Relationships:
Tips, tools, and Perspectives For Relationships of Every Kind

Say the word "relationship" and most people think of the primary love relationship between partners.

But we all know that relationships is a much deeper topic than that. There is the parent child relationship, which causes challenge, stress and growth for parents and children of all ages. There are sibling relationships, sometimes fraught with the kind of rivalry and drama that daytime TV dreams of cooking up. There are relationships at work, relationships with friends, relationships with extended family, and relationships with community that affect the ways in which we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us.

Relationships are holistic: work on one, you're working them all. The skills and feedback that you gain from doing the hard and necessary work of relating strengthens the Self. Some of the most important relationship work that can be done is setting boundaries with others. Conversely, there is much important work to be done in the realm of letting others in. We usually have a mix of both that we are working on--does this sound familiar? It's the work of being human. Some of us find that we are rigid and alone, yet scared to let others in, and others find that we are often getting trampled on or roped into things we didn't really want. Most of us experience both. The work of self awareness is to be conscious of what your own boundaries are so that you can choose the appropriate ways to let others in at the appropriate levels.

Relationships are one of the most rewarding things on the planet, and equally one of the most frustrating! One of my favorite things about being a relationship therapist is that someone will come into therapy convinced that their problem is the other person. But then what unravels is a closer examination of Self, that produces more self awareness, and a deeper level of taking responsibility for their own behavior, thoughts, and emotional expressive choices. It's hard, because our feelings are valid. But we have a lot of trouble expressing them, and end up being pretty clumsy with each other as a result. That's why communication in relationships is one of the main things you will work on in therapy, both individual and couple/conjoint. The benefit to you of working to improve communication and harmony in your relationships is that it forces you to grow up. Because a lot of our relationship deficiencies were passed down to us by dysfunction in childhood, a lot of those deficiencies get acted out by us being childish. Examining relationships allows you to use your childish behavior as a way in to heal some of those childhood issues, and switching gears towards being an adult in the here-and-now with others.

In these pages you will find information about all kinds of processes in all kinds of relationships. It is my hope to educate on our differences in a knowledgeable and non-judgmental way, while always attempting to point out our similarities.


The primary love relationship