Thursday, December 19, 2019

Expressing gratitude in marital and family life is important for relationship satisfaction.


How important is the expression of gratitude in marital satisfaction? Turns out it is important.

As a family therapist, I find that gratitude is not only important between marital partners but between parents and children and between siblings as well.

It is hard for gratitude to become a family value expressed in all relationships in a family if it is not modeled first between the marital partners.

Be sure to express appreciation and gratitude for the small acts engaged in in your relationship and family life. It is a skill which becomes more natural with practice.

For more click here.

McNulty, James K.,Dugas, Alexander
McNulty, J. K., & Dugas, A. (2019). A dyadic perspective on gratitude sheds light on both its benefits and its costs: Evidence that low gratitude acts as a “weak link”. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(7), 876–881. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000533
Research suggests gratitude benefits close relationships. 
However, relationships involve 2 people, and the interpersonal implications of mismatches in gratitude remain unclear. Is it sufficient for 1 partner to be high in gratitude, or does low gratitude in at least 1 partner act as a “weak link” that disrupts both partners’ relational well-being? 
We asked both members of 120 newlywed couples to report their tendencies to feel and express gratitude for their partner every year for 2 years and their marital satisfaction every 4 months for 3 years. 
Initial levels of own and partner gratitude interacted to predict initial levels of marital satisfaction and changes in marital satisfaction over time. 
Although own and partner gratitude were associated with higher levels of initial marital satisfaction when both spouses were high in gratitude, own and partner gratitude were unassociated with initial satisfaction if either spouse was low in gratitude. 
Further, gratitude was associated with more stable marital satisfaction when both partners were high in gratitude, partner gratitude was unassociated with changes in satisfaction when own gratitude was low and own gratitude was associated with steeper declines in satisfaction when partner gratitude was low. In fact, although initial gratitude was positively associated with marital satisfaction 3 years later if both spouses were high in gratitude, own initial gratitude was negatively associated with later satisfaction when partner gratitude was relatively low. 
These findings suggest low gratitude in one partner acts as a weak link that is sufficient to disrupt both partners’ relationship satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Project based learners are life long learners.



Project based learning seems to be superior on many indicators to traditional schooling. Learning the process and skills of PBL make a person a life long learner with enhanced satisfaction and fulfillment. Unfortunately, many people leave traditional schooling with no motivation or skills for life long learning. How about you?

Monday, November 18, 2019

Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs



Another wonderful model which helps people understand what makes them tick. This model is always in the back of my mind when I meet people and consider what their needs are and what primarily motivates them in their lives.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Erik Erikson's eigh stages of human development



Erikson's model is a basic part of every human services professional's graduate program. It's basic framework helps the practitioner orient themselves at a very general level to the basic developmental task of the client.

Failure to achieve a developmental task creates variable symptoms the most common of which are depression and anxiety. One of the ways of thinking about good psychotherapy is to consider the ways in which pursuit of developmental achievements can be nurtured.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Is the current impeachment process a culmination of centuries of American genocide and racism?


On 11/14/19 I sent this letter to my colleagues regarding the impeachment process we are currently witnessing.

Dear Collegues

I have been thinking about the current morality play being performed in Washington for the entertainment of the masses from many perspectives.

The spectacle and drama is great for the media outlets who get to monetize, the public fascination with the gladitorial combat taking place in the Capitol similar to the spectacle depicted in Hunger Games.

The prime character of Donald Trump who is depicted both as a bully and as a victim triangles would be rescuers and allies into the conflicted drama with people cast as perpetrators of violence who are victimizers. We are seeing domestic violence depicted on a macro scale in our national family.

If we were to call the police in, to provide structure and constraint on the parties engaged to prevent further violence and destruction and insure safety, from where would they come?

In a democracy, based on the idea of self governance, this structure and constraint supposedly comes from the people so governed to regulate themselves because there is no "deus ex machina" who will come from external places to save us. We must save ourselves or perish.

Are Americans up to the task?

What role, if any, do we as psychotherapists have to play, in ameliorating these dysfunctional dynamics in our national family?

First, according to Bowen theory of emotional systems, the therapist must have a highly developed sense of a differentiated self. The therapist must be a nonanxiouis presence in the face of emtional arousal. We can't help anyone else if we are not okay ourselves.

Second, according to Bowen Theory we attempt to detriangle the triangles. How do we help the Triumpian enablers quell their anxiety? Anxious people often attack to defend themselves. This is an emotional process not a rational one. You cannot convince, rationally, hurting people that they are not hurting. The Repbulican defenders/enablers of Trumpism are hurting and fighting to protect their egos. Will further attack help them or only make them more desperate and venemous? As therapists we, more than anyone, know the answer to this.

Third, working to change the form of the current government does not get to the root of the problem which lays in deep seated anxiety over social change which gave rise to Trumpism to begin with. Knowing that the current problems are the result of a multi-generational transmission process which began with the American Indian genocide and the enslavement of Africans, we, in the current generation, must come to acknowledge and make amends for the racism, mysogeney upon which our nation was founded and which still fuels at an unconscious level so much of our current politics.

Fourth, as Ruby Sales, the public theologian says, "Ask first, where does it hurt." and then go from there.

Americans are hurting right now because of the reflection of ourselves we are seeing in our elected officials whom we put into office. Rather than blame them, we need to examine and understand what it is that we have done to ourselves.

In the end, I have faith that we will be okay. All it takes is a few good people to light the way. There are many good people among us we can count on.

Fred Rogers said that his mother told him that if he found himself in a crisis look for the helpers. Who are the helpers you ask? Find a mirror, look into it, and enjoy the image.

David G. Markham, LCSWR
Brockport, NY