would be easier for me to find a long term relationship than it would be for a straight girl! I figured that most men don’t want to settle down, but most women do. Since I’m dating only women, my chances of finding a long term relationship would be increased, right? Wrong! My dating life has been a long series of drama, cheating, flirting and running from commitment. Most of my lesbian friends hop from one partner to the next, never really settling down. I want a long term commitment, but other lesbians seem to just want to party!

The therapist took time to really listen to Sharon and understand her wants and needs. She explained that no one sex, male or female, had the jump on another when it came to desiring commitment, and that perhaps it was the type of people she was with rather than their sexual preference that was making commitment difficult. When Sharon began to see her own lifestyle needs as those that did not match her everyday friendships, she gradually formed friendships with other people who supported a steadier lifestyle and eventually found, and married, the girl of her dreams.

Individual therapy was able to help Sharon see the issues that she faced and find the healthier ways to develop long term relationships.

When you are a parent who suspects your child is using drugs or alcohol, every moment, every look and every behavioral tic can be interpreted as signs of drug abuse. A parent who strikes out on their own to try and track down the potential abuse sources and behaviors can be in for a frustration and often disappointing response. They may be wrong about the drug abuse and uncover only the seeds of distrust, or they may be right about the drug use but inadvertently push their teenager farther away.

The more educated the parents make themselves about drug and alcohol abuse, the easier it will be to notice the early signs and get help for the family in the way of therapy and counseling.

Signs of Teenage Drug or Alcohol Abuse

• Changes in sleep patterns, either sleeping too much or not enough
• Physical effects: Slurred speech, talking excessively and rapidly. Red, glassy or watery eyes. Dilated pupils.
• Large motor skills such as impaired walking, clumsiness, dropping things, shaking hands
• Change in eating habits with a significant increase or decrease in appetite, especially with an unexplained weight loss or gain.
• Skin injuries are a major cause for concern and should be noticed immediately. Unusual skin abrasions or bruises; needle marks and, very important, rashes around nose and mouth.
• Mental changes that include nervousness, anxiety, restlessness and anger. Impaired thinking that can include paranoia with irrational or bizarre thoughts.

Different substances and their abuses have different symptoms, but a common signs of illness and abuse should not be ruled out, especially when physical signs are accompanied by mental/emotional signs.

Contact a family therapist to help understand the behaviors and feelings that have led up to this and help begin the healing process that will head away from substance abuse and onto a better life.

Family counseling is often used as a resource to help families deal with and recover from the effects of teen drug and alcohol addictions. When teens are using drugs or alcohol, they begin to develop habits and traits that are purely detrimental to a healthy and successful life.

There are a variety of factors that contribute to teen alcohol and drug abuse:

• Natural Teen Rebellion
  It is completely natural for a teen to begin to pull away from his or her parents and take their own risks and actions. A solid sense of responsibility and a healthy dose of circumspect supervision can help teens make the right choices and rebel in ways that will not have long term consequences. Parents can help their children steer towards risks and independence that will engage but not endanger.
• Inclusion:
  While it is natural for a teen to pull away from his or her parents, it is just as natural for them to begin to see their friends as their source of support. Inclusion into their group of friends is an important part of growing up. When inclusion in the group means joining in on drug and alcohol abuse, however, being one of the crowd is just plain dangerous. Parents can help by making sure their child is engaged with and among peers who have healthy goals and behaviors. A peer group can be a source of support and guidance.

Helping your family understand and deal with the conflicting behaviors of a teen under the influence of drugs and alcohol is one of the benefits of family counseling. If you believe that your family needs help, don’t hesitate to act on that.

The big day is coming up, with all of the pressure, stress, trappings, dressings, heady expectations and horrific trepidation that you may expect and the truth is that we have created this monster ourselves. Valentines Day is the commercialization of love and marriage as only the show-and-tell culture can do it. Big, loud and all about the show, it puts a lot of pressure on couples of all sorts.

V-Day Pressure on Relationships

Every relationship has issues on Valentine’s day, from the slightly uncomfortable to the outright angry.

For a very new relationship, Valentine’s Day makes them put it all out there, even if they aren’t ready. Not sure if you’re really even dating your new partner? The expectation is that, if you are, you’ll have a date that night. If you don’t make a date for that night, you’re not dating now, and probably won’t be in the future.

For the experienced couples, Valentines Day can be very different, depending on the health of the relationship. If things are going well and generally healthy and happy, Valentine’s may be an excuse for date night, though a commercialized one. If the relationship is not going well and is, in fact, very unhealthy at the time, Valentine’s day can be one more added time of stress and resentment added to the mix. It can be a bitter reminder of better days or a sad glimpse of an unhappy future.

If you and your spouse are going through a difficult time in your marriage and the thought of Valentines Day is an unhappy one, skip the chocolates this year and make an appointment for Marriage Counseling. It may be the best gift you can give yourselves as a couple.

Marriage counseling is fast way to bring a stop to constant bickering, even when it has plagued a relationship for years. In a long term relationship, constant fighting is actually a mode of communication that has become a habit, repeated over and over again until it is a ‘muscle memory‘ for your partnership. Thankfully, marriage counseling is very effective solution to halting this difficult pattern.

Dino and Liza were one of the many couples who had a marriage of constant fighting.

Dino shared:
We fought every minute of every day. We were fighting on our way downstairs to get coffee in the morning. Some mornings, our very first words were just continuing the fight we had before we fell asleep the night before. I remember, one morning, we starting fighting when our heads were still on the pillow and it was so funny, we stopped and laughed about it. I stopped caring about what we fought over. It was just a game to see who could win more arguments. We kept score at one point.

Liza shared:

I stopped thinking of any other way to related to Dino. We fought. That was our thing. It wasn’t hurtful, but over the years it just got tiring. To be honest, I made the appointment for marriage counseling when it felt like we were running out of things to fight about. I mean, we didn’t talk any other way, if we didn’t fight either, we had nothing. That’s when I realized that we were going to fall apart completely without help.

Dino and Liza found that marriage counseling helped them find a way to break the patterns of their chronic arguing and breathe new life into their marriage.

Intimacy is one of the sought after and fought over aspects of a realtionship and a couple may need counseling to help them better understand and increase intimacy in their relationship. Because it means different things to different people, intimacy can seem like an elusive thing.

Intimacy is that certain bond or closeness that you share with only your partner and it is formed and strengthened in many ways. The stronger that bond, the more “lasting power” a relationship has but like all aspects of a long term relationship there is going to be an “ebb and flow” element to it, also. Recognizing that intimacy can be gained and lost and gained again is an important aspect to understanding the ever-changing dynamics of a relationship.

If you and your partner are having a difficult time with intimacy in your relationship or are feeling disconnected from your partner, a couples counselor can help. A couples counselor can help you try different ways to better understand and strengthen your intimacy bonds.

Couples Counseling help with Intimacy

Here are some exercises you can try with your partner, if you’re feeling the need to reconnect:

1. You and your partner should take it in turns, on alternate days, to be the one who asks or does not ask for physical intimacy.
2. Do not simply ask your partner to “be more affectionate.” Request intimate acts but be specific, realistic and achievable. Choose instead things like “Kiss me goodbye” or “Hold my hand on the way to the store.”
3. Remember that a part of intimacy is trust and respect. You and your partner have the right to say “no” to any request.

A marriage in conflict can be the most stressful situation for the couple, their children, loved ones and family members. Conflict, arguments, fighting, no matter what words you use to describe it, the situation is positively screaming for help.

There are different types of conflict, and long term conflict is vastly different from casual arguments and fights that erupt, are dealt with and dissipate. Long term conflicts tend to be habitual and are as much a result of the desire for a partner to be right as they are for to initiator to be right.

Marital Conflicts and Strategies

Conflict resolution doesn’t always mean the healthy steps taken to avoid or deal positively with conflicts. Conflict resolution is the ways in which a couple settle conflict; that does not mean a healthy resolution, but a successful settlement, in that person’s mind.

Unhealthy settlement of conflicts can include:

Viewing concessions as a loss rather than as a strategy to gain. Any personal concession to the argument is firmly in the loss column. Any gain is in the other’s loss column.

When a person considers any concession in an argument as a personal loss then healthy conflict resolution is already damaged. Such a strategy increases the likelihood of winning a conflict if the partner resolves to accepting loss, but settlement is not resolution.

If you and your partner are experiencing severe, long term conflict, couples counseling can help you find the root causes of this conflict and help you find real conflict resolution strategies.

Couples counseling can create the kind of understanding and compassion that can be life-changing in a relationship. For a couple who is under stress and in need of real help, counseling teaches communication skills and conflict resolution solutions that helps couples reevaluate where they are, how they got there, and what direction they want to go in.

What does a Couples Counselor Do

• A couples counselor will evaluate the couple’s individual stories and how those stories then joined together as a larger picture. As this relationship story is narrated, the counselor will listen and try to get a good understanding of both of you as people and as a couple.
• The counselor will most likely interrupt your narrative during areas that he or she feel need to be fleshed out in order to gain a better understanding.
• The counselor will facilitate a de-escalation of unhelpful conflicts in your relationship and initiate changes that will help you develop realistic, practical solutions.
• It is common for a counselor to encourage both of you to actively participate in the session, challenge your own beliefs and preconceptions about your partner and try to reorient your relationship with each other.

Couples counseling can be challenging because you must deal with your inner emotions and fears and work hard to build a better relationship with your partner. You should know that your couples counselor is there to guide you every step of the way and that your relationship will be able to begin again on a deeper, more committed level.

Many people discuss the issue of maturity when they talk about younger couples and if they are ready for marriage. Usually, when this old adage is being brought up it means that someone doesn’t think one or more of the couple is mature enough to handle the stress and responsibility in marriage.

Age for Marriage in History

When it comes to maturity, the Greeks had a very one-sided view in their history. In ancient history, it was common for Greek men to marry only when they had finished with military service, which happened generally at the age of 30. Greek men often chose young teenage women for wives to ensure that their new bride would be a virgin. This means that the common age of the husband was 30 and the wife about 14! When historians discuss the ways in which Greek women were left with much responsibility and little control in their lives it isn’t any wonder. They were children themselves, controlled by an adult husband with all of the power that their society bestowed.

Age and Maturity

When marriage is about maturity, it is also about the maturity of both individuals. One very mature spouse cannot make up for one very immature spouse. The relationship eventually becomes one-sided and miscommunications and resentment are common problems.

A young age does not always mean less responsible behavior, however. Many young couples are hardworking and responsible with the emotional maturity needed to make their commitment long term.

If you or someone you love is being told that they are too young or too immature to marry, advise them instead to seek out pre-marital counseling to better be able to determine that themselves.

It is surprisingly common for couples to enter into marriage counseling because of differences in the perceived correct way to raise children. The process of raising a child can cause major areas of conflict in a relationship, especially if each parent has different ideas on what it means to discipline a child.

At its most basic, the purpose of discipline is to raise responsible, confident children who grow up to be persons who think for themselves, care about others and go on to live satisfying and useful lives.

With the future of their own children at stake, it is no wonder that so many parents are fighting tooth and nail to do what they think is right. What is surprising is how many find that they have conflicting views on parenting with their own spouse.

Many counselors are now beginning to advocate Pre-Birth counseling for couples.

Much like Pre-Marital counseling, Pre-Birth counseling helps set some groundwork for the upcoming changes that a baby will make in the couple’s lives. The time to prepare is prior to the birth. They lay down the groundwork, including how they’ll handle child rearing duties, how they were raised, their moral issues (religion, etc) and how they plan on sharing these with a new child.

These are just a few of the topics that can be addressed, beforehand, with Pre-Birth Counseling sessions. These sessions should also have some follow ups scheduled for after the delivery to see how the process is evolving and how the couple are handling new issues.

Depression is a serious illness that cannot be disregarded or shoved into a corner in the hopes that it will go away on its own. Depression is a treatable illness with real causes, real symptoms and, unfortunately, very real victims.

First and foremost, depression affects the primary sufferer. There are many possible causes of depression, including depression itself being a symptom of another major medical illness. When that can ruled out, other possible markers include:

• Family history: It cannot be understated that a genetic predilection for depression can play a major role. Depression often runs in families for generations, carried by both men and women.
• Trauma and stress: Financial problems, death, career difficulties or any major life change can trigger a depression episode.
• Psychological disorders: Anxiety disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, and addictive behaviors often appear along with depression.

Depressed Doesn’t Mean Alone

If you have been suffering from depression or believe that you are, working in concert with your medical doctor and a therapist can help you overcome this illness. When you suffer from depression, chances are that people around you who love you are suffering also. Depression leads to a number of problems in a partnership, not the least of which is the increasing sense of isolation. Often depression leads to a particular kind of withdrawal from one another. This leaves one partner feeling hurt and wondering if they somehow caused this behavior.

If you or your partner is suffering from depression, entering into therapy can offer the guidance that is needed to find the balance to include a healthy, happy relationship.

The family bond is one that develops, grows and strengthens over time. As children grow older and families often grow more complex, these bonds can be stressed and tested beyond the ability of the family’s coping skills. Family therapy is one solution that families turn to when the need help in healing, communicating and bonding again.

Because there are so many different ways in which families stay together, and many of those ways are digital these days, the ability for everyone to get together for a therapy session can be challenging. Online family therapy is an option that few know about!

When Online Family Option is a Solution

• Younger children and older children, with many years’ gap in between, are more and more common. When family therapy is called for, you don’t want one child missing out just because he or she is off to college! You can still get everyone together in an atmosphere of safety and understanding with online therapy solutions.
• Parents are busier than ever with demanding jobs and tight budgets. Many families have a parent who is overseas or traveling on business. This type of schedule, too, can conflict with therapy sessions, making online therapy the best solution.

In this kind of counseling, the entire family comes for sessions together, talking about the problems in the home even when not everyone is home together at the same time. All family members are encouraged to give their point of view, regardless of where that point is coming from.

Bring your family together, even if they are apart, with online family therapy.

Madison and Jeffrey had been dating only a short time before they married. Their courtship was marked by the incredible amount of time that they spent together as a couple. They really never spent a moment apart once they had found each other.

When many couples enter into the romance stage of a relationship, it is common to spend almost too much time together. Couples in this stage really don’t see the negative side of their partner. During this stage, the entire relationship is so very exciting. An overwhelming feeling of happiness is the most common denominator as well as an intense physical desire for each other. The newness and excitement, stimulated by the production of bodily chemicals, actually increase energy and positive emotions as well as a sense of heightened sexuality and sensuality. It is common for couples in this stage to commit to each other permanently because they feel only the best for each other rather than the reality of what the relationship, and the partner, really are.

When Madison and Jeffrey committed to marriage, they were still in the deep pools of the Romance stage. Enraptured with each other, they had not yet begun to see or accept those personality traits that were less than endearing.

When Madison and Jeffrey entered into pre-marital counseling, it was at the urging of the Mother of the Bride, who had been married long enough to see that this young couple needed to have a reality check before affirming their permanency.

Pre-marital counseling is a gift, and sometimes it is given by someone with experience.

Women often leave their husbands because their emotional investments in the marriage have not been returned. Very often, marriage counselors working with individual women hear relatively common versions of the same type of marital story.

• My husband barely knows me anymore. We’re hardly even friends.
• I feel alone, all the time. Hurt and abandoned.
• My husband only really sees me when he wants sex. When he touches me, its because he wants sex. There can’t be a hug or a kiss unless it ends in intercourse!
• He doesn’t say he is sorry, even if he was obviously wrong.
• It doesn’t even feel like I matter to him. He doesn’t see me.
• My husband only cares that I take care of him and the kids. To him, I’m not a friend, I’m not a woman, I’m a babysitter and a bed partner.

When a woman with children seeks divorce, there is still a social and quite personal stigma attached to it. It often seems as if women should stay, however unhappily, as long as they are needed. A prevailing idea is seen as, What could possibly be so wrong that she chose to disrupt her family just to get out?

The truth is that women leave marriages for many of the same reasons that men do. They are unhappy, unfulfilled and seeking a difference in their lives. The reasons are seldom different, although the social stigma is often very much so.

Many times, the reason that keeps a couple together is not the views of society or the social stigma, but the ability of a couple to sit down, enter marriage counseling and accept the hard work that is ahead of them.

Making a marriage takes hard work and the courage to ask for a marriage counselor. Man or woman, the stakes of a long term relationship are the same.

Every year there are thousands of marriages that are brought to a grinding halt due to the effects that depression and anxiety take on the partnership. More than a general unhappiness with the marriage or unsatisfactory lifestyle or environment, depression is not something that can be helped by a simple change. Real depression can cause people to say and do things that can be hurtful to a partner and a relationship.

Rich said:

Selena and I were generally happy for the first 10 or so years that we were married. Then, after our third son was born, she began to act differently. She was tired all the time, and just so unhappy with me and even the kids, no matter what we did to try and help. I wanted to help her, to help make things easier on her, but it only got worse over the next few years. It wasn’t until after Selena and I began to see a marriage counselor that we found out there might be a physical cause. Our counselor suggested that Selena have some blood work done at her regular Doctor’s. The results came back with some odd results. Selena’s thyroid levels were abnormal because of an autoimmune disease. After a few months of medications, all of a sudden I began to see glimpses of her as she used to be. Funny, happy, loving, all the things that had been missing

Medical conditions can have a major effect on moods and emotional conditions. Thyroid conditions, in particular, have a nefarious history of causing major depressive episodes in patients.

If you or someone you love has been showing signs of depression, make sure their doctor looks into different causes of depression. For many couples like Rich and Selena, a marriage counselor notices the signs and suggests medical attention.

Don and Heather had been married for close to 25 years and had gone through many of the stages that are common to long term relationships.

The Romance, where both Don and Heather saw nothing but the best in each other, could not imagine being apart from one another and felt at peace only in each other‘s arms.

The Reality Stage, where they moved past the initial rush of excitement and desire that characterized their relationship previously and entered into a more predictable routine. This is also where Don and Heather started to see more of the negative side of each other. Previously endearing traits became more annoying than anything else.

The Childrearing stage, where the focus of their relationship had always been on each other, there was a new dynamic with children that created its own focal point. With the focus on the kids, Heather and Don could take the focus off of their own growing distance.

Once the children were grown, the focus once again was on their own relationship, and that is where both Heather and Don realized their relationship was stalled out and needed some help.

Heather said:

I’ve wanted to go to marriage counseling for years, but something else always came up and we put it aside to deal with one crisis after another. Once the kids were out of the house, we knew it just couldn’t be put off any longer. We were unhappy, but we knew we didn’t have to be. We knew it was our time to get marriage counseling.

Heather and Don went into marriage counseling and came out entering a new stage of their relationship, happier, healthier and better.

Throughout the ages, excessive sleep has often been a signal of depression, even when it was not officially recognized as such. Excessive sleepiness, also called Hypersomnia, is an excessively deep or prolonged major sleep period and it is often related to major depression.

Hypersomnia is often associated with difficulty in awakening and is believed to have a connection to the central nervous system.

Signs of Hypersomnia

• Long periods of sleep, often 11 hours and over
• Excessive sleep episodes of non-REM sleep
• Gradual onset, increasing in severity and occurrence
• Onset typically appears before age 25
• Typically present in periods of at least six months
• Frequent need for daytime naps, even with excessive nighttime sleep
• No cataplexy or sleep paralysis

With Hypersomnia, many patients develop symptoms of irritability, which include impulsive behavior, depersonalization, hallucinations, depression, and confusion.

Many believe that excessive sleep is directly related to a major depressive episode because the victim feels the need to tune the waking world out and escape into peaceful dreams of a better life, however, this is not the case for those who suffer from major depression with Hypersomnia.

Behavioral therapy for major depression is a serious treatment for this condition and, along with good sleep hygiene, avoidance of shiftwork, alcohol and caffeine, help can be found.

Depression is an illness that can be treated and seeing a qualified therapist can be your gateway to a new life. If you have been suffering from depression or believe that you are, working in concert with your medical doctor and a therapist can help you overcome this illness.

Accepting that you and your spouse need for marriage counseling is not admitting that your relationship has failed. It is admitting that you are both mature enough to ask for help when you need it most.

Before attending marriage counseling, Sue had said:

If you really love each other ,you don’t need a counselor to help you. You have to talk it out and always, always communicate your feelings and thoughts. If you are open with each other then you won’t need to be open with a stranger counseling you. As adults, you shouldn’t need to go running to someone else to solve your problems.

After a few years experiencing an unhappy marriage with stalled communication lines and doubts of fidelity, Sue finally accepted the fact that her views on marriage counseling were perhaps the only thing stopping them from going to counseling and healing their marriage.

A trained, professional marriage counselor can provide the supportive environment that a couple needs to openly discuss issues without severe conflict. A counselor can help examine the issues at hand and facilitate real and open talks, allowing a couple to get past the argument and onto some potential solutions.

A counselor can help couples by providing advice and options that they may have not considered before. The counselor can encourage a couple to better understand each other without animosity and also find a better understanding for the origin of that anger and resistance.

Choosing to go to marriage counseling is choosing to accept the possibility that your relationship needs help, and also accepting the possibility that it can be helped.

Marriage and Family therapists much consistently manage the complex relationships and unique dynamics involved in people’s lives. More than couples, marriage and family therapists must be able to treat groups and the different ways in which groups bond and interact, consistently playing off of one another and reacting from one to act on another.

In addition, marriage and family therapists must be able to understand and counsel for a full range of disorders, addictions and health issues. These issues can range from adolescent drug abuse, eating disorders and depression to obesity and dementia and alcoholism. Conflicts and mental health disorders affect individuals and then spread out to affect those that care for that individual and who are a part of their everyday lives.

How Marriage and Family Therapists Make a Difference

According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists,

Clients report marked improvement in work productivity, co-worker relationships, family relationships, partner relationships, emotional health, overall health, social life, and community involvement. There was 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. When a child is the identified patient, parents report that their child’s behavior improved in 73.7% of the cases, their ability to get along with other children significantly improved and there was improved performance in school.

If the family or close friends that form your personal family structure are undergoing difficult times, there can be help close by. Locate a trained and professional Family and Marriage Therapist to help bright happiness and health back to your family.

Every year there are thousands of couples entering into marriage counseling with the complaint that outside friendships and influences have played too big a role in the destruction of their marriage.

Friendships and family are a huge part of what makes up a person’s internal monitor of what is and isn’t acceptable or right. If every friend is telling them that their spouse is horrible, unresponsive and cruel, eventually those opinions are going to have influence. This can be a good thing, in those cases where objective opinions are needed. However, in many cases outside friends are simply getting only one part of the story. Their opinion is based only half an equation. It is up to you to ensure that, if you are going to solicit outside advice on your marriage, you will be responsible enough to give the information needed to get that advice accurately.

Online Friendhips can be Costly

Online friendships are opening up entirely new realms of issues for couples, and are becoming a popular complaint in counseling sessions.

Deborah was spending a lot of time with her friends, talking about her relationship with Stephen. While Deborah took a lot of advice from her friends, the problem is that none of them had ever met Stephen and didn’t realize the true dynamics of the issues. Deborah was spending more and more time with her online friends and almost no time with Stephen. He was growing jealous of the time she spent with virtual friendships, and resentful that none of the time was with him.

The marriage counselor was quickly able to see that Deborah’s obsession with online relationships, while strictly friendships, had taken a toll on her real life relationship with her husband. Through counseling, Deborah was able to limit her time online and understand where she began to pull away physically into a non-threatening virtual world because of the control and ease of conflict avoidance.

Changes in a long term relationship are generally slow to take place and build up over the years. Small changes, small hesitations in communication and the miniscule holding back of affection that builds into distance, silence and finally a breakdown of a fundamental bond are all process that take time. This is the kind of marital breakdown that most people think of when they think of a couple who needs marriage counseling. While that sort of breakdown in a relationship is the most commonly seen, many couples are seen in crisis events that happen quickly and damage just as fast.

A Marriage in Crisis

Shane and Jan had been married for 7 years and thought that they knew everything there was to know about the other person. They had weathered their own ups and downs and personal relationship issues with no real long term problems and had every intention of continuing as they always had, until a series of very quick events put everything they knew to the test.

Shane had worked for a major insurance company since he was first out of college. Promotion after promotion had gained him a respectable reputation and increased financial security. When the company hit some unexpected difficulties with a major project, Shane was caught up in the domino effect and was let go from his position. In shock, angry and disheartened, he began drinking heavily for a few weeks after losing his job. Exactly 3 weeks later, he was charged with a DUI. His hopes of any employment in the immediate future was destroyed, his marriage was strained beyond capacity and the financial security of his family was jeopardized.

Picking up the Pieces

Shane and Jan came to marriage counseling at a time when the rest of their lives was in complete chaos and their relationship simply could not hold all of the pieces of it together. They needed help and guidance in order to find a way to support one another and move on towards a future that was slightly different than the one they had planned on for so long.

Not every marriage is the kind that experiences its full real difficulties when the married couple has been married a few years and some major life changes have taken their toll on the relationship. Sometimes a couple who depended on “true love” to guide them through it all are often those same ones that find themselves, almost embarrassingly so, sitting in the office of a marriage therapist wondering exactly how they got there and exactly when it wrong.

Scott and Janet seemed to know on a highly visceral level that they needed to be seen by a highly qualified marriage counselor because their marriage had unraveled far too far for them to move on by themselves. This change was happening during a particularly stressful time in their lives where they had experienced a devastating financial loss that cost them a majority of their savings and retirement funds. After this loss, a communication cycle focusing on words and phrases meant to blame and cause guilt and resentment were being used in their relationship. Arguments were followed quickly by more fininancial loss and they began couples counseling still reeling. It seemed as though the marriage was lost along with their financial future when they finally got to counseling.

The marriage counselor needed to work with this couple on a variety of subjects, including exploring some of the deeper meanings in their relationship, while grieving the loss of a financial state that had been a safety net for some time. Slowly, they began to understand where their own fears and insecurities took part in the collapse and rebuilding of their marriage.

Opposites attract is a phrase that has given hope to competing personalities everywhere who have felt drawn to a person not at all like them. The idea that you don’t need to have that much in common in order to be together, that opposing thoughts and beliefs can join together perfectly in a crazy family-comedy style way, can give many people the wrong impression about lasting relationships.

Opposites can and do attract, but it takes hard work for a couple to overcome base personality differences on a level that allows for deep understanding and trust.

When Abby and Vince first announced that they were getting married, their families could not have been more shocked. Abby and Vince were as different as two people could be and seldom seemed to be at peace together.

When their marriage started to crumble apart after the first year, Abby and Vince were ashamed and angry that everyone else may have been right all along, and that they were doomed from the start.

Abby said:

Maybe we are too different to be together. But you know, I liked our differences. And I think Vince likes them too. We just got out of the habit of understanding them and working on them.

Thankfully, Abby and Vince had signed on to work with a very understanding and patient marriage counselor who saw within them a deep desire to make it work. He began to outline a plan that focused on their similarities and not their differences and to use existing differences in a new way that could form a bonding and empathetic way of looking at the other side of an issue.

When a couple truly wants to work out their marriage, even completely opposite personalities can’t stand in the way of it. A relationship like this will require more work and dedication, but is worth it.

Many religious organizations are advising that couples enter into pre-martial counseling as a part of their preparations for entering into the commitment of marriage. Given the rising rates of divorce and the detrimental effect this has on families, this sort of intervention is understandable.

Pre-Marital Counseling And Evaluating The Health Of Relationships

When a couple is asked to receive pre-marital counseling, the hunt for a professional and highly qualified counselor begins. A professional couples counselor can evaluate the couple’s communication skills and get an idea of what sort of areas may evolve into full out concerns, before they ever actually reach that state and become problematic.

Pre-marital counseling allows both individuals in a couple the chance to speak openly and honestly in a place of non-judgment and supportive help. Whereas some couples may fear that an argument before the wedding could put the wedding itself in jeopardy, a healthy couple will understand that life will be full of arguments and discussions. To avoid them simply sets a bad precedent that will lead to continued cycles of tension, anger and resentment.

Marriage counseling isn’t just for couples who are experiencing problems. It can be used to evaluate the state of your relationship and teach you ways to grow closer, no matter what stage your relationship is in.

When you opt for pre-marriage counseling as a way to evaluate and strengthen your relationship before the big day, you can start off your marriage knowing that you are open eyed and knowledgable about your relationship and your partner.

Therapy is a deeply personal process and different people expect different outcomes from it. Reactions to therapy and the different ways in which it affects future actions are as various as the people who are seeking it out in the first place, however there are some very common thoughts that can be seen as general guidelines.

Many patients who have gone through counseling discuss their feelings and outcomes openly when asked about what they felt during the therapist/patient interactions. Helping other people understand the process of therapy and helping therapists become better at their chosen profession is wonderful benefit that past patients can help provide.

Common Guides from Patients

Sympathy, empathy and understanding are the great focal points in a therapy triad. Balancing them equally is seldom what is actually wanted, though the inclusion of all three is usually needed.

Empathy is what a Therapist needs in order to feel their client’s world, and sympathy is how they would actually express those feelings. Most patients respond that they felt better with more empathy given but less sympathy. This is a fascinating aspect of therapy and speaks volumes about what many clients are looking for.

For many people, a caring support group of friends and family is available. In fact, many are receiving so much care and support that they feel trapped by it and unable to climb out from underneath the expectations of those around them. Over caring has its cost. When a Therapist expends too much energy sympathizing and caring, they run the risk of becoming another ear that listens. Many patients who spoke about this reiterated that they were happy when their therapist listened and understood and helped guide them towards solutions. A valued professional therapist is more than someone who is being paid to listen to you. They are someone who has been trained to understand and to help.