Blogs
September Blogs
Families all have their own recipe of how they with each other. The core ingredient in the attachment recipe is not the actual problem, but it’s how we deal with each other in moments of distress or conflict. Your partner will respond to you based on the recipe that they learned throughout their childhood and how they were taught to manage the fight or flight response in the presence of vulnerability. These recipe patterns we all experience can go up to three generations deep, so they are deeply rooted within our interactions. However, it is important to know that new recipe patterns can grow and adapt as we establish relationships with our partners.
In times of conflict and distress, it’s important to know that talking does not decrease the stress response. Not at first at least. We need to use our bodies, not our words in these stressful moments. Our bodies can be known as a walking pharmacy, they help us to change stress responses in real time. It may seem like a difficult thing to do, but being able to physically connect in times of distress is one of the best things you can do to relieve the situation. At least 8 seconds of touch can help us to co-regulate with our partner and help to immediately calm our bodies down.
Saslow, L. R., McCoy, S., van der Löwe, I., Cosley, B., Vartan, A., Oveis, C., ... & Epel, E. S. (2014). Speaking under pressure: Low linguistic complexity is linked to high physiological and emotional stress reactivity. Psychophysiology, 51(3), 257-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12171
Turner, J. G., Clark, A. J., Gauthier, D. K., & Williams, M. (1998). The effect of therapeutic touch on pain and anxiety in burn patients. Journal of advanced nursing, 28(1), 10-20. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.1998.00770.x
Safe physical proximity is such an important concept when it comes to relational conflict. One of the best, core conflict resolution skills to have is trusting physical connection in the presence of distress. We must calm the body to provide connection during the conflict. However, we need to remember to do this safely. Conflict and distress can be very activating and frustrating, and may feel like unsafe physical connection is the only physical connection available. It is not and should never be what we resort to. It can be hard to remember to safely connect in a physical manner during the distress, but even the most simple gestures (hand holding, hand on the shoulder, rubbing the back, etc.) will be helpful
Holt-Lunstad, J., Birmingham, W. A., & Light, K. C. (2008). Influence of a “warm touch” support enhancement intervention among married couples on ambulatory blood pressure, oxytocin, alpha amylase, and cortisol. Psychosomatic medicine, 70(9), 976-985. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e318187aef7
Ditzen, B., Germann, J., Meuwly, N., Bradbury, T. N., Bodenmann, G., & Heinrichs, M. (2019). Intimacy as related to cortisol reactivity and recovery in couples undergoing psychosocial stress. Psychosomatic medicine, 81(1), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000633
There are three main concepts for transitioning through stress: calming the body>to prime your brain>to change your mind. Calming your body helps activate different neural networks to change your experience of the conflict. Although we are physically responsible for calming our own body, we have the ability to calm our bodies with our partner through safe physical proximity. Once our bodies are calm, we can move onto the next two concepts of priming the brain and changing the mind. However, we aren’t able to jump into those concepts without having a calm body first. This can be why it is so much more helpful to focus on calming our bodies during conflict instead of jumping straight to verbal actions.
October Blogs
Everyone experiences “the storm” part of relationships, this is typically any sort of conflict or distress. Once the storm happens, we usually go into the “brewing” phase where we become frustrated and angry about the situation. This “brewing” phase is when relationship burnout can happen. Primary stress is stress related to only ourselves, secondary stress is related to those around us and their stress. Primary and secondary stress will build conjointly, but “brewing” can occur more when secondary stress is high. In the absence of connection, the storm/conflict can’t fully offload. Unfortunately, the brain gets better at brewing the more it does it. Without connection, different storms can collide, and roll back to brewing instead of moving on to the “raining” phase.
Thompson, A., & Bolger, N. (1999). Emotional transmission in couples under stress. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38-48. https://doi.org/10.2307/353881
Ditzen, B., Hoppmann, C., & Klumb, P. (2008). Positive couple interactions and daily cortisol: On the stress-protecting role of intimacy. Psychosomatic medicine, 70(8), 883-889. https://doi.org/10.1002/art.1790040203
Blue skies in a relationship are a result of a cleared out storm. They are not a result of a lack of a storm. In order to make it through the storm and reach blue skies, partners need to lead one another through the stages of the storm. Being able to take turns leading one another is a sign of healthy attachment and will allow for the maneuvering of storms to be much easier in the partnership. Resilience is being able to be determined through the flow of the storm with each other, not just at the end of the storm. It is also important to recognize and celebrate when we are able to make it through storms with resilience.
One of the most important things you can do while experiencing a storm of conflict or distress with your partner, is to tune in and move your position to them. Instead of focusing on how frustrating the context of the situation might be, we need to tune into the main emotion of the situation instead. For example, if your partner is sad and frustrated about you not making it home on time for dinner, you need to tune into the sadness and frustration, not the context of not making it home on time. Whichever partner tunes into the emotion instead of context can lead and have more power in the situation. Although it can be difficult to not defend ourselves or excuse our actions in certain situations, it will be more helpful in every storm to tune into the emotions in order to make it through.
Timulak, L. (2015). Transforming emotional pain in psychotherapy: An emotion-focused approach. Routledge.
Greenberg, L. S. (2004). Emotion–focused therapy. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy: An International Journal of Theory & Practice, 11(1), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.388
Something that is amazing about partnership is that you and me become we. We is very powerful to the brain and can be much more comforting than “I”, “me”, etc. Essentially using “we” is like pushing in the clutch on a car so that the brain can shift gears. Additionally, using “we” and having a sense of “we” activates the calming centers of the brain so the stress wave can transition through instead of shutting down. This can be extremely helpful when we may be experiencing secondary stress from our partner and knowing that “we” can make it through the situation and ride the wave of stress together.
November Blogs
Multimodality is a very important concept when it comes to highlighting positive experiences. Being able to engage all of our five senses with an experience will help to activate a larger brain map around the memory. This can help us to have the memory be more accessible and clear. Our brains have a recipe for memory storage that is very similar to a stage. It can’t track everything in the theater, but it can track what is on center stage. Honing into any positive sight, sound, sensation/texture, taste, and smell can bring the positive from the sidelines/backstage up to the center stage of our mind. The more positive memories we are able to bring to center stage by using multimodality, the better memory we are going to have of those experiences.
With negative and especially traumatic experiences, the brain naturally hones into multimodality, intensity, personal relevance, duration, and novelty. This can be why traumatic experiences can be so easy to remember or become so triggering. These five aspects can create a “light-bulb memory” attached to the traumatic experience, which is a detailed picture of the memory in the mind. This is often what gets stuck in our gut, and needs to be digested. We must learn to digest the negative experiences and absorb the positive experiences. Using multimodality, intensity, personal relevance, duration, and novelty within our positive experiences can help us to hold onto the memories and feelings of those positive experiences.
Conway, M. (2013). Flashbulb memories. Psychology Press.
In order to help us modify experiences, we need to focus on understanding the weight of positive vs. negative interactions. The golden standard is that there is a 5:1 ratio, five positive interactions for every negative interaction. However, it sometimes may seem that that only one positive interaction has the same impact as 5 negative interactions. In order to change the ratio, we must change the weight of the positive interactions.
Gottman, J. M., Coan, J., Carrere, S., & Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 5-22. https://doi.org/10.2307/353438
Ideally, we want to be able to get in the driver’s seat of our memory storage. This is a helpful part in the process of being able to calm the body, to prime the brain, to change the mind. Memories tend to trend over time. A positive memory and a positive experience can result in more positive memory. A negative memory and a positive experience can result in less negative memory. A negative memory and a negative experience can result in more negative memory. This is all based on how the memory was last stored and the experience of the memory when it is pulled up again. Once we are able to play a part in managing these memories and experiences together, we will be able to stay in the driver’s seat of memory storage.
Hanson, R. (2013). Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. Harmony Books
Hanson, R.H. & Mendius, (2009). Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, & Wisdom. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. p.
December Blogs
Pain is experienced in layers. First we experience primary pain, or the original pain experience (i.e. the pain we feel when we cut our finger, stub our toe, etc.). After that, we experience what is called secondary pain, which is our body’s response to the pain. Naturally our body tends to amplify the pain, activating the fight or flight response, and becoming frustrated at the pain. One of the most important things we can do is have empathy towards our pain. As we have empathy, our parasympathetic response is activated, which helps to decrease the secondary pain. Specifically, this parasympathetic activation is through the vagus nerve.
