What Happens in Therapy: From First Consult to Working Together
What Happens In Therapy?
Every therapist works differently. If we work together, this is what you may expect.
Free Initial Consultation
I encourage you to consider a free 30-minute initial consultation to see if I feel like a good fit for you. Read more about what happens in a consultation here.
Setting up Your First Appointment and Completing Forms
After our initial half-hour consultation, if you decide you would like to work together we will find a time that works well in your schedule.
Read More»Reading Your Way Through: Bibliotherapy with a Therapist
For those of us who have experienced reading as comforting or even as healing, the idea of structuring therapy around books or including books as part of therapy may be especially appealing. The concept of healing through a prescribed list for reading is not a new concept.
Read More»Can You Affair Proof Your Marriage? 21 Concrete Strategies for Affair Proofing Yourself
- At March 31, 2018
- By Laura Lindekugel
- In Affairs, Infidelity, Midlife Crisis, Sex
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Can You Affair Proof Your Marriage? 21 Concrete Strategies for Affair Proofing Yourself
There seems to be some buzz in our culture recently around affair proofing your marriage. This concerns me because it suggests that infidelity happens in the context of a relationship in which there is deficit. The logic goes that if your relationship is strong and healthy, you’ll never have to face infidelity as a couple. The truth is much more complicated than that. Infidelity happens in relationships that are struggling, and it also happens in good relationships, relationships where there is love and connection, commitment, and sexual passion. It’s true. Many people express skepticism around this, and it points to just how often we blame or assume fault with those who have been betrayed, even subtly. Infidelity happens in every kind of relationship.
Read More»Navigating Explosive Emotion and Rage After Infidelity
Navigating Explosive Emotion and Rage After Infidelity
If there has been infidelity in your relationship, it’s highly likely that the betrayed person has or will at some point become extremely emotional and/or enraged. This often happens when this person does not feel heard, understood, or validated, or that you do not understand the profound impact of the infidelity or the depth of the pain you have caused. Sometimes it comes as a result of wanting you to experience a fraction of the pain he or she is experiencing. If you respond with defensiveness or with moving away, the anger or emotion may escalate.
Read More»Ten Tips for Revealing and Discussing Infidelity
If you are considering revealing infidelity or infidelity has been discovered, these tips may help you to minimize damage and to set the foundation for repair, if that is what you desire. If the goal is recovery as a couple, it’s important to be intentional from the beginning. If you get mired in holding back information, denial, blurring facts, minimizing, and blaming, it will be more challenging to repair and rebuild trust. These are general guidelines. If you have special circumstances, such a partner with a history of depression, for example, do consider speaking with a counselor or therapist for more appropriate guidance tailored to your particular relationship.
Ten Tips for Revealing and Discussing Infidelity
Read More»Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple: Part 2
How to Survive Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 2: Your Partner’s Midlife Crisis
Weathering your partner’s midlife crisis while keeping your sense of humor and hope is extremely challenging. The person you have known and love may be making changes, either subtle or radical. He or she may feel like a stranger some or most of the time. He or she may be rewriting history, even your history, and questioning you and the relationship. If you want to survive midlife crisis as a couple, you’ll have to be patient.
Read More»Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple: Part 1
If you are facing a midlife crisis, you may hope it will just go away, or you may believe that dismissing it or ignoring it will help. Unfortunately the feelings people experience in Midlife crisis are strong and often persistent, and it’s important to pay attention to those feelings without acting suddenly on them. Many couples make it through significant midlife issues. You can help your relationship by taking time to unpack the feelings you are having. Common feelings include:
Wanting change, often desperately. You may want to leave your partner and family, to start a new life, to find excitement. The pull to change things can be overwhelming at times.
Wanting to be with someone different—either specifically or as a vague idea that life would be easier or more fun with someone else.
Wanting to do things you never got to do as a young person, particularly if you’ve always been faithful and responsible. You may feel destructive, reckless, like you want to burn down your life—even intentionally sometimes. You may feel empty, resentful, angry, and rebellious.
Having trouble seeing why you chose this person, and why you should stay. You may feel that nothing you have is good enough or satisfying and that you want to cast off your life like an old coat you can’t remember why you chose. You likely want to live only for yourself and for the day. And you might occasionally have a sense of being confused and lost.
Most people facing a midlife crisis think there must be good reason for feeling all of these things, and they pay attention to the feelings without evaluating the bigger picture. Midlife crisis usually drives us into focusing on questioning our exterior life. In the bigger picture it can be an invitation to look intentionally at ourselves and reflect on what we want for the second half of our lives.
If you think you might be going through a midlife crisis:
- Don’t make any major changes.
- Have the courage to talk honestly and gently with your partner about what you’re experiencing.
- Remember that the intensity of your feelings will pass.
- Consider speaking with a counselor or therapist who understands midlife crisis and can help you understand what a midlife crisis is and means, sort out what is really driving the urges you’re feeling, and walk through it with you.
Laura Lindekugel M.S., M.S. is a partner in Rekindle Counseling.
Surviving Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 3: Midlife Crisis Together
How to Survive Midlife Crisis as a Couple Part 3: Surviving Midlife Crisis Together
Being in the midst of a midlife crisis can feel like being trapped in a nightmare for both partners. And it can seem like it will never end. It will. Keep checking in with each other. It is possible to survive midlife crisis together. The truth is that there are many gifts on the other side of a midlife crisis. Partners who can weather the storm of a midlife crisis with grace and dignity, by paying attention, by honoring the gripping desire for external change one partner is wrestling with, and who can focus on themselves and on the big picture, can come through the other side with a more fulfilling shared life than they had before the crisis. Relationships can be even more connected and exciting after a midlife crisis than might have been possible beforehand. Hang in there. This isn’t easy, but it’s possible. A crisis can be a catalyst for intentionality and meaning. It can be a break-through, a time to wake up and create a life that is in alignment with what you both truly want. In the midst of the crisis, external change seems like the answer; the siren song of the un-lived life can be powerfully gripping. But the deeper need over time is for internal reflection and understanding. On the hardest days remember it’s possible to survive a midlife crisis as a couple, to support each other through it, and to come though it stronger and more fulfilled than ever.
If you or your partner may be in the midst of midlife crisis:
- Be compassionate towards one another.
- Remember that this is a painful, challenging, and confusing time for both of you.
- Focus on yourself and try to use this time for growth and for pursuing individual interests.
- Honor the process, even when you want to be dismissive.
- Respect your partner, even if he or she seems or sounds like a stranger most days.
- Be gentle to yourself and to each other. Kindness goes a long way.
- Stay connected as much as you can.
- Have some fun together. Life is hard right now. Take a break and do something you enjoy together. Or find something new to do together.
- Consider seeing a therapist or counselor who truly understands midlife crisis and can help the two of you navigate this difficult time together.
Talking about Affairs: Healing the Hurt
- At April 26, 2015
- By Holly Birkeland
- In Affairs, Fighting, Sleep, Uncategorized
- 0
You had an affair and your partner found out. While you understand the hurt and anger, you also fear it will never end. The rages surprise both of you, and leave you exhausted and disconnected.
You’ve said you’re sorry so many times you wonder if it is meaningful to say it again.
Read More»Recovering from an Affair
- At January 12, 2011
- By Jennifer Stoos
- In Affairs
- 0
If you have ever experienced a relationship where someone has broken your trust you know the emotions that overtake you. Most people describe not feeling like themselves at all, instead swinging from self-doubt to anger at the other person to depression. Many people experience a change in their behaviors, finding themselves doing and thinking things that they never did or thought before.
While the research on affairs is still in its infancy, more and more practitioners and researchers are noting the similarities between behavior after a breach of trust and behavior after a trauma. As with a trauma, trigger events that remind a partner of a breach of trust (a memory, a name, a secretive behavior, a date on the calendar) can be followed by a flood of emotion that results in over-the-top fighting. Couples become exhausted, and concerned that this pattern will never change.
This makes couple counseling after an affair one of the most challenging types of counseling. Couples need help to rebuild trust, change problems that existed before the affair, and also to withstand the emotional roller coaster that often comes despite their best intentions. This type of rebuilding takes time and a high level of support for both partners.
Can relationships rebuild after a breach of trust? Yes they can. Relationships can actually become stronger and more purposeful as they rebuild. But both partners need a high level of commitment to make this work–and a willingness to be honest (even when it hurts) as they go forward. They also need to be ready to spend a challenging and difficult year rebuilding. Interested in learning more? Here are some books on relationships, including some recommended books on affairs.