Reflective Listening Cheat Sheet

Throughout my training as a couple and family therapist I have learned the importance of getting people to talk to each other.  As we start in therapy most people typically talk about each other through the therapist. It seems to me that this is triangulation at its heart--though often a necessary part of the process; sometimes the relationship is just too volatile to allow deep emotions to be expressed to each other without a safe mediator between them (a therapist).

One of the tools that I have learned to get people to talk to each other is to do highly structured exercise.  It can be really difficult to just jump into reflective listening, so I have a cheat sheet that I have used with great success.  It helps in session and some even have success with it outside of session in their own "couch sessions."

Basically it is a fill in the blank exercise:

When _______________________________ I feel/think/_______________________________.

When _______________________________You feel/think_____________________________.


You can see the file uploaded on google drive here or the picture below.

Re-reconsidering Sleepovers

Recently, I had a friend post an article about reconsidering sleepovers. (The article can be found here)  I think the article makes some great suggestions about things to consider when having a sleepover, but something about the way the article is written rubs me a little wrong.  I grew up with a few kids that were not allowed to have or come to sleepovers but also went to more than a few myself.  I don't think one way or the other is "the right answer" for all people.  

My biggest concern with the article is that I get the feeling it is saying it's only safe to be at home--no one else is be trusted.  The article cites an article from the New York Times that reports only 8% of children are abused by strangers (and my understanding of this in the article is to not let your kids be alone with friends at their homes).  However, either article fails to acknowledge that most abuse happens within the child's own home. By family members. 

What are your thoughts?

Family Drawings

Throughout therapy family-of-origin issues (FOO) often arise and are often a source of conflict for couples.  One of the ways in which I like to address this topic is to ask clients to draw pictures of and discuss their families.  As an introduction to boundaries and bottom lines I like to introduce open and closed family systems to begin the process of reflection about appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

Every family system has a method by which it operates--this system has in impact on the development of the family members.  Though family systems can be very complex it is sometimes helpful to break them down into two types: open and closed.

Families are not always only open or only closed--many times families vary between the two.  Characteristics of OPEN families are:
1.  The family is flexible--change is welcome
2.  Feelings are allowed and shared
3.  Individual differences are allowed and encourages
4.  Mistakes are disciplined and forgiven
5.  Family and life roles are chosen by the individual
6. The family system serves/exists for its members
7.  The family supports and develops the individual

Characteristics of CLOSED families are:
1.  The family is rigid and secretive
2.  The family controls which feelings are allowed.
3.  Individual identity is lost in the family
4.  Mistakes are punished, judged, and shamed
5.  Family roles are assigned by the family
6.  The individual serves or exists for the family
7.  The family is more important than the individual



Note--I think some of these definitions are ethnocentric (of White, European families) and more about being individualistic or pluralistic.  I think that the exercise is still a good one.  I have attached the entire worksheet and prompts for drawings about certain experiences.

John Gottman's Love Map

One of my favorite homework assignments for couples is to assign the couple to go on a date and complete the Gottman Love Map exercise.  Basically it is an intense getting to know you questionnaire that ranges from favorite color to favorite sex position.  The questionnaire can be found here.

These questions can help a couple to spend some quality time together engaged in learning about one another.  Ideally, the questions lead to further conversation--at the very least there are 62 ideas for conversation.

Love Maps 20 Questions Sex Game

Rather than the full 62 item survey, sometimes it is fun to make a game out of it with just 20 questions with a little focus on sex.  A link to the this as explained on the Gottman Blog is included below:

Relationship and Marriage Advice | The Gottman Relationship Blog: Love Maps 20 Questions Game


And another link is provided here, just in case:

What is love?

A long time ago (almost 10 years) I had a girlfriend during my first year of college.  I was taking my first Human Development class and learned about attachment theory and the differing styles of attachment.  Basically the short version is that kids develop beliefs about interaction based upon the way their parents treat them.  When children cry and caregivers respond the children learn that when in need someone will help. Children that are overly protected and not allowed to learn independence develop an anxious style that means they are unable to handle separation from a caregiver and constantly seek reassurance of love and support. 

Back to my girlfriend, when he parents dropped her off at college and finally said goodbye, she cried and ran after their car for over a mile.  When she told me this I was totally appalled at her obviously anxious attachment style and have often though that in relationships such displays of emotion were "red flags."

Let's fast-forward 10 years to this weekend.  I am now trained as a Marriage and Family Therapist and this attachment theory is a basis of my therapeutic works with individuals, couple, and families.  When saying goodbye to my wife she began to cry and my first thought was back to this girlfriend I had that ran after he parents.  My instinct was to be appalled, but something didn't feel right about that.  I realized all these years that I had understood attachment incorrectly. 

My wife's tears do not mean she feels my love will not exist when out of sight.  Her tears mean that she loves and cares for me.  She will miss me when I am gone and will be happy when I return.  While I am sad to be gone from her, it feels good to know that she misses me.  It feels good to know that she wants me to return.  I hope that she knows how much I look forward to returning to her again as well (and yes, I do tell her).

AAMFT Reflections

Today is the last day of the annual American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) that was in Portland, Oregon.  My wife and I enjoyed our trip to Charlotte, North Carolina last year that we named our daughter Charlotte!  No kid on the way this year, so I doubt we'll be naming one Portland, but I sure did enjoy this trip.  In a lot of ways I enjoyed this conference more, in some ways less.  The biggest thing that I enjoyed less was I didn't see any family and I've missed my wife and daughter.  The other reflections are:


1.  AAMFT made a shift to "go green" this year providing all handouts, evaluations, and conference guides primarily online (only on paper if you make a big stink about it).  While I totally support "going green" and am committed more than any of my family members would like to recycling, reducing, and reusing the "going green" effort at the conference seems less about helping the environment and more about helping the conference preparation--but this is a minor issue and not the focus of my point.  The point I have to make is that the AAMFT app that includes all useful conference information is not as easy as having a paper guide that is huge.  Half the time the app doesn't work because it is frozen or stuck and needs to be reset--which I learned how to do finally.  The biggest problem was the app requires an internet connection (or phone signal) to provide any useful information about the schedule or location of sessions.  This works well at your hotel room, but barely down in the rooms of the conference.  Seems like the schedule and room list could be included in downloaded content.  The other huge deal is that the app is annoying to navigate.  Each page should have an Ipad-like square that can be clicked on at any time to open it rather than having a wheel to cycle through that after one use bugs out so that you must cycle through it blindly.  It seems that the same team that built the AAMFT website built the app.  I avoid using both at all cost due to the annoyance factor.
Also, the AAMFT team kept pushing the site m.aamft.org as a guide which was very useful, but not when the was no connection in the bowels of the conference center.

2.  I volunteered this year and loved it.  Conference registration was much cheaper and I met a lot of other MFT students in the process.  I would absolutely recommend other students to volunteer if they have the chance.  In addition to meeting students it helped me to meet members of the AAMFT board and presenters at the conference.

3.  It seems that the schedule of the conference was a little erratic.  Sometimes we'd have 3 hours for lunch, others only an hour.  I'm sure there were other meetings going on, but not available to the general population attending the conference.  Along with this schedule issue:  The AAMFT Showcase of accredited programs was on Thursday night (the first night) and the "Cutting-Edge" poster session was on Saturday (the last night) and each was only 1 hour long, but the unattended "fun night" is 4 hours long.  Each year it is difficult to kick people out of the Poster session and the AAMFT showcase because there are so many people wanting to stay longer than an hour.  Why not give these a little more time?  I know I have never had enough time in these--especially during the AAMFT showcase where each program has a booth that's easy to find.

4.  Along with the poster session, it seems like there were fewer posters and a lot more posters from Professors and fewer from students.  What's up with that?  Also calling them "cutting-edge" doesn't mean more people are interested because research bores most clinicians (that make up the majority of attendees).

5.  Along with this topic of most of the population being bored.  Why is this the case?  Why are the keynote speakers not more familiar with MFT fields research?  (Because they are not in the field)  Some of the keynote speakers even seemed to bore themselves to sleep while presenting.  A lot of the presentations are boring lecture-like classes of being at college where paying attention in class OR reading the text allow the same outcome as doing both. 

6.  Network!  Last year I met a few people, and most that I did meet left no lasting impression because I was too timid to ask more probing questions.  This year, I came to the conference with a purpose--I want to get into a PhD program and I want to meet as many people as possible.  So rather than just having lunch and dinner and talking with friends that I already know, I did my best to constantly be talking to new people.  It was great!  Through talking to so many people I have really gained some direction in my PhD quest that was largely nebulous before this weekend. I think the best example of the benefit of my networking was shown to me during today's seminar when a PhD student tracked my down because he had talked to someone else that I had met at this conference.  It was great to see my network referring people to me without having to make any effort.


In summary, I have loved this year's conference and can't wait for next year in Milwaukee! 

Suicide Bereavement: I'm feeling a little angry/mad today

I am doing my thesis on suicide bereavement.  Grief and suicide are both great passions of mine and so I have combined the two into the culminating work of my Master's degree.  I am under a little bit of pressure to ensure that I get it done in time to graduate--having a baby kinda threw a wrench into my grand scheme of things.

Today I have spent hour reading and re-reading my transcribed interviews and I feel a little angry.  Several weeks ago, I had an emotional breakdown while looking at the data.  I wrote a bit about it on my personal blog, located here.  While I do not imagine I will ever stop missing my brother, today I am a little mad at him. My last memory of him is a trip to Four Peaks mountain in Arizona...the same mountain where he later took his own life.  I don't remember much about the trip except that I pretended to sprain my ankle to come home early--and that I was scared.  One of the key factors in my brother's suicide was the abandonment and rejection he felt from his birth father (my mother's first husband).  One of his last comments to my mother was, "I hope Quintin's (that's me) trust doesn't get broken like mine was."

Well you know what, it was.  And he was the one that did it.  He was so obsessed with his own issues of abandonment and rejection that he abandoned and rejected his eight-year-old brother that worshiped him.