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The Dynamics of Small Betrayals in Relationships - By Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant Trish Purnell-Webb
8 October 2024 / Relationship Help
Betrayal is a powerful word that often conjures up images of dramatic, earth-shattering events, like being caught red-handed in a compromising position with your partner’s best friend; or finding the receipt for jewellery that’s been sent to another in your partner’s coat pocket, or arriving home unexpectedly and finding your partner entertaining someone else in your bed. All these stories and more have found their way into my therapy room and yours too I bet.
However, the truth is that betrayal can also come in smaller, more subtle forms, and these small betrayals can significantly impact relationships even more than the bigger ones. While they may not make the evening news or lead to immediate breakups, the effects of these small betrayals can erode trust, eat away intimacy, and pulverize connection over time.
Relationship Repair Interventions - By Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant John Flanagan (Article 3 / 3)
9 September 2024 / For therapists
My hope is this series of articles supports therapists in a very practical sense by sharpening assessment formulation, conceptualising couple repair through the repair continuum lens and finally exploring intervention to aid couples deepen repair and healing.
This third and final article, details the essential principles that guide comprehensive relationship repair along with the interventions identified in the Relationship Repair Continuum (refer to article 2 in this series) that are used to create healing in relationship injuries and ruptures. Specific attention is given to exploring both Restorative Dialogue and the trigger management support of TARR
Relationship repair is not just about saying sorry or forgiving the other, effective repair is fluid and contextual to the injury, from minor missteps in communication to major breaches of trust. Assisting couples to repair requires the therapist to be guided by repair principles that ensure the possibility of a comprehensive healing of the relationship rapture. The essential repair principles are as follows:
Couples and Addiction: the hidden reality. By Campbell MacBean Psychologist, Clinical Supervisor, CGT & Clinical Level 1 Trainer
19 August 2024 / For therapists
Seems like we live in an age where addictive behaviour is more pervasive than ever before. Wikipedia defines addiction as a neuropsychological disorder characterised by an intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behaviour that produces a natural reward despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. In times past, substance abuse (alcohol, amphetamines, opioids) were in the majority. But currently, behavioural addictions, such as gambling, also include things like shopping, social-media and video game addiction.
Addiction is nothing new of course, it’s been around since time immemorial, and huge advances in addiction sciences means it is now understood as a disease that changes our brain’s wiring. What hasn’t caught up with these developments, however, is the tendency for many of us to see addiction as a choice or a failing of the person’s character.
Dreams Within Conflict & Rapoport Interventions. How Are They Different? Presented by Dr Bill Bumberry. Advanced Clinical Trainer and Gottman Certification Video Reviewer
12 August 2024 /
The Rapoport intervention is designed to help the partners have a conversation where both partners feel listened to, understood and validated … not necessarily agreed with … by the end of the intervention. The sharing of feelings and articulation of “positive needs” (what they want, rather than what they don’t want) by the Speaker is received, reflected back and validated by the Listener. The structure makes room for both partners to share their positions and feel heard, even on edgy or perpetual issues. Understanding and feeling understood is the desired outcome. A successful Rapoport intervention typically reduces tension, softens the atmosphere and leaves the partners feeling a bit more connected. In some cases, it may result in revealing deeper themes, but this is not the explicit intent.
Why am I so motivated, engaged with and fascinated by Gottman Method therapy? by Campbell MacBean - Psychologist, Certified Gottman Therapist & newest member of the RIA Accredited Training Team
25 July 2024 /
Like many psychologists, after some years in the profession I became interested in finding an area in which to specialise but couldn’t quite work out what that should be. What was I most motivated by? Nothing came to mind until I realised that relationship(s) were what got me out of bed in the mornings! After a brief unhappy first marriage in my twenties, the marriage to my wife Nel has been nothing short of wonderful. I know it has changed my life for the better.
Now I knew that relationship was the area I wanted to develop specialist skills and qualifications in. Unlike other areas of psychology there wasn’t much training on offer in Australia at that time. Then I remembered something about this US researcher, Dr John Gottman.
The Relationship Repair Continuum (RRC) - By Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant John Flanagan (Article 2 / 3)
26 April 2024 /
In the first article of this series, I explored the Formulation HAC which assists in organising assessment data and developing treatment goals into three-time spans – Past, Present and Future. Each time span was described with a therapeutic intention: Healing, Attuning or Creating. With this in mind, we are able to organise the formulation, goals and interventions into the three areas of Healing the Past, Attuning the Present and Creating the Future. In this second article I will explore the Relationship Repair Continuum as a way of formulating the difference between the type of injuries that occur in relationships and the type of interventions required to support couples in their healing.
After working with hundreds of struggling and wounded couples over many years it has become evident to me how important and complex the art of repair is for couples. Injury, hurt, and negative conflict are inevitable across all relationships; what isn’t inevitable is the success couples have in making lasting repair.
A Formulation HAC - By Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant John Flanagan (Article 1 / 3)
13 March 2024 / For therapists / Relationship Help
I have been struck over the years by both the courage and struggle couples experience in their relationships, inspired by their capacity to repair, forgive, reconnect and in awe of their abilities to rebuild when the obstacles seem overwhelming and insurmountable. Ordinary everyday couples do extraordinary things; healing the deepest wound, taking responsibility for betrayals, atoning and attuning with each other and eventually creating a safer, stable and connected future together.
Couple therapeutic practice is dynamic and continually evolving. Over the next series of RIA articles, I want to share with you some practice and training insights I have gathered while training over 2500 therapists in Gottman methods and completing over 12 000 hours in couple’s therapy. My hope is this series will support therapists in a very practical sense, sharpening assessment formulation, conceptualising couple repair through the repair continuum lens and finally exploring intervention to aid in deeper couple repair and healing.
The first article is the Formulation HAC- Healing the past, Attuning the Present and Creating the Future
The second article is the Repair Continuum- Creating a lens for therapists to distinguish between different relationship injuries and the repair interventions required for each.
The third article will take a deeper dive into Relationship Repair Interventions exploring repairs in motion, those small missteps in couple communication; Restorative Dialogue-an atoning conversation and finally we will discuss a couple’s Trigger Management Approach when old hurts, memories and triggers resurface.
Countertransference in Couple Therapy - By Trish Purnell-Webb - Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant
18 January 2024 /
Stacey (not her real name) is a couple therapist. During supervision, she discussed the case of Bill and Carol (not their real names). Stacey reported feeling ‘stuck’ with Bill.
“He keeps saying he wants to repair his relationship and will do anything Carol needs. Then we agree to homework like arranging a date or making time to hang out after dinner to chat, using Open-ended questions, but every session, he says he didn’t do it and when I ask why not, he just shrugs and looks away. I feel infuriated, and it’s all I can do to contain myself. “
You may recognise the therapist’s response as countertransference. We all experience it at different times.
What is Countertransference?
Staying connected in the Holiday season - By John Flanagan - Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Consultant
15 December 2023 /
The holiday season can be a wonderful opportunity to take time out from the stressors of daily life, the pressures of work, the never-ending list of tasks and duties and to connect with your partner, children, family and friends. The holiday season is much anticipated and highly valued by many. It is the end of one year and beginning of another. A time for reflection on the past, a time for planning for the future and importantly a time to be present with the important people in your world. The holiday season can often be rich with rituals that bring people together, sharing experiences, traditions and connections.
It is also true that the holiday season can be a very difficult time where relationships can become strained and disconnected, where expectations and ideals are not discussed or shared, where miscommunication and tension can arise.
Wisdoms of Anatol Rapoport on Conflict and the Gottman Rapoport Conversation by By Advanced Gottman Clinical Trainer & Gottman Consultant John Flanagan
6 November 2023 / For therapists / Relationship Help / Relationship Institute Australasia
Sometimes we can feel in a perpetual conflict cycle in our relationships and lives, continuously reinforced when we turn on the news or open up social media. We are constantly presented with polar opposite perspectives and asked to take a side. This polarity creates deeper chasms in views and does very little to help build understanding of difference or encourage a curiosity of exploration and tolerance. We miss out on the depth and rich complexity when we narrow down our perspectives and actively exclude other views and opinions.
In relationship and in life there are fewer absolutes than what we imagine.