LoveWork: Skills for a Relational Life

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The way we present ourselves in interactions with our partner strongly shapes the dimensions of their responses to us. Kristy and Jerry explore the challenges involved in trying to remain positive, despite immediate impulses to strike back sometimes, when our partner is in a rough place and lets you know that with their presentation. The power of self-possession is undisputed, as it can completely alter the tone and content of what follows in interactions with your partner, ranging from the smallest of quibbles to large disagreements. We enact an all-too-realistic argument and revisit it to correct the trajectory of it into one that ends up being positive and connectable. 

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Most people grow up with wounds from childhood and/or adolescence, but only some come to have a long-term identification as a victim. Progressing into survivorship and learning how to cherish one's one life and to thrive is the challenge. The crucible for all this is often often found in adult relationships. What is to be gained from identifying with victimhood, and how do I leave it? Kristy and Jerry consider this together. 

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Kristy and Jerry ponder the frustrations of disconnections and challenges that always seem to land in predictably annoying directions: why does it always have to be ABOUT you? We role-play the typical way this gets expressed and then do a healthy re-do of the same scenario. 

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Jerry and Kristy consider the implications of A.I. for couples, their therapies, and for therapists. Positive and negatives are acknowledged, with all sorts of red warning flags flying. 

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Jerry (solo) considers some of the common complaints about sex-within-long-term-relationships, with a focus on the messaging that we've internalized along the way. The distinction between seeking mutual sexual pleasures and some people's understandings of the responsibility to merely fulfill obligations are considered. An upcoming day-long Zoom workshop, Rekindling Sexual Connection, on August 15th, is offered to help people beginning talking about what they most need and haven't been able to talk about without shame. 

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The Wise Adult is the gold standard for the capacity for intimacy. In our 80th episode -- and that last one before a 8 month hiatus from recording -- we consider the beauty and optimism this layer-of-personality brings, offering us relief from the seemingly-automatic responses our other layers routinely present.

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Poised in between the slings and arrows of early childhood (i.e., the Wounded Child) and the emergence of the Wise Adult, the Adaptive Child becomes our friend and our go-to personality more often than not. Jerry and Kristy pay homage to it, while discussing the real-life repercussions of your Adaptive Child for your relationships. 

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This was a topic that was requested of us to talk about, and which resonated with both Kristy and Jerry as a worthy one. When couples therapy goes wrong, or is unsatisfying to the couple that searched for help, why is this??? What type of connection, process and set of skills are necessary to have things click and move forward with good feeling for all involved? Kristy and Jerry consider this (along with a fake fight in which one person argues about the couples therapist favoring one of them over the other). 

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After having previously considered how curiousity functions in a relationship, Kristy and Jerry take a look at how it also influences us as individuals, over our lifespans.