Family Counseling: Helicopter Parents Are Counterproductive

How do we know how to help our loved ones effectively? This is a common question that I see in my San Francisco and Pasadena family counseling practice. An interesting article that has addressed the problem of over involved helicopter parents was recently in the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/too-much-helicopter-parenting.html?_r=0].

Of course, American parents are very involved in the lives of their children. This involvement touches on scheduling play dates, helping with homework, and even in choosing college courses. However, several recent studies have suggested that too much help by helicopter parents can actually harm their children. One study found that the more money that parents spend on educating their child, the worse their child’s grades are. Another study found that the more involved parents are in choosing the details of college work such as selection of majors, the less satisfied that students feel with their lives.

The authors conclude that certain types of help prevent the child from receiving a sense of accountability for their own performance. Why should children spend a lot of time working hard, when their parents will always be around to solve their problems?

This helicopter help appears to be a general type of psychological phenomenon. Overbearing helicopter type helping tends to negatively affect virtually all relationships. The authors found in their own study regarding fitness goals in women found the same effects. They observed that women who thought a lot about how their spouse was helpful with health and fitness goals spent less time pursuing these goals.

This is not to say that helping others does not have important benefits. The problem is to figure out a way to help your loved ones without negatively affecting their own sense of personal accountability and motivation. The authors of this article conclude that the best way is to only help when the recipient truly needs it, and then help in a way to support the recipient’s activities rather than substitute for their efforts.

I found this article fascinating and very relevant to the practice of family counseling. Calibrating the support parents give to their children appears to be very important to helping children take responsibility and accountability for their own success.

One goal I have is a family counselor is to help parents understand how to give help to their children. I have found that it is very valuable to have a professional family counselor provide assistance to parents when they are unsure of how much support they need to provide to their children. This help to parents can result in children having an easier transition to being happy and productive adults.

To get started learning how to help your children more effectively and better, you can call family counselor Patricia Hecht, MFT, at her family counseling office in Pasadena at (626) 657-8639 or her family counseling office in San Francisco at (415) 813-0404.

Couples Counseling Can Help You Reconnect With Your Partner

A common problem between couples that I see in my San Francisco and Pasadena couples counseling practice is that they have grown emotionally distant from each other. One reason for this is that partners in the marriage have grown so busy with activities surrounding children and the business of running a household that they no longer have time together. Through couples counseling, I can work with you to help you reconnect with your partner.

Often, a couple that have children have developed a relationship that is centered around the child. Jobs, chores, and activities for the kids creep into every available moment of time of the day. The only time the couple has for themselves are a few minutes before bedtime, when both people are exhausted from the day. Couples in this situation are great parents and effective partners in running the business of the household, but they lose the emotional bond they have between themselves.

Conversation between the couple consists mainly of issues surrounding the kids, problems regarding house repairs, discussing what bills need to be paid, and scheduling and transporting the kids to their activities. Because of these time pressures, they start losing the time to become physically intimate with each other. Over time they find that they don’t have much to say to each other besides what could be said to an electrician or a babysitter. The kids suffer because they don’t see an affectionate, involved partnership between their parents, instead they see two separated and lonely people.

This is a familiar and common situation, because modern family life often requires both parents to work to stay financially afloat. However, there are things that you can do to help reconnect. Reconnection is difficult, and takes a reevaluation of your priorities and a commitment to change. In this way, an experienced couples counselor can be helpful.

A couples counselor can help work with both partners to improve their communication and give specific tips and suggestions about how to improve their intimacy and emotional bond.

For example:

  • Establishing a date night on a scheduled basis
  • Trying to adjust the children’s schedules to be less burdensome on the parents.
  • Finding an activity that the couple can enjoy together that does not involve the children
  • Scheduling an intimate time before bedtime, this could even be as short as half an hour

Working with an experienced couples counselor can be very effective at learning new ways to help your relationship. You can get started today by contacting me at my San Francisco or Pasadena couples counseling offices. You can contact me in Pasadena at (626) 657-8638 or in San Francisco at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment.

The Benefits of Premarital Counseling

Premarital counseling plays an important role in planning for a marriage. When two people join their lives together, even if they have previously lived together, they make major changes in their lives that could lead to problems after they get married. I have seen this often in my San Francisco marriage counseling practice. In this post I want to discuss the benefits of premarital counseling.

Premarital counseling is not just for people who have conflicts before the marriage. People who can benefit from premarital counseling range from people who are first starting on marriage, to people who have multiple marriages and want to avoid repeating the mistakes they have done in the past with their prior spouses.

A professional premarital counselor will help couples negotiate what they want for both their marriage, and the life that comes afterwards. Couples need to understand that they will still be separate individuals, but they will have to work in collaboration.

A significant difficulty about getting married is that both people are bringing their own personal cultures and rituals to the marriage, and are then expected to form a single unit. Both people will need to compromise and find new set of traditions that combine both of their beliefs. People need to realize that when they marry someone, they actually marry who they have come from as well. This transition is difficult and stressful, and does not often occur easily and naturally.

Sometimes, the stress and anxiety over these larger issues come out in conflicts that occur regarding the wedding details. For example, a couple may fight over the detail of a single type of flower arrangement or place setting. A professional marriage counselor will be able to help the couple realize that these conflicts are not about the minutia of planning the wedding, but about other larger issues that they need to address.

A single large topic that most couples need to work out centers around planning for children. Most couples will discuss whether or not they want children before they get married, but they sometimes don’t discuss how many they want or at what age they want to have them. Religion is also another issue, especially in interfaith couples. Or, one or both partners may not want to bring children up in any religion which can be another source of conflict.

As a professional marriage counselor, I feel the goal of premarital counseling is not to solve these problems, but to prevent small issues from developing into much larger ones. All couples have conflicts, but how they deal with conflict is the most important thing. Premarital counseling can give couples a solid base on how to manage these conflicts.

You can contact my San Francisco marriage counseling office online or call my answering service at (415) 354-4718 to start seeing how premarital counseling can help you develop a happy and stable marriage.

Couples Counseling Guides Decisions About Relationships

Decisions about relationships can be the most important decisions that people make in their lives.  As an experienced couples counselor in San Francisco, I have found that couples counseling can be extremely helpful to people when they are making these decisions especially if they have misgivings about their relationships. A recent article in the New York Times discusses the importance of misgivings when making a decision about a relationship [well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/avoiding-cold-feet-down-the-aisle].

In this article, Benedict Carey writes about the role of doubt in making big decisions like deciding on a relationship, changing a job, or moving across the country. He describes a recent study that shows gut feelings about a decision, like cold feet when planning a marriage, can predict how people will do in the relationship. The study found that doubts before marriage are common.  Doubts also predicted a high divorce rate for women and more dissatisfaction in the marriage for both men and women.

The article notes that most people do have doubt.  However, most people are nervous before making any big decision. The research suggests that the underlying cause of these doubts are the thing that matters, rather than their mere presence. There are very complicated psychological dynamics surrounding the decision to get married, similar to making other big decisions in life.

The article also notes that significant issues leading to doubt before getting married might be difficult to appreciate or be minimized before marriage. One thing is that the external stress that goes along with planning a wedding might make it more difficult to appreciate problems. Idealization may also make it more difficult to identify problems. New lovers have a tendency to idealize their partner and ignore problems. These problems generally do not go away, and can become a significant problem as time passes. The other idealization is that people have an expectation of exquisite happiness. Of course, that is not what typically occurs and people who have this idealized expectation can be disappointed with the marriage.

Finding someone outside the relationship, like an experienced professional couples counselor, can help you explore these doubts and determine whether they represent normal anxieties surrounding these big life decisions, or a fundamental problem with the relationship. If you are experiencing doubts and “cold feet” before making a decision about marriage, you can get help with exploring your feelings by contacting San Francisco Couples Counselor Patricia Hecht, MFT, for an appointment today at (415) 354-4718.

 

Managing Family Conflict During Family Gatherings

A common problem in my San Francisco Family Therapy practice are family conflicts arising during family gatherings. Family conflicts are a common problem that are the subject of a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth Bernstein [online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324478304578171222305743646.html]. I think that this article outlines a number of strategies that can help when families get together.

Bernstein outlines a number of simple steps that can minimize family conflicts during events. First, setting a time limit may help as long as everyone knows about it. Place cards can be useful to seat people together who will get along. In this case, people should not be encouraged to switch seats. A structured activity with rules may also be helpful, such as a trivia game.

Bernstein notes that Dr. Amy Johnson has recommended a strategy called dysfunctional family bingo. Two people in the family work together to play the game. Each creates a bingo card with an annoying behavior in each square that they know is likely to happen. The best benefit from playing this game is that it lets you distance yourself from heated emotions, and allows you to try to control the triggers for dysfunctional behavior.

Bernstein also notes a strategy from her own family, where her mother called each of her daughters and announced there would be a “Miss Congeniality” prize at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

One reason that family gatherings can bring up these heated emotions is that the idealized family, which is the family that we wish we had, is quite different from the people that are sitting around the family dining table. Another reason is that family gatherings can bring up old ways of thinking and feeling that occurred during childhood that have since matured to more effective behaviors.

Family conflict can be managed with strategies that you can learn from an experienced, professional family therapist. If you feel you need help managing family conflict, contact San Francisco Family Therapist Patricia Hecht, MFT, at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment today.

Couples Counseling Helps People Understand and Correct Inaccurate Thinking

As a San Francisco Couples Counselor, I see a lot of people who are insecure in their relationships. In many cases, couples do not understand their partners thinking clearly, and make exaggerated and emotional judgments about them. These judgments are often inaccurate and do not truly reflect their partner’s internal thoughts and emotions. Fortunately, couples counseling can help people understand each others thinking more clearly and accurately.

Why do these inaccuracies happen? A basic reason is that people are individuals, and come to the marriage with a unique personality, communication style, and emotional background. Individual behavior is shaped and modified by each person’s upbringing, value and beliefs, culture, and expectations of gender, goals, and aspirations. People often have a rather self-centered assumption that the other person in the relationship feels and thinks the same way they do about their partnership. If there is conflict in the relationship, each person may make judgments, both conscious and subconscious, about the behavior of the other person based on their internal belief system. If they are insecure and have self-doubt about the relationship, and fear losing the relationship, a person may interpret the actions of their partner much more meaningfully and negatively then they truly are.

One of the first important task of a couples counselor when a couple enters couples counseling, is to help the couple examine the ways in which they think about the relationship and each other. The couples counselor helps the couple determine whether their views of the marriage reflect reality. If these views are not accurate, the couples counselor will help the couple clarify the thoughts that each person has about the other, and understand the resulting emotions that arise as a consequence of inaccurate assumptions.

My goal as a couples counselor is to help people in the marriage learn to identify and examine negative responses to each other. These negative responses may be generated as a response to inaccurate assumptions in many cases. I help people learn how their individual fears, self-doubts, and psychological background influence how they respond to their partner. Most importantly, I help the couple learn how to communicate clearly and accurately so that the important and real issues of their relationship can be managed in a positive way.

In my view, a very important goal of couples counseling is to help people understand how to communicate clearly and accurately which will increase the strength, intimacy, and bonding of their relationship.

If you and your partner feel inaccurate thinking and poor assumptions may be causing stress in your relationship, you can get help by contacting San Francisco Couples Counselor Patricia Hecht, MFT, at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment today.

Couples Counseling Can Help You Get the Negativity Out of Your Relationship

Part of my responsibility as a couples counselor is to help people improve the quality of their relationships. Negative communication is a major problem that I see in my San Francisco Couples Counseling practice. A professional couples counselor can help people improve their communication skills to get the negativity out of their relationship.

Words that are hurtful can appear minor at first, but over time can slowly, or in some cases quickly, corrupt the entire character of the relationship. It is popular to think of criticism as a constructive process. One person thinks that they know the other extremely well and is merely making suggestions to improve something they see as a fault in the other. At times this works, and one partner will adjust his or her behavior to make the other person happy. At other times, a more negative response is generated and the person who receives the criticism will deliberately alter his or her behavior to annoy the other person.

It is  important to realize that criticism may be nonverbal. Criticism, both verbally and nonverbally, communicates the message that one person is superior to the other. The person who is in the inferior role gets an unpleasant feeling from that criticism. the criticism may induce a feeling of anxiety the person receiving it. Anxiety may provoke a response to the other person that is aggressive in nature.

However, it is important to be able to express your wants and needs in a relationship without being critical. It is very unhealthy to have a relationship without dialogue, and be unable to express concerns. Suppressed concerns and emotions can lead to passive aggressive actions, or to the loss of affection and intimacy within the couple.

Working with a professional couples counselor can help you understand new ways of communicating without criticism. Couples counseling will help you learn to express your concerns without any negativity. If the relationship is extremely unhealthy, this may mean that the people in the relationship are unable to communicate about anything meaningfully for a long time. However, with patience, time, and working with a professional, the seed of affection that is at the core of a committed relationship will reemerge. Even a couple with a long history of toxic and critical communications will be able to learn new, nonjudgmental, noncritical, supportive and positive means of communication.

I hope that you have gotten the idea from this post that couples counseling can help people regain a positive, effective, and supportive means of communication. This is the case even if they have a long history of poor communications with much criticism and strife. I think working with a professional couples counselor has the advantage of being able to learn new communication skills in an emotionally unbiased and supportive environment. If you would like to get started working with me, contact my San Francisco Couples Counseling practice at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment today.

Couples Counseling Can Help Unhappy Senior Couples Improve Their Marriage

In my practice as a San Francisco couples counselor, I have had the privilege of helping people of all ages. Marital problems and relationship difficulties can occur at any age. Marriages between older people present unique difficulties when the partners start to have conflicts. There are several ways to help unhappy senior couples when they have difficulties, and these are discussed a recent blog in the New York Times [newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-the-middle-helping-unhappy-couples/].

Experts in relationships and geriatricians agree that older people can take steps to reduce conflict and improve their relationships. Couples that have been together for a long time often have developed good and effective ways of managing their conflicts. This blog post presents several specific ways to help senior couples when dealing with their conflicts.

First, adult children may have a strong need to try to intervene in their parents conflicts. The experts advise that children do not try to mediate between their parents, but rather find a neutral party to intervene.

Second, couples counseling can be extremely helpful. Marriage and couples counseling after the age of 65 can be difficult, because people have strongly ingrained habits of communicating. However, marriage counseling and couples therapy can be extremely helpful at this age because senior couples are at a point in their lives where they are the least adaptable and most sensitive to stress. Older people need to learn new ways of relating and coping with changes. In addition, older people generally do not have the time to end their current relationship and move onto a new one, like a younger person might.

Third, it is very important for at least one person in the relationship to get help. The other person may not be open to couples counseling, but even helping one person may improve the relationship as a whole. In addition, at this stage people start to experience cognitive problems and marriage counseling may be helpful at helping the unaffected partner cope with these changes.

Fourth, intimacy remains extremely important at this stage. Sexual relationships fulfill a need for physical contact. Warmth and touching can help alleviate loneliness, poor health, and low self-esteem. Sexual functioning does not have to involve intercourse and performance, but also focus on physical touching and other aspects of sexual relations. This serves to bond the couple together and improve their intimacy and emotional closeness.

Fifth, any neuropsychological issues should be identified and treated. For example, a sudden conflict in the relationship may stem from early cognitive impairment. There are also medical problems like hypothyroidism which can cause psychological problems in a relationship. A physician should be able to evaluate and treat these issues.

Sixth, reducing anxiety in the relationship may involve efforts to give the couple time with others outside of the relationship. Quality time apart from each other may also be helpful. Caregivers for the couple can arrange outings for each partner separately, so when they return together they are both refreshed emotionally and physically.

Finally, caregiving is it’s own stress. The caregiver may often be cranky, which makes people around them edgy and irritable. It is very important for caregivers to be able to have some respite time so they can take care of their own emotional needs.

I believe that an experienced professional couples counselor can be extremely helpful in supporting senior couples when they are dealing with problems in their relationship. If you feel that you have difficulties in your relationship, or you know of a senior couple who is open to help from a professional couples counselor, you can contact my San Francisco couples counseling practice at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment today. You can also reach me on my cell phone at (415) 813-0404.

Signs You and Your Partner Might Need Couples Counseling

As an experienced San Francisco Couples Therapist, I know that there are many couples that struggle with their relationships yet do not go for help.  Conflict is inevitable in a relationship even where people love each other deeply. Each person is an individual with different backgrounds, experiences and ways of communication, and these differences can cause tensions in a relationship.

In my opinion, some couples don’t know when they should seek help from a professional couples counselor.  There are a number of signs that couples might notice in their relationship that mean that they would benefit from professional couples counseling.

You keep having the same conflicts repeatedly. Couples who continue to clash over the same issues clearly have difficulty communicating well enough to resolve these issues and move on. The unresolved issues become persistent flash points in the relationship. Working with an experienced couples counselor can help improve your communication.

You are always too tired to have sex. Of course there are many times when a person is just too physically exhausted to have sex. However, if this becomes a pattern, there may be an another reason for it. One person might be emotionally unable to have sex because there is anger and tension in the relationship, which may be caused because of the inability to resolve problems. In this case, couples counseling can help you both identify and work on resolving these issues.

Your kids are worried you might be divorcing. Children are very perceptive at reading the level of stress and tension between their parents. If they start asking you about divorce or separation, the level of conflict in your relationship is much too high. At this point, couples counseling would be useful  to help you both learn to reduce the conflict in your relationship.

You both have stopped talking about making things better. If you are both feeling to hurt and angry, you might have stopped trying to reach out to your partner to try and improve your communication. You are both afraid to try to make another move, because you are both afraid of getting rejected again. At this point, working with a professional couples counselor can be extremely helpful.

You are thinking seriously about having an affair. You feel that getting affection, love and attention from someone outside the relationship is preferable to dealing with your partner. This desire indicates that the relationship has hit a critically low point. If one of you have an affair that can be ending point of the relationship. At this point, couples counseling is critically important to try to save your relationship.

If you think that you are experiencing these signs in your relationship, you should get help from an unbiased, experienced, professional couples counselor. You can get started by contacting San Francisco Couples Counselor Patricia Hecht at (415) 354-4718 today for an appointment for couples counseling.

Therapy Can Help The Holiday Blues When They Turn Into Depression

Depression and sadness around the holidays is real, and often called the holiday blues. In popular culture, the holidays are a time for happiness, light, togetherness, joy and many other positive feelings. In reality, there are many people who struggle during the holidays. Many have stress and anxiety about finances, job security, getting things accomplished, loneliness, overeating and drinking, and the list goes on. Additionally, the shortened time of daylight and cold weather can also contribute to some people’s feelings of sadness. I often see that the holiday blues can worsen the sadness, anxiety and depression of the people I see in my San Francisco Individual and Couples Therapy practice.

If you are experiencing these feelings, realize you are not alone.  Millions of people have the same feelings of sadness and depression at this time of year, even though they might be covering their feelings up with the biggest smiles.

There are things that you can do to help manage these feelings.  First, try to control the aspects of your life that you have control over.  For example, you can manage the amount of money that you spend on gifts, how much time you spend with your family, how much you eat or drink, and how much exercise and sleep you get.  You can also try to manage the internal messages that you give yourself, and feed yourself positive thoughts instead of negative and self-critical thoughts.

Some people are unable to manage the holiday blues themselves, and might start to experience symptoms of depression. The holiday blues might be persistent and last beyond the winter months into the spring. People might experience a lack of energy or interest in things they were previously interested in. People might be experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or guilt, and cry often. People might have sleep disturbances or feelings of worthlessness. If these feelings are starting to interfere with functioning either with friends, family or in the workplace, then depression rather than the holiday blues may be present and people will need the help of a mental health professional.

If you feel that the holiday blues are starting to interfere with your life, and you think you might be having symptoms of depression, you can get started on a more positive path by contacting San Francisco Therapist Patricia Hecht, MFT, at (415) 354-4718 for an appointment today.