Your relationship style directly impacts the type of relationship that you seek, and the types of things you’ll do to create it with your partner.  Think of your style as a colored lens through which you view close relationships.  The shade of the lens influences how you view and emotionally reach to your romantic relationship. This style influences the way you seek closeness and connection with your partner, and ultimately determines what feels right and comfortable to you in a relationship.

Relationship researchers and couples therapy DC experts recognize that each of the four relationship styles is defined by typical psychological and behavioral patterns.

Have you taken your Relationship Styles Assessment yet? We recommend that you take the Assessment now and then read on about each of the Styles.

In this post, I’ll describe the Wary relationship style pattern.

In previous posts on the District Psychotherapy Associates blog, I described the Trusting style and Dr. Clemson wrote about the Brooding  and Independent styles.

Individuals who have a Wary relationship style often feel as though they could take or leave a close relationship. For them, it’s easy to see both the up side and down side of having a partner, and they are not always sure that it’s worth it. While the companionship of a relationship is appealing to some degree, the idea of having a co-dependent relationship with a partner is not particularly tempting.

In our couples counseling DC practice, we observe individuals who have the Wary style struggle to decide if they want to be close to someone.  They tend to go back and forth between wanting the relationship and then rejecting the possibility.  We frequently help sort out the confusion and uncertainty that results.

Some of this back and forth results from a tendency to carefully examine both partners for sources of current and future trouble in a relationship.   The Wary individual is so attuned to both himself and his partner that it can be frustrating and exceedingly difficult to know how to fix problems in relationship. Relationships will feel baffling to someone with this style because of how overwhelmingly complex they seem.

The Wary relationship style is a style of contrasts. If this is your relationship style, you’re likely hesitant to take relationships to the next level of intimacy.  It’s not that you don’t want a relationship, because at times you do keenly feel a tug for one.  In many ways this style is a mix of the Brooding and Independent styles.  Reading further about them will help you to understand how you stand somewhere between those two.

Understanding which of the four styles you have will help you understand why you tend to react in similar ways in different relationships, and sometimes even pick the same type of person again even when you know it won’t work.

We hope this series of posts on The Four Relationship Styles has been of help. Please contact us if you’d like to talk to someone about your own style or relationship.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

Not sure about your own style?  Take our free self-assessment here.

Your relationship style directly impacts the type of relationship that you seek, and the types of things you’ll do to create it with your partner.  Think of your style as a colored lens through which you view close relationships.  The shade of the lens influences how you view and emotionally reach to your romantic relationship. This style influences the way you seek closeness and connection with your partner, and ultimately determines what feels right and comfortable to you in a relationship.

Relationship researchers and marriage counseling DC therapists recognize that each of the four relationship styles is defined by typical psychological and behavioral patterns.

Have you taken your Relationship Styles Assessment yet? We recommend that you take the Assessment now and then read on about each of the Styles.

In this post, I’ll describe the Independent relationship style pattern.

Dr Brenner described the Trusting and I wrote about the Brooding styles in two previous posts. The last of the four styles, Wary, will be described in the next posting on the District Psychotherapy Associates blog.

Individuals who have an Independent relationship style are most likely comfortable in relationships with a great deal of autonomy and independence. Their independent nature reflects an ability to look inward for comfort and reassurance during stressful moments in life. Their preference is to be self-sufficient and avoid dependence on others. They are uncomfortable having others dependent on them as well.

While they may see their independence as a source of pride, in relationships this may become problematic.   Typically, individuals with an independent relationship style do not seek much intimacy with their partners.

In our couples counseling DC practice we find that partners of Independent style individuals often construe that independent nature as aloof, distant, or emotionally unavailable.

When relationship difficulties arise, they may be more likely to withdraw from their partner and hide or suppress their feelings. In the worst of times, they may question the value of being in a relationship at all, feeling that it is not worth the effort.

The Independent relationship style may seem a bit unbalanced in the area of emotional expression. However, if this is your relationship style, your relatively low need for emotional support and reassurance may be refreshing to your partner. Your partners may perceive you as “low maintenance” in relationships and may appreciate what they see as your easy relationship style.

Understanding which of the four styles you have will help you understand why you tend to react in similar ways in different relationships, and sometimes even pick the same type of person again when you know it won’t work.

Until next time,

Dr. Keith Clemson

Not sure about your own style?  Take our free self-assessment here.

Your relationship style directly impacts the type of relationship that you seek, and the types of things you’ll do to create it with your partner.  Think of your style as a colored lens through which you view close relationships.  The shade of the lens influences how you view and emotionally reach to your romantic relationship. This style influences the way you seek closeness and connection with your partner, and ultimately determines what feels right and comfortable to you in a relationship.

Relationship researchers and couples counseling therapists recognize that each of the four relationship styles is defined by typical psychological and behavioral patterns.

Have you taken your Relationship Styles Assessment yet? We recommend that you take the Assessment now and then read on about each of the Styles.

In this post, I’ll describe the Brooding relationship style pattern.

Dr. Brenner described the Trusting relationship style in a previous posting, and you can learn about the next two styles – Independent and Wary – in each of the next two postings on the District Psychotherapy Associates blog.

Individuals who have a Brooding style tend to desire a high level of emotional intimacy. They ideally seek out partners who are extraordinarily responsive to their relationship needs. They seek physical closeness with their partners and prefer to spend considerable amounts of time together rather than apart. They may well choose to have few social interactions with others outside their primary relationship.

In our couples counseling DC practice we find that partners who have a Brooding style will blame themselves when they are having difficulties and feeling disconnected in the relationship. They tend to personalize the problems and have trouble seeing them as shared.

They may attempt to regain a sense of togetherness or connection by seeking constant reassurance and approval from their partner.   Unable to view the problems as a temporary and inevitable part of a relationship, they may even act impulsively in an attempt to regain a sense of connection with their partner.

The Brooding relationship style is one of the more emotionally expressive of the 4 styles. If this is your way of relating in a relationship, you will probably find complimentary and satisfying relationships with similar types of individuals who can meet your level of expressiveness and readily reciprocate in a relationship.

Understanding which of the four styles you have will help you understand why you tend to react in similar ways in different relationships, and sometimes even pick the same type of person again and again, even when it hasn’t worked in the past.

Until next time,

Dr. Keith Clemson

Not sure about your own style? Take our free self-assessment here.

“Your relationship style directly impacts the type of relationship that you seek, and the types of things you’ll do to create it with your partner.  Think of your style as a colored lens through which you view close relationships.  The shade of the lens influences how you view and emotionally reach to your romantic relationship. This style influences the way you seek closeness and connection with your partner, and ultimately determines what feels right and comfortable to you in a relationship.

Relationship researchers and couples counseling therapists recognize that each of the four relationship styles is defined by typical psychological and behavioral patterns.

Have you taken your Relationship Styles Assessment yet? We recommend that you take the Assessment now and then read on about each of the Styles.

In this post, I’ll describe the Trusting relationship style pattern.

You can learn about the three other styles – Brooding, Independent, and Wary -  in each of the next three postings on the District Psychotherapy Associates blog.

Individuals whose style is Trusting tend to be comfortable in a relationship that balances emotional closeness and independence. Think of a relationship as a see-saw with closeness on one end and independence on the other. If your style is Trusting, you’ll most likely seek balance by sitting right in the middle.

In our couples counseling DC practice we find that partners with a Trusting style see their relationships as their primary psychological and emotional touchstone.  That means that when they are upset they reach out to their partner for emotional closeness and trust that the partner will consistently be open and responsive.

Further, when they are having relationship difficulties, their approach is usually straightforward, expecting that problems will be solved and that their partner will be fair and compassionate.  They are comfortable expressing their emotions and needs, and can be flexible in negotiating solutions with their partner. They choose to not dwell on the problems for very long.

The Trusting relationship style is a balanced style and people with it exhibit confidence and faith in their partners. If this is your relationship style, you’ll feel comfortable with a partner who depends on you and expects that you’ll be responsive to their needs. You’ll also be adaptable to a partner who occasionally needs some amount of distance and time away.

Understanding which of the four styles you have will help you understand why you tend to react in similar ways in different relationships, and sometimes even pick the same type of person again even when it hasn’t worked in the past.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

Not sure about your own style?  Take our free Relationship Styles self-assessment here.

And if you think that YOU don’t have any buttons to press, wait until you’re in the middle of a heated argument with your partner. Case in point: when trying to be reasonable and talk something out, how many times have you lost control and heard unplanned and potentially destructive words come from your mouth?  My guess is probably more than once.  In our marriage therapy DC practice we often see examples of this in couples counseling.

Why are relationships so emotionally challenging?

One of the many theories that makes sense to relationship therapists, and has much scientific backing is attachment theory.

In a nutshell, the relationships we form as infants and children with our primary caregivers are thought to influence the romantic relationships we form later in life. Our relationships as adults are not predetermined by how we were raised.  Rather, our childhood experiences  leave us with a type of colored lens through which we view close relationships.  We still see what is going on, but the way we process is influenced by a particular perspective.

How can I understand my own reactions to my partner?

You don’t need a degree in psychology or be a couples counseling expert to better understand your own patterns in relationships. With just a bit of self-assessment you’ll understand your own style of relating, and recognize the patterns in how you react in romantic relationships.

There are four basic styles of relating to romantic partners. Each style is associated with a relatively distinct pattern of seeking closeness with a partner.

Being aware of your relationship style and the emotional, psychological, and behavior patterns that accompany it can help you understand the dynamics  of  relationships, particularly when your partner has a different style.  When things get emotionally charged, recognition of the different styles can help moderate your reactions.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

PS Watch for four upcoming posts on couples counseling. They will detail the 4 different relationship styles. Curious about your own style? Take our free Relationship Style Assessment today.

Disappointment is inevitable. When things don’t go as planned it is natural to feel let down and discouraged, even sad and angry.   After investing significant energy, time, or anticipation, a failure to achieve an outcome will result in disappointment.

Most often this feeling disappears in time, as you balance successes with the occasional failure.  However, if the experience of failure becomes a pattern – when it seems that nothing is going the way you want – the immediate feelings that come with disappointment may seem overwhelming. Coping with these emotions can be challenging for many people and therapy can help.

Persistent disappointment has lasting, negative consequences.

Here are two negative reactions to watch out for:

Reaction #1: Everything is Crap.

The experience of a significant disappointment often leads to a feeling that nothing is good anymore. Even the thing that we had wished for — a new job, a fitter body, being more organized, simply handling other life changes – lose value. If this feeling spreads beyond the original disappointment a more extreme attitude might develop, where “everything is crap.”

Reaction #2: Why Bother?

Persistent disappointments can lead to something that psychologists refer to as learned helplessness. If experience many failures to control situations or to achieve desired outcomes, we begin to perceive ourselves as ineffective and unable to help ourselves. That is, all motivation to strive and improve evaporates. Increasingly we believe that our actions won’t make a difference anyway. It ends up being a kind of self-sabotage and that is not a good thing.

 There’s No Easy Way Around Disappointment.

If either, or both, of these reactions sound familiar, you may be struggling with persistent disappointment in your own life.

Disappointment can be a powerful experience and negatively influence your feelings of confidence and well being.

Therapy can be useful to reprocess disappointment and deal with the emotional fallout that comes with it. Often that will lessen and reverse the lasting consequences that can come from handling disappointment.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

While on the surface it seems quite puzzling, when I dig deeper I often find that the explanation for these career difficulties is career match or, more accurately, career mismatch.

Career Mismatch

A meaningful and engaging career hinges on the degree to which there is a good match between a person and what she or he does. The general idea is that the closer the career match, the better the outcomes.  Bad matches lead to more negatives, like dissatisfaction, disengagement, boredom and burnout.

Mismatching comes in many forms. Here are some of the more common:

1 – Values Mismatch.

Many people come to recognize that their career feels all wrong, as if they are wearing clothes made for someone very different. One of the main reasons for this is that personal values are  not being met in a career. For instance, if autonomy is a very important value to you, there’s a very good chance you’re going to be miserable  in a situation with someone constantly looking over your shoulder,.

2 – Work Environment/Culture Mismatch.

This type of mismatch can either be subtle or so in your face you can’t avoid it. Largely, this has to do with how much you  prefer to interact with your co-workers and in what capacity. An example of this mismatch is that a highly extroverted person is going to feel stifled and disconnected in a workplace that values quiet, independent work projects.

3 – Skills Mismatch.

This is a tricky one. Often people will describe being under or over qualified for a given job, but this feeling may be  tied to one of the above types of mismatch. Most people are able to rise to the occasion or can figure out a way to contribute when they feel a part of something. When you don’t feel connected to what you do, you disengage and often place blame on a skills mismatch. To be sure, there are times when skill sets are very poorly matched, but it’s useful to first examine how other types of mismatch might be at play.

When helping people to improve their careers or to pick a more suitable one, I frequently focus first on these career match elements.  I’ve found in my career counseling DC practice that these elements are key to finding and developing a meaningful and satisfying work life.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

When you hear the phrase “self-perception” you might first think of how you see yourself in a mirror. That is part of the story, but for now let’s think about it as a pair of colored lenses through which you think about and evaluate yourself.

Pair 1: The emotional lenses.

Emotional moods influence how we see ourselves. If you’re sad and lonely, you’ll tend to readily ‘see’ the sorrow and isolation in your life. If you’re angry, you’ll almost instantly find things in life that piss you off even more. That is how this pair of lenses work.

Pair 2: The judgment lenses.

The values by which we live and deal with life change also serve as the standards by which we judge ourselves. This is reflected in statements such as “I don’t deserve to have that in my life.” or “If I were a better person, I’d be able to have that.”

Do Self-Perception Lenses Reveal the Truth?

Not quite. We all tend to trust our self-perception as the “truth”. 

How often do you really stop and think about how you are seeing yourself? Very likely there are kernels of truth in self-perception, but emotion and judgment are key elements of how self-perception is skewed and warped.

Take The Lenses Off.

Start by challenging the perceptions that you have of yourself. When you’ve made an important statement about who you are as a person, evaluate your mood and recognize how that influenced the way you see yourself. Contrary to what the most logical among us would like to believe, it’s impossible to separate emotion from our thinking. Our brain simply does not work that way. A computer, yes. A human brain, no.

Secondly, think about your most cherished values in life and contemplate how they impact your thoughts about how deserving you are.  Whether through the process of personal counseling with a therapy guide, or on your own, that is a good place to begin to uncover how judgment impacts self-perception.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner

You are not alone — in fact, most couples I see in couples counseling have one or two issues that keep coming up from time to time.

Haven’t We Had This Argument Before?

Typically, arguments with a “here we go again” quality indicate that what you and your partner are arguing about is far more important than who did not take out the garbage. Underneath these arguments you and/or your partner are arguing about deep hurt in the relationship such as:

• How do you feel about me? (Feeling unacknowledged, dismissed, unloved, disrespected)
• Do you value me in this relationship? (Feelings of worthlessness, not good enough, rejection)
• Feelings of loneliness, isolation or abandonment.

3 Ideas From Couples Counseling To Bring You Back From The Brink

When you and your partner find yourselves locked in one of these arguments, attempt to withhold your anger or resentment and try to do one of the following:

1. Stop the argument. Tell your partner “Can we stop here. It feels like we are hurting each other. What is this really about?”
2. Take a moment to hear hurt in your partner’s anger or defensiveness. If you don’t understand how a comment such as you never take out the garbage can make your partner angry or defensive, ask him/her what happened when you made that comment because he/she seemed hurt.
3. Take a time-out. If the argument is too heated and both of you are unable to calm down, take some time to de-escalate, but make sure you let the other know that it is important to you to come back and talk later when you are more calm. When you feel like talking, approach your partner with an apology such as, “When I said you never take out the garbage it must have made you feel that I don’t acknowledge all the other things you contribute to our relationship and I’m sorry.” Take time later to really understand and hear your partner.

When each partner in the couple feels heard and understood by the other, your defensiveness and anger will subside and both of you will be in a better place to talk about solutions to the problem that started the disagreement.

Until next time,

Dr. Keith Clemson

Couples counseling can help you and your partner identify and address sexual desire problems. Our psychologists and therapists at District Psychotherapy Associates in DC, understand these concerns and can offer a safe place for you and your partner to explore and work through these important issues.

So why is it so easy to beat yourself up? It comes from self-sabotage.

Self-Sabotage Is  Real

Though it’s easy to discount the power of self-sabotage I’ve seen it undo years of progress in just a few moments. For example, a person who has carefully worked to maintain sobriety for many months after counseling can turn her life upside down in a span of 30 seconds with just one drink. Before she had that drink she’d likely tell you that there’s no such thing as self-sabotage. After the hangover wears off, she’ll very likely tell you that it’s real.

Self-Sabotage Is Everywhere

Self-sabotage is sneaky. It’s like that metaphor that a fish doesn’t realize it’s in water because it is surrounded by water. It works the same way for self-sabotaging thoughts and emotional reactions. They are so commonplace you don’t even notice them. Self-sabotaging thoughts pervade our thinking and guide our emotional reactions in such a way as to thwart our best attempts to make changes for the better.

So what drives self-sabotage? It boils down to fear.

There are many forms, but two of the more prevalent forms I encounter when helping people address this issue with counseling are fear of failure and fear of success. Both those fears, though at opposite ends of the spectrum, utilize self-sabotage to increase the likelihood that positive life change does not last.

As with much of the work that my colleagues and I do as DC psychologists, knowledge about self-sabotage and its impact really is half the battle:

• Recognize that it is real.
• Know that it’s an integral part of most of our lives.
• Understand that it is motivated by fear.

Once armed with this knowledge, you can begin to neutralize self-sabotage and remove it from your life.

Until next time,

Dr. Brad Brenner