Have you ever felt like different parts of yourself were competing for attention and power? Maybe you have aspects of your personality that you’re proud of, and others that you’d rather keep hidden from the world—the ones that tend to rear their heads in your not-so-shining moments. According to Internal Family Systems Therapy, a framework developed by today’s guest, Dr. Richard Schwartz, we are all made up of sub-personalities or “parts.” IFS posits that by investigating and understanding where each of those parts come from and how they are dictating our current behavior, we can better understand our unique mental world and determine how to make change to support our healing and improve our relationships. Dr. Alexandra talks with Dr. Dick about how IFS has the potential to help individuals understand themselves, strengthen their romantic relationships, or even navigate the dating world. They also explore a question from a listener in Toronto who wants to feel more deeply understood in conversations with her boyfriend. 

IFS is a theoretical framework that has helped many folks, but as always, Dr. Alexandra encourages you to see what resonates with you in this conversation and what might be helpful to bring into your own processes of self-discovery and healing, and to your relationships. 

Relevant Links:

• IFS Institute: ifs-institute.com
• Intimacy From The Inside Out: https://ifs-institute.com/store/116
• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-bad-parts-healing-trauma-and-restoring-wholeness-with-the-internal-family-systems-model-richard-schwartz/16396062?ean=9781683646686
• You Are the One You've Been Waiting for: Applying Internal Family Systems to Intimate Relationships by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.: https://bookshop.org/p/books/you-are-the-one-you-ve-been-waiting-for-applying-internal-family-systems-to-intimate-relationships-richard-schwartz/18790456?ean=9781683643623
• Story on IFS from NPR’s Morning Edition: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/25/nx-s1-5055753/parts-work-therapy-internal-family-systems-anxiety#:~:text=At%20the%20center%20of%20IFS,his%20book%20No%20Bad%20Parts.

What would your reaction be if someone asked if you’re codependent? If “Certainly not!” is your immediate response, this episode invites you to look a little deeper. While we often turn to a single definition of codependency—enabling another person in a situation that is damaging or dangerous, such as addiction—Terri Cole‘s new book, Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency, expands on this traditional and insufficient definition to include those who are “overly invested in the feelings of the people in our lives to the detriment of our own internal peace.”

Terri is a licensed psychotherapist, empowerment coach, and recovering high-functioning codependent. In therapy sessions with her highly capable patients, Terri noticed a lot of pushback when she would suggest that they might be codependent. However, when she clarified her updated definition, they immediately recognized these traits in themselves and could begin recovering from these detrimental behaviors. It is likely that you recognize these traits in yourself or someone close to you, so I hope that you will come away enlightened and empowered from Terri’s explanation of the clues that highlight these traits, the heavy cost to both the individual and their loved ones, and how we can all be of service to others without adopting problematic patterns. We also unpack a thoughtful question from a listener in Nova Scotia Canada about rebuilding a damaged relationship with her four adult children. 

Relevant Links:

• Learn more about Terri Cole
• Order Terri’s book, Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency
• Get your copy of the HFC Workbook
• Join the Teri Cole Membership
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

The decision to cut off a family member is a difficult one. Estrangement is an attempt to solve a painful, systemic relationship problem. This monumental move should be deeply considered, and my collectivist approach to therapy encourages being curious about and striving to understand how the different contexts our family members—epsecially those with a generational divide—grew up and live within can impact how we show up in our relationships. Without, of course, ever dismissing the very real trauma that can precede an estrangement.

In this in-depth solo episode, I explore the dynamics of cut-offs, including what both the official research and my recent social media survey have to say. Then, I offer three relational self-awareness questions for folks on both sides of the estrangement experience: those considering cutting off a family member and those who are about to be or have been cut off.

These questions aim to support compassionate dialogue that increases both party’s chances of finding a solution. Whether you are the estranger or the estranged, it is my hope that this conversation will leave you with some tools and a perspective you may not have considered, one that takes each person’s lived experience into consideration and opens up the possibility of finding a middle ground between an unhealthy status quo and walking away.

Relevant Links:

• Get your companion workbook - https://www.dralexandrasolomon.com/cutoff
• My talk on 1A: “When Loved Ones Become Strangers” - https://the1a.org/segments/when-loved-ones-become-strangers/
• Reimagining Love Episode: “End or Mend: Managing Difficult Family Relationships with Nedra Tawwab” - https://dralexandrasolomon.com/podcasts/end-or-mend-managing-difficult-family-relationships-with-nedra-tawwab/
• APA article: “Estrangement Is Never Easy or Straightforward. Psychologists Can Help” - https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/healing-pain-estrangement
• Vogue article: “Why So Many People (Myself Included) Are Experiencing Family Estrangement” - https://www.vogue.com/article/why-so-many-people-are-experiencing-family-estrangement
• Aeon article: “Estrangement” - https://aeon.co/essays/modern-culture-blames-parents-for-forces-beyond-their-control
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

In North America, we’re conditioned from an early age to cultivate specific components of our full personalities and curtail others. For people socialized as girls, traditionally “feminine” qualities such as softspokenness and emotional exploration are encouraged, while assertiveness is discouraged. For people socialized as boys, qualities like toughness and a stiff upper lip are considered masculine, and they are advised against being open about their feelings.

But as hard as patriarchal society has worked to separate us into specific personas based on our sex, the truth is that we all carry masculine and feminine energies within us. In this episode, marriage and family therapist and Depth Psychology expert Dené Logan embarks with me on an exploration of how we manage, heal, and share our internal energies—this is the fascinating topic of her new book, Sovereign Love: A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine & Feminine Within.

Relevant Links:

• Order Dené’s book, Sovereign Love:  A Guide to Healing Relationships by Reclaiming the Masculine & Feminine Within
• Connect with Dené on Instagram
• Listen to the Cheaper Than Therapy podcast
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

Founder and CEO of YourTango, Andrea Miller, joins Dr. Share to share the power of being a lifelong “seeker” of relational wisdom. Andrea has dedicated her life to connecting her audience with relationship experts and celebrating relational wisdom, and today, invites us into her journey of opening herself up to love’s lessons.

Relevant links:

• Learn more about YourTango
• Listen to Dr. Alexandra on Open Relationships: Transforming Together with Andrea Miller
• Radical Acceptance: The Secret to Happy, Lasting Love by Andrea Miller
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

Loss and grief are universal and profoundly human. The death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a trauma that drastically shifts the trajectory of a life—each spurs a unique grieving process that can be difficult to navigate for both the people grieving and their support systems. As a chaplain at a Level One Trauma Center in Florida, J.S. Park provides emotional and spiritual care for and comfort to those experiencing grief. His support of patients at the end of their lives, and of the loved ones who remain, adds tremendous impact and compassion to his most recent book, As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve. 

In this episode, J.S. shares with Dr. Alexandra what his education and experience have taught him about the “right” things to say and the ways to support grieving loved ones. He offers deeply considered insights into our misguided fear of bringing up the deceased, the impact of loss on the past and the future, and how to care for both a loved one and oneself during the grieving process. 

Relevant Links:

• Order J.S.’s book, As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve
• Connect J.S. on Instagram
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

What happens when we listen and are listened to more fully, forging a deeper connection? Decades of research tell us that the brain undergoes physiological changes when we begin to “talk without criticizing, listen without judgment, and connect beyond difference.” This is the definition of dialogue coined by today’s guests, Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt and Dr. Harville Hendrix. 

Doctors Hunt and Hendrix are internationally recognized couples therapists, educators, speakers, and a married couple themselves. Through decades of research, they developed the Imago Relationship Therapy method, which is taught to therapists around the globe. In this episode, they speak with Dr. Alexandra about moving from monologue (turning the conversation to focus on oneself) to dialogue (keeping the conversation focused on the speaker), and how listening and ensuring true understanding of a speaker’s meaning has enormous benefits to our relationships and our brains.

Relevant Links:

• Harville and Helen’s new book, How To Talk to Anyone About Anything - https://harvilleandhelen.com/books/how-to-talk-with-anyone-about-anything/
• Learn more about Imago Relationship Therapy - https://harvilleandhelen.com/initiatives/what-is-imago/
• Explore Safe Conversations, A Methodology for Connecting - https://safeconversations.com/
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question

In this two-part series, Dr. Alexandra shares ten essential skills for couples struggling with routine conflict in their relationship. Offering strategies from her couples therapy practice, Dr. Alexandra provides new language and ways of thinking about arguments that promote empathy and care, shifting couples into a "we" perspective so that they can move through hard times as a team.

Relevant links:

Listen to Part One of the Conflict series

Access the Conflict Skills worksheet

Couples therapy directories: 

• Gottman Referral Network
• Therapist.com
• Psychology Today

Domestic Violence Resources

Order Dr. Alexandra's new book, Love Every Day

Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter

Submit a Listener Question

In this two-part series, Dr. Alexandra shares ten essential skills for couples struggling with routine conflict in their relationship. Offering strategies from her couples therapy practice, Dr. Alexandra provides new language and ways of thinking about arguments that promote empathy and care, shifting couples into a "we" perspective so that they can move through hard times as a team.

Relevant links:

Access the Conflict Skills worksheet

Couples therapy directories: 

• Gottman Referral Network
• Therapist.com
• Psychology Today

Domestic Violence Resources

Order Dr. Alexandra's new book, Love Every Day

Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter

Submit a Listener Question

Family therapy expert Dafna Lender and Dr. Alexandra explore the complexities of the parent-child relationship. With 25 years of experience, Dafna has a deep understanding of how a child’s difficult behaviors and a parent’s reactivity can clash and land a family into a therapist’s office. Dafna explains how to disrupt this cycle by removing blame, exploring the parent’s attachment history, and bringing a sense of joy and playfulness back into the relationship.

Relevant links:

• Integrative Attachment Family Therapy: A Clinical Guide to Heal and Strengthen the Parent-Child Relationship by Dafna Lender
• Engage further with Dafna’s work online
• Order Dr. Alexandra's latest book, Love Every Day
• Subscribe to Dr. Alexandra’s Newsletter
• Submit a Listener Question