The Relationship Maze

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In today's episode we are talking with therapist and author Kimberly Morrow, who wrote Face It and Feel It: 10 Simple (But Not Easy) Ways to Live Well with Anxiety and CBT for Anxiety: A Step-By-Step Training Manual for the Treatment of Fear, Panic, Worry and OCD.

Kimberly specialises in working with anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD); in today's episode she discusses  how anxious, compulsive thoughts can impact on relationships.
OCD means that the very thing you worry excessively about is something that is really important to you and that you value. It is not your actual truth. For example, an obsessive thought in a relationship might be 'what if I don't love him'. The compulsion then becomes to doubt all the time. OCD is often called the 'doubting disease'.

OCD always wants to get to certainty; it needs to make sure. However, this certainly may never be reached and you will need to accept a level of uncertainty and acceptance.

OCD can be treated well; one of the most helpful treatment is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). In this therapeutic approach you are encouraged to face your fears and address your obsessive thoughts without getting overwhelmed.  Kimberly explains how this approach works.  She talks us through the steps of working with somebody who experiences OCD.

If you are in a relationship with a partner who struggles with OCD you  need to learn to respond to your partner's OCD in a helpful way.

Other helpful approaches to treat OCD are Acceptance and Committment Therapy or Inference Based Therapy.

For further information check out the website that Kimberly mentions in this episode: NOCD. If you are in the US, you can find therapists here who are trained specifically work to with OCD.

Kimberly Morrow, LCSW helps people live well with anxiety using compassionate, evidenced-based treatment. She has been in private practice in Erie, PA for 30 years. Kimberly earned the Clinician Outreach Award and the Member of Distinction Award from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. She is a graduate of the International Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation’s Behavior Therapy Institute. She serves on the board for OCD Pennsylvania.  Kimberly is co-owner of Anxiety Training, which provides online training for therapists and schools to provide evidenced based treatments for anxiety and OCD.  She authored Face It and Feel It: 10 Simple (But Not Easy) Ways to Live Well with Anxiety and co-authored CBT for Anxiety: A Step-By-Step Training Manual for the Treatment of Fear, Panic, Worry and OCD.

Books can be found on Amazon.

Website: www.AnxietyTraining.com

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

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When was the last time you experienced excitement - a sense of being thrilled or feeling very enthusiastic?

Particularly in the early stages of the relationship you are likely to frequently have a sense of excitement. Excitement often feeds on novelty, eagerness, the unknown  and  anticipation.  Excitement is also associated with feeling good.

When we are excited we feel mobilised in our body: the heart might be beating faster, we might have butterflies in the stomach or sweaty palms. We are in a state of physical arousal, that is not too dissimilar from feelings associated with anxiety. In the context of dating often excitement can be experienced as anxiety.

We can create a feeling of excitement by using visualisation: for example imagine what it feels like to surprise your partner with a gift.

Excitement often emerges when you do something that takes you away from your routine. You can consider situations or activities that are different from what you normally do.
 

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship.

Related podcasts:
Expectations - how you create your own relationship disappointment
I just called to say I love you - How to speak your partner's love language

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Do you always try get everything right and strive to meet very high standards? Perfectionists tend to judge their self worth in relation to achieving these standards. They always worry that they are good enough. Perfectionists struggle with the impact of trying to meet unrelentingly high standards but they can't stop pursuing them anyway. Because there is always the fear or getting it wrong, perfectionists frequently struggle with procrastination: rather than starting somewhere to get a task going, they worry that they won't be doing it well enough and therefore stall.

In a dating scenario perfectionists might look for a partner who meets a checklist of criteria to find an ideal partner.

Perfectionists have an internalised driver somewhere along the lines that they need to try harder. They needed to prove that  they are lovable or deserving of positive attention by the parents through always getting it right, being the 'good girl' or 'good boy'.  Usually perfectionist struggle with low self esteem; there is an underlying belief that achievement equals love.

Perfectionists are very outcome driven and they want to meet the outcome as soon as possible. A more helpful approach might be to follow the principles of the Japanese concept of 'Kaizen', a focus on continuous improvement and on the process of doing a task rather than a focus on outcome only.

Perfectionists tend to be quite risk averse; they usually try to minimise any factors that might impair the outcome and therefore may miss out on opportunities.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship.

Related podcasts:
How not to take your partner for granted - gratitude and appreciation
Increase your self-esteem
I'm ok, You're ok - the foundation of healthy relationships

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

In today's episode Angela is in conversation with Dr Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, author of 'Future Tense.: Why Anxiety is Good For You (Even Though it Feels Bad). Tracy A. Dennis-Tiwary, Ph.D. is a researcher, entrepreneur, and author of the book Future Tense: Why Anxiety is Good for You (Even Though it Feels Bad), Harper Wave, 2022. She is a professor of psychology and neuroscience, Director of the Emotion Regulation Lab, and Co-Executive Director of the Center for Health Technology at The City University of New York, where the mission is to connect researchers, community stakeholders, and technology innovators to bridge the healthcare gap. 

Tracy highlights that anxiety has got an (undeserved) bad press: because it feels uncomfortable, we should get rid of it. 'Anxiety as disease' - an idea that has been propagated by the mental health profession for years, is setting us up to failure and stops us from engaging with the useful aspects and gifts that anxiety has to offer us. There is evidence now that the  disease model of mental illness does not work.

In the past everyone talked about stress; now we talk about anxiety.

Tracy talks about parenting children effectively. Often parents assume that their children are fragile. The opposite is true: children have antifragility.  If you don't strain muscles they will atrophy. The same is true for emotions. Children need to learn the skills to sit with their anxiety and other emotions that they may struggle with.

Tracy also discusses the difference between being a perfectionist and a pursuer of excellencism. Excellencism involves setting yourself high standards but not getting overly frustrated if these standards are not met.

The conversation ends with Tracy describing the three key principles that you can take away from making anxiety your ally.

As PAs Founder and CSO of Wise Therapeutics,  Tracy A. Dennis-Tiwary translates neuroscience and cognitive therapy techniques into gamified, clinically validated digital therapeutics for mental health. She has published over 100 scientific articles and delivered over 400 presentations at academic conferences and for corporate clients. She has been featured throughout the media, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, ABC, ryBS, CNN, The Today Show, and Bloomberg Television.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

In today's episode we talk about feeling jealous and being in a relationship with a partner who is excessively jealous. Jealousy to some extent is quite normal, however, if it becomes excessive it can seriously undermine your relationship.

Jealousy is driven be a perceived or real threat to the relationship. The jealous partner resents a third person for taking away their partner from the relationship. The ensuing feelings are often anger, resentment, mistrust,  hostility, restlessness or bitterness.  If it becomes excessive jealousy can lead to controlling and coercive behaviour in a relationship.

Jealousy can be a sign that there is an underlying problem with differentiation. A jealous partner often desires an emotionally fused relationship and struggles to maintain a strong sense of self.

Jealousy is often driven by low self esteem. Your partner can't really love you because you yourself believe that you are not lovable.

Jealousy can of course also be driven by previous, negative experiences.

The starting point to manage jealousy, is to notice your feelings first and to understand where they are coming from.  You can then assess whether there really is a threat to the relationship or not.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Related podcasts:
How differentiated are you? The key signs that indicate your level of success in a relationship
Expectations - how you create your own relationship disappointment

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Do you find yourself stuck in repetitive, usually negative, thinking about a particular situation, experience or behaviour? Rumination is the unpleasant experiencing of obsessively going over the same old thoughts again and again. Too much rumination stops us from being present.

Rumination keeps you stuck - you worry about an issue but don't actually help to address it.
Often rumination relates to habitual underlying, negative thoughts or core beliefs that reinforce an idea of us not being 'good enough'.

Frequent, repetitive, obsessive thoughts are mostly rooted in earlier, often traumatic or troublesome events.  

On the continuum of rigidity and chaos in life, a person who ruminates a lot tends to be very rigid: it's a defensive, frozen position to protect themselves from perceived threats.

In this podcast we talk about the potential root causes of rumination and how to address these troublesome thoughts.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

How do you feel about arguments in your life? Do you tend to find them deeply uncomfortable, terrifying or do you enjoy a good argument and consider arguing a good way of clarifying your mutual expectations? Are you aware of your argument style? You can take our short Argument Style quiz to find out more about your style of arguing.

In today's session we talk about conflict in relationships. Depending on your own experiences in the past you are likely to relate to conflict as deeply troubling or more neutrally as a natural experience in any relationship.  If you have children, the way that you manage conflict in your relationship is absolutely crucial. Get it wrong over a long period of time and you can cause a lot of long lasting harm.

Often you argue about something on the surface, e.g. your partner coming home late, but you may actually experience a frustration that goes much deeper than the situation would call for. 

You might be very good at bringing up frustrations in your relationship and communicating them clearly to your partner or you may struggle with this. You may experience your partner's communication as deeply difficult.

There is much to explore about arguing and communicating effectively. We have developed a short course - Stop Arguing, Start Loving - where we talk about the underlying causes of arguments, reasons why you argue and ways of managing arguments more effectively.  We aimed it at parents but the course is relevant to anyone. 

• Find out more about the reasons for your arguments
• Learn to manage strong feelings
• Understand the patterns of communication in your relationship
• Learn strategies to resolve conflict more effectively

The course has lots of activities where you can explore challenges in your relationship that lead to arguments and also find better ways of communicating with each other. We believe that learning to manage conflict well in relationship is particularly important if you have children.

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Do you often find that your relationships don't live up to your expectations? Expectations are predictions about the future.  You are likely to have an idea in your mind about what your relationship should look like, how your partner should behave and how you would feel in a relationship that is going well. Some of these ideas are part of your awareness, others aren't. A lot of your ideas relate to the wishes and dreams that you have. Expectations are born out of the gap between dream and reality.

Disappointment requires careful pre-planning. The more you visualise and expect things to turn out in a particular way, the more likely you are to be disappointed. On the other hand if you never visualise and hope for great things you would not feel motivated at all.

We discuss the balance between having expectations that you should have, that are realistic and those that set you up for likely failure. Expectations tie in to your attachment style.

Expectations in relationships need to be brought out in the open and communicated. If you can clarify what you both want and need from your partner and the relationship overall you are more likely to head off a lot of disappointment.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

In today's episode we talk about the importance of being fully present with your partner and how you might be working on achieving this. We spend a lot of time thinking about the future or the past. Worries about future uncertainties or troublesome past experiences often take us away from being in the present moment.

Often we overreact to a certain experience because we are conflating past and present. We attach old meanings to our current experiences.  Often these meanings or interpretations don't actually fit what is going on right now. Being present entails the capacity to think about our thinking, to be able to reflect on our feelings and reactions.

With awareness of the present moment you respond more appropriately to situations.

In this episode we talk you through some activities you can try out to bring yourself more into the present moment and to develop more self awareness.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Many people wonder whether their relationship is worth persisting with. They might not be entirely happy with their partner's view points, their mannerisms or some of their behaviours.  They may not feel attracted enough. In today's episodes we consider whether you may be leaving your relationships too soon, not giving them enough time to fully explore whether you might be on to a good thing here.

Relationships go through different stages and the question about staying or going often emerges either very early on, after a few dates, or after the initial honey moon phase.
Often, the question of leaving arises when there is a big gap between your idealised version of a partner and the actual reality of the person in front of you. In particular, if your attachment style tends to be on the avoidant-dismissive side you are more likely to leave relationships sooner rather than later.

In this podcast episode we consider the factors that matter in relationships and also some of those that may indicate that your relationship is in trouble.

You might also want to listen to our podcast episode on Red flags in relationships- 23 signs that you are in trouble.

And you can find out more about our comprehensive course the Relationship Maze here.  We cover all aspects of relationships and help you to develop a satisfying, fulfilling relationship.  the course is for you if you are single and dating or if you are already in an established relationship.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.