Creating Relationship Emotional Safety
Creating Emotional Safety | Marriage Counseling
Couples that desire to have connection must learn to de-escalate marital conflict and create moments of emotional safety. To do this, both partners need to work together to restrict their negative dialogues and reduce their underlying insecurities.
Every relationship will have arguments and disagreements but they can learn how to avoid falling into anxious demands or numbing withdrawal. They both can learn how to repair splits in their marriage and create a deep loving bond. (more…)
Is Sexual Addiction Real?
Sexual Addiction Real Addiction?
Sexual Addiction Real Addiction?There are many different opinions and views about sexual addiction. As a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), I have been treating men that struggle with sexual compulsive behaviors for over 15 years. I tell my clients in the first session that the real issue is not the need for more sex but rather a desire for safe connection. (more…)
Keys To Strengthening Attachment Bonds
Strengthening Attachment Bond
The keys to strengthening an attachment bond are being accessible, responsive, and engaged (A.R.E.) to your partner. An attachment bond provides a deep feeling of safety and security. It’s felt deep down when you are with your partner. This is more than just a feeling but rather a consistent felt-experience of confidence that your partner will there there if you’re in need and you know that he or she will respond to your specific needs. (more…)
Ten Positive Marriage Changes
Relationship Strengthening Ideas
Relationship Strengthening IdeasAs a couples counselor in Round Rock Texas, I recommend to my clients changing little daily habits can make a big difference in how you feel about your marriage and most importantly, how you behave toward your spouse. (more…)
Identifying Negative Relationship Cycles
Negative Relationship Cycles
When I work with couples in counseling, I start off by helping both partners understand the damaging dance that they get into, what moves each into their part of the negative dance, and how each partner’s moves trigger to escalate the cycle further. When each partner can be more conscious of their negative steps, we focus underneath the destructive content to learn more about what each are really trying to communicate. (more…)Should The Betraying Spouse Disclose or Not?
Should I or Shouldn’t I Share?
Most partners of sex addicts first learn about an addict’s sexual behaviors by accident—a coworker of the sex addict tells her that her spouse is having an affair, she accidentally discovers emails on his phone to prostitutes or acting out partners, or she finds pornography on the home computer. (more…)
Partners Of Sex Addicts Betrayal Trauma
Betrayal Trauma = PTSD
Betrayal Trauma = PTSDWhen the Sex Addict’s betrayal comes to light through disclosure the impact can cause an attachment injury, in which the relationship represents a source of danger rather than a safe place to go for emotional support. In a relationship with betrayal, the attachment bond is broken and the offended party suffers what is often called relational trauma. (more…)
Sexual Addiction Recovery Plan
Sexual Addiction Recovery
Sexual Addiction RecoveryRecovering from sexual addiction takes work and a determination to lean into the pain rather than returning to the addiction. Addiction is about numbing, medicating, avoiding, escaping, and denying reality at all cost. Therefore, recovery is about facing and experiencing reality at all cost. No matter the pain involved! You must work a Sexual Addiction Recovery Plan. (more…)
How Porn Rewires The Brain
Porn Rewires The Brain
Porn Rewires The BrainOften I am asked, “What’s the big deal with viewing porn? Everyone does it.” I answer this question by communicating how viewing pornography rewires the brain.
To begin, we must understand how our brains to learn quickly through repetition. Watch a infant begin to walk and you will see how his/her brain learns through repeated attempts, failure, learning, and eventually success. (more…)
Sex Addict’s Family System
Rigid/Disengaged Family System
When I work with men that struggle with sexual addiction, one of the first things we will do is look at his family-of-origin. Often, I find a family system characterized as rigid and disengaged.
A leading researcher in the field of sexual addiction, Dr. Patrick Carnes, found that 77% of men and women who report as struggling with sexual addiction were raised in a rigid family and 87% report coming from a disengaged or disconnected family. (more…)