Real Advice

SEVEN TIPS TO GREAT SEX

By Dr. Dan Pollets

Dr. Pollets describes himself as "an enthusiastic practitioner" of Relational Life Therapy® (RLT). He is a faculty member of the Relational Life Institute, and an ASSECT certified sex therapist.

INTIMACY

In Relational Life Therapy® (RLT) intimacy is considered a process and a practice.  Intimacy occurs when two individuals face each other and deal honestly and respectfully with the space in-between, a space occupied by their private thoughts and deepest feelings. Great sex follows from this practice and results from the chemistry and positive energy created in this unique space.

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is the capacity to be present in the moment. It is attention to intention. It is the practice of being fully aware of what is happening NOW. The essence of mindfulness is the ability to embrace present-moment awareness with non-judgment and loving kindness.

SEVEN TIPS FOR GREAT SEX

1. The organ needed for great sex is between your ears

Sexual arousal and physical readiness emanate from your head. So prepare your mind.

Try thinking of the time between sexual activities as "fore-fore play." Behave day-to-day in ways that your partner truly appreciates. Create in your relationship the "flow" that reminds you of what you value and find attractive, and even sexy, in your partner. Of course there must be some foundation of physical attraction and sexual chemistry to build on, but it takes more than this to enjoy good sex over the life of the relationship.

Practice mindfully attending to each other's needs in order to produce a positive flow that leads to meaningful and ultimately satisfying sexual contact.

2. Necessity is the mother of invention, but generosity gilds the lily

Good communication is the sine qua non of good sex. Make your needs known and provide feedback to your partner in the form of verbal and non-verbal communication.

Great sex is like a dance where you learn to move in synchronization with your partner. To enhance the dance of love, learn what buttons to push and how to evolve your touch to engender increasing arousal in your partner. It is difficult to know if your administrations are hitting the target unless you get some feedback. So you might want to grunt or moan a little bit to signal your pleasure. Now adding this soundtrack may be a stretch for some, but if you want to be touched in ways that lead to increasing levels of pleasure and arousal, you have to teach your partner what feels good.

Create the smooth and wonderful dance of sexual intimacy by providing positive feedback to the sweet touch of your partner. Express your love and appreciation freely and often. Do what your partner likes, not what you want to do. Be the lover who is more concerned about your partner's needs than your own.

3. Innovation is the spice of life

Exploration and innovation can add novelty to a satisfying sexual relationship. Confront the attitudes and inhibitions that might limit newness and variety in your sexual behavior. Talk about your fantasies, and if mutually agreed upon, act them out. Try altering the positions you typically rely on. Have sex on the living room couch, in front of a roaring fire, or on the beach (avoid sand in crotch). Plan a romantic weekend away from the kids and take time to explore each other's bodies in a sensuous and erotic manner.

Nurture a safe and intimate relationship centered on the open disclosure of what you think, feel and desire. If you are able to share your feelings and enrich your sexual relationship with variety, you can stay interested and stimulated throughout your lives together.

4. Mindfulness, presence and sweet surrender

Many patients seeking treatment for sexual dysfunction are unable to relax and allow their bodies to do what comes naturally, i.e., getting sexually aroused. They are consumed with thoughts about performance and whether their partner is enjoying the experience. They become observers who are no longer present in the moment of intimacy and find themselves dissociated from the sensations and pleasure that are intrinsic to the experience.

If you are thinking about your work, housework, kids, parents, or your body's shortcomings, you are not present and mindful of what is happening in the moment and thus unable to "let go and let God." Thinking, worrying and being a spectator create the stress response and vasoconstriction that is anathema to the optimal physiology of heightened arousal.

It's not about thinking. Show up in the moment of sexual encounter with all your senses. Allow your awareness to rest in the sensations that you and your partner create. Surrender to each touch, sensation, smell, movement, sound and taste while you are making love. Stay focused on your partner and your experience of giving and receiving. If you begin to drift into thought, bring your awareness back to the moment and don't judge yourself for wandering.

5. Hone your instrument. Practice good health

Sex is essentially a physical act and the natural outcome of intimacy. You need your body to accomplish it, and the better shape you're in, the more fun you can have. Libido stays stronger as you age if you stay in good health. If you don't maintain the body, rust accumulates, and in the words of Paul Simon, "the tools of love wear down." If you become overweight and out of shape: 1) you will reduce your attractiveness to your partner; 2) your libido will diminish; and 3) the physical act of sex will become more difficult simply from a bio-mechanical standpoint. So exercise and practice healthy nutrition.

6. Good sex is a dish best served up cold

Sex alone will not mend relational issues or a fractured trust. Avoid having sex in the heat of the moment of hurt, conflict, emotional pain, or preoccupation. "Make-up sex" will only be successful if there has been an effort to repair the relationship so you can enjoy intimacy free of lingering anger and resentments.

7. Make time for contact

Making time for intimacy in our fast-paced lives may take some planning. Arranging dates might make more sense than trusting that somehow you will both magically appear all naked and primed for a great sexual experience. Don't get hung up with who initiates sex; planning can be a mature, functional adult responsibility that both partners assume and look forward to with anticipation.

So put the champagne on ice, remember Victoria's secret, and when you arrive for the date bring all the spontaneity, creativity, novelty sensitivity and generosity you can muster.

GREAT SEX IN A NUTSHELL

Great sex is about awareness of sensation and allowing oneself to sink into the mindful experience of physical and emotional intimacy. It is about being present in and focused on the moment of sexual encounter.

Cultivating a good sex life requires mindfully practicing intimacy as an ongoing relational experience. If you and your partner are committed to cherishing your relationship, communicate well, share on a thinking and feeling level, and are able to repair disharmony with love, sincerity, skill and moderation, then finding the "gear" of sexual expression will follow naturally, and the distance between the kitchen and bedroom will be markedly shortened.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special publication on Friday, August 22: Terry Real discusses "The Hidden Epidemic of Covert Depression in Men."

RELATIONAL LIVING: Harmony, Disharmony & Repair in Long-Term Relationships

By Kim Ploussard, LMCH, CRC

Kim Ploussard is a licensed mental health counselor practicing in upstate New York. She is a member of the Relational Life Institute faculty and has over ten years of private practice experience, counseling a diverse population including individuals and couples with alternative lifestyles, trauma survivors and addictions.

Remember the times you’ve asked, “Oh my, who is this person I married?”  Perhaps those periods have lasted for several hours, or days or even years. Most committed couples go through this, experiencing times when they feel as if they are living with a stranger -- even the enemy.

It’s during those times that the traits you used to find cute about your partner become irritating. The way he used to sneak up behind you and nuzzle your earlobe starts to feel more like a puppy prodding you for attention. Her forgetfulness, which used to be funny, becomes a way of making you miserable. Often when this happens, couples fail to see what this is really about. Instead they start to think they’ve picked the wrong person.

The reality is that nothing is going wrong. You are going through the normal cycles of a long-term, relationship. Terry Real, names these cycles as harmony, disharmony and repair.  “No one really prepares couples for the profound despair of disharmony, when you realize your partner is not going to give you all the things you had expected to get in the initial harmony stage. What many couples are missing is a mechanism for repair. It’s like operating a car without a steering wheel.” says Real.

THE SIX YEAR SCRATCH

Research on married couples reveals that couples wait an average of six years of being unhappy before they get help.  Often this is because they are afraid to admit they have a problem or they are too embarrassed to acknowledge it. It’s a taboo subject.  You can’t talk to your friends or family about it because they too have a relationship with your spouse. So you try to deal with it on your own. The irony is that most of us assume everyone else is pretty happy in coupledom---but they are privately going through similar cycles.

Taking an honest look at what you are getting and what you are not getting in your relationship is a first step.  Sometimes we realize we are actually getting quite a bit, and there may be one or two things that we aren’t getting that results in the fight that keeps repeating itself. One way to break up the dance is to identify what you are doing to start it.  This may be hard for you to see, but if you ask your partner, they usually know.  Another way to break the silence is going to counseling or attending couples workshops.  The focus isn’t on the problem itself but what you can do to turn the normal, predictable issues of a committed relationship into opportunities to grow as individuals and strengthen your marriage.

WHAT FOR THESE SIGNS

Some signs for couples to pay attention to are:

1. Spending more time away from each other
2. More subjects are ‘off limits’ to discuss
3. You fear you are growing apart
4. You or your spouse has lost interest in sex or even touching
5. You suspect an affair or entertain fantasies of an affair yourself
6. You feel trapped, misunderstood or angry much of the time.

Relationships can be fulfilling, passionate, and loving over the long stretch. You don’t have to wait the 6 years to find out if this is possible for you and your partner. Make 2008 the year you took a stand to speak up and make it happen.

PARENTING: What Legacy Are You Passing On To Your Children?

By Terry Real

This article originally appeared in Terry's regular column on The Huffington Post.

Each year at this time, we celebrate fathers, and in doing so we can’t help contemplating our relationships with our own fathers as well as the kind of dads we have become.

In a family, the roles we pass from generation to generation can be like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one person has the courage to stand and face the fire.

That fire is the legacy of esteem for oneself and for others that is learned from the family dynamic. I always say that the best gift you can give your children is a healthier you. Even the most apparently well-adjusted and gracious families host elements of ill health and disconnection behind their closed doors.

When psychologists talk about learning to live relationally, we refer to picking up a new way of living. That includes doing the work not just to benefit yourself, but for your marriage, your children and your children’s children. That means examining the legacy you bring into your relationships, to heighten the positive elements and redefine the negative ones.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” and we all know it’s baloney. The reality is that children do as you do; they learn what they live.

Examining your legacy is a transformative experience aimed not at changing you and your spouse as individuals, but literally changing the course of your entire family. You have the chance to identify the essential messages you received as a child about how to be a grown up, the unspoken cues on how to live. Each of those messages has positive and negative aspects.

WHAT’S YOUR LEGACY?

For example, if you grew up in a family that valued being stoic and uncomplaining, the positive aspect is that you probably became a person who can be counted on, someone who is strong and stalwart. On the other hand, you probably also learned to despise vulnerability in your self and in others.

The positive of that legacy is that you are tough and you can suffer thru a lot of adversity. The negative consequence is that you have contempt for any sign of human weakness; you’re perfectionistic, unforgiving and perhaps even kind of cruel to yourself and others. Some one who has this legacy might think that they are toughening up their kids, but they can be unsympathetic when they do a less than perfect job. They might not mean to do those things, but they would just come out. This type of behavior can lead to depression – in the parent who is never satisfied and in the child who can never satisfy the parent.

Another example is what we call the “Boundary-less Family”. The positive aspects of this dynamic are that the family is very expressive and demonstrative about their love for each other. On the flip side, such families usually yell and scream a lot, often to the point of being abusive. Such persons pass on to their children a sense of entitlement that yelling and screaming is just a means of expressing yourself and that shameless behavior is acceptable. These families usually have a mixture of “ragers” and passive-aggressives who duck for cover and retaliate in more subversive ways.

WHAT’S NEXT?

After examining the core legacy passed down to you from your family of origin, the next step is to take a good hard look at yourself. Determine how you are passing the positive and negative messages you received from your family down to your children.

While you can reap rewards from doing this work individually, it works unbelievably well if you work on this as a couple or as a co-parenting partnership. There is a real turning point that happens when the the light bulb goes off and things that you and your partner have been trying to get thru to each other for 20-30 years finally gets thru. This exercise enables you both to finally “get” what each other has been doing that is off-base and over which you have both been tearing your hair out.  This is that thing that you’ve been fighting about for years while neither of you have been able to listen. In the mean time, your kids have been in the middle of your competing legacies, and even worse, they’ve been watching and learning from it.

In a Legacy Workshop, you can experience the miraculous moment of watching your partner get it. And you also have the sobering experience of getting it yourself.

HOW TO FORGIVE AND FORGET

After all of this deep self-examination, there is a big reward. You get a chance to thank your parents for the positive legacy they have given you, and you get to confront them about the costs of the negative aspects you learned. Don’t worry, this is a virtual exercise. (If you choose to do this in person, we have a couch ready to help you get over that trauma!)

There are many ways to undertake this exercise. It can be in the form of a letter, be done in front of a mirror or you can even speak to your imaginary parent sitting in an empty chair in front of you. The idea is to give voice to your discoveries and acknowledge the positive and negative aspects of the legacy. For example, “Dad, you taught me to… As a result, I’ve become a strong, independent, driven person, and I’m able to excel at my career and provide a great life for my family. On the other hand, the negative messages you gave me have cost me the following: I learned that vulnerability is to be despised, and you taught me that anything less than perfection is not to be tolerated. As a result, I’m always striving, everything is not enough and I never feel happy.

Another example from the boundary-less family could be, “Dad you gave me the gift of being able to share my love and affection with my family. My kids know that I love them no matter what. On the other hand, the negative side is that like you, I don’t hold back when I’m angry. I fly into a rage. I’ve made it O.K. for us to yell and scream at each other, and I hate that sometimes I make my kids and my wife cry.  Even if I’m not raging, I can act like a jerk and push people away when I don’t get my way.

Once you have taken this step, it’s time to give the negative legacy back to your parent(s). You give voice to your forgiveness, accept the generosity of the positive things you received from them and forgive them (and give back) the negative legacy.

This is a very cathartic experience for everyone who does it, and if it is in the context of a group workshop, the reverberation is palpable, especially in the third and final step which helps you to forge ahead in good health.

HOW TO FORGE ONWARD

It is one thing to come to a deep realization. Once that is achieved, the key is to figure out what you’re going to do with it.  We don’t feel like the legacy work is complete until the parents as individuals and as a couple make a pledge to change. This requires giving voice to specifically how you are going to behave differently. Again, this can be done virtually by speaking to pictures of your children. We think it is especially important for your spouse or co-parenting partner to stand beside you in support as you make this pledge.

The pledge might sound something like this:  Son, these are the things I’ve been doing to pass on the negative legacy I learned from my parents on to you. Here is one concrete change I’m going to make in my behavior. From now on, I will welcome you when you come to me in vulnerability. If you don’t play a perfect game, I’ll be happy for the great job you did, and if you want, we’ll work on improving your swing or pitch for the next game together.

A pledge from the boundary-less parent might sound like this: Son, from now on I’m going to watch my temper, and I’m not going to act as if yelling and screaming and carrying-on is acceptable under any circumstance. Instead I’m going to give myself a time-out, and I’m going to let you know how I feel in a way that treats you and the family with respect.

Don’t get me wrong. Keeping these pledges is not easy. While we do believe you can teach an old dog new tricks, it takes a whole lot of practice and support to do that. That’s why the very last step of the legacy work is to agree to do one thing to sustain their pledge. For some that might mean getting into regular therapy. For others it might mean joining a parenting group.

The point is to become aware of the legacy you inherited, identify how it is affecting your life at home and at work, and to take steps to rectify the negative and enhance the positive.

In our experience, 60% to 70% of people who take these pledges go home and behave in radically different ways. After a year they report back that not only did they experience an immediate result, but the entire family dynamic had positively shifted and they had achieved permanent results.

So this week, while you’re celebrating dad, think about the legacy you inherited, how you want to live now and the legacy you want to pass on. It’s never too early to be a better, healthier person.

Sign up for an upcoming LEGACY WORKSHOP with Terry Real today.

Is Your Marriage in Gridlock?

By Terry Real

Gridlock is what I call that fight that your and your partner have over and over again. It describes the endless dance in which you two play the parts that you learned from when you grew up, and the knee jerk behaviors you fall into.

For example, "scolding mother rebellious son." Every time this boyish husband is irresponsible and says he's going to do something and then doesn't, the wife turns into the scolding mother clicks and tries to control him. He then pouts and says he's going to do it and either does it after the tenth fight or she gets exasperated and say, "Fine! I'll do it myself," to which he smiles to himself feeling like the sly victor when really he's just being a passive-aggressive jerk.

Being passive-aggressive means getting back at someone by what you don’t do. There's an old joke that illustrates this: A sadist and a masochist walk into a bar. The masochist says, "Hit me." The Sadist says, "No."

A lot of marital gridlock is a variation on the parent-child dynamic. Besides the one above, it could be the pursuer/distancer routine where she keeps saying, "We've got to talk," and he keeps saying, "About what?"

If you feel like your marriage is in gridlock or that you have a bad deal, that means you and your partner are stuck in roles that don’t satisfy either of you, and those rolls hold you in an endless cycle of dissatisfaction, taunting and retaliation. You and your partner have the same argument over and over again and nothing gets resolved.

Relational Life Therapy breaks the impasse and unlocks that gridlock to release the potential you have as a couple.

Listen if you had the ideal marriage -- if you were Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa -- you'd always have good self-esteem, you never have bad boundaries, and you would come out from behind walls and actually talk to each other, but what in a real relationship you slip all the time. The key is to recognize it and deal with your role in it so you can resolve the issue instead of getting stuck in that whirlpool of discontent.

The technical term for this is the struggle between first consciousness and second consciousness or the struggle between the adaptive child and the adult parts of you.

You can be "right" or you can be married

I often say, "You can be right or you can be married." Well, the adult part of you says, "Of course, I want to be married," but the adaptive child part of you says, "Well I want to be right," and then behaves with righteous indignation and all kinds of bad behavior like being defensive or being vengeful – whatever those defenses are when you were a child.

The "adaptive child" is what people used to call the "ego." It just wants to be safe. In life, we actually have to teach and grow that part of ourselves into the adult part that wants intimacy.

One of the most important things to understand is that intimacy is scary as hell. The more you saw adults behaving in ways that disturbed you as a child, the more scary the whole idea of a relationship is for you.

To be in a relationship, and especially to be in a marriage, means to be vulnerable. As adults, we don’t want to be vulnerable because we don’t want to be hurt. Thus creates the twin pulls between openness and intimacy.

What we really want is to be completely open and completely intimate and still be completely safe.

The real deal is that If you want to be safe , stay in bed in the morning. There is no such thing as a safe relationship, because in the end one of you dies and leaves the other, and what's so safe about that?

That said, you can be safe inasmuch as you can trust your partner to be accountable and for the most part be respectful.

Will your partner hurt you? Absolutely. Will your partner let you down from time to time, absolutely.

What makes for a great relationship is not that you two are perfect, rather that you can accept each other's imperfections.

You cannot expect to move from gridlock to perfection. It's not about two gods having a relationship. You move from two kids arguing in the sandbox (gridlock) to two adults having a relationship (healthy esteem).

Goint to Bed Angry Can Be The Healthy Choice

So how do you do it? One of the regrettable rubrics of the last twenty years is the notion that "You shouldn't go to bed angry." That's one of the eight million stupid things that pop psychology has put out there. In my own marriage, if I tried to live up to that maxim, I'd be chronically sleep deprived!

When you're in a relationship gridlock, using that logic means that you're just going to stay up and fight. Sometimes you've got to sleep it off like a drunk.

The right thing to do is to wake up in the morning, admit what a jerk you are, and then get on with it.

The way to get out of gridlock is unilateral disarmament. People think that it's about getting your partner to get over himself or herself, but it's really about YOU getting over yourself. That could mean that you break the transaction and go to bed. It does not mean that you have to have a breakthrough in the argument in that very moment.

You're never going to break through the impasse by trying to get your partner to admit that you're right and to do it your way. YOU have to step off the seesaw on your end. You may not get your way or what you want, but you will certainly stop getting what you don't want -- the endless arguing and the feelings of frustration, powerlessness and loneliness that go along with it.

THE STANCE DANCE: The Wrongness of Righteousness

By Terry Real

This article first appeared in The Huffington Post.

Like most of America, no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, I was profoundly impressed by Obama's speech on Race as well as the dignity of this man's refusal to slide his friend under the bus for political expediency.  In my lifetime, I can count on one hand the number of times I've witnessed a politician behave with that type of loyalty and integrity.

No matter how Rev. Wright has justified it in his mind, either for his own career or for some personal idea about righteousness, this man has opened his mouth at the most inopportune moment and has produced immediate damage to someone who behaved with great class toward him. To say nothing of the fact that he is hurting the front-running candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination which would, as we can all appreciate, be an historic occasion for his race.

I kept wondering what could this man could be thinking, I was once again struck by the potent force of pride and sheer ego in our lives. Perhaps on some personal level the good reverend felt that Obama did not stand up for him enough and this is payback, or perhaps he feels that his cause is so righteous that devil damn the consequences. Either way, I see what happened as a variation on a theme that links this Black Christian minister with a White Jewish governor (Spitzer).

One of the real contributions of Relational Life Therapy is the focus on what is technically called "grandiosity" or what is known in the vernacular as pride or ego, which is a state of contemptuousness, feeling better-than, superior or above the rules. Whether it's a public figure caught with his underpants down or a public figure betraying a man who stood up for him, there are whole history books to be written about pride in politics. Whether it's launching a thousand ships for payback over a lost woman or sending 100,000 troops for payback for your daddy's incomplete war, a lot of blood has been spilled over the centuries, literally and figuratively, due to misspent pride and in particular men's pride.

Women are not as overtly grandiose as men, or at least it manifests itself in different ways. Certainly no one can say that Hilary Clinton is devoid of grandiosity and pride. As more women become leaders we will know if there really is a difference or if there has just been a historic perception due to access. Either way, pride, hubris or a knee-jerk sense of self-righteousness is that damaging sense that "I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, damn the consequences."

Readers, here is your challenge:  While we may not be able to do anything about foreign wars, mischievous governors or egotistical preachers, I challenge you for the week to stand up against ego and pride in your personal relationships -- that is against your OWN pride, not your partner's. The bottom line is that you can be right or your can be married, what's more important to you?

In honor of Reverend Wright, I'm inviting you to be wrong. I'm inviting you readers to notice yourself about to be "right" despite the consequences and to do something unusual -- just shut up. I would like for you to step away from that point that seems so important. I would like for you to step away from self-righteous indignation, no matter how justified you feel. I would like for you to choose friendship and love over ego.

Try it at least once this week and write in and share the experience with us. Let us know how it goes.

CONFESSIONS OF A THERAPIST: Mindfulness as a Relational Life Skill - Part 2

By Dan F. Pollets, Ph.D.

Dr. Pollets describes himself as "an enthusiastic practitioner" of Relational Life Therapy® (RLT). He is a faculty member of the Relational Life Institute, and an ASSECT certified sex therapist.

In this essay, Dr. Dan continues his exploration of how his professional practice of Relational Life Therapy with his clients and the application of those principals in his personal life intersect. Unlike many forms of therapy, RLT practitioners are strongly encouraged to regularly apply relational living to their personal circumstances. This active learning process enables them to more fully engage with and understand their clients' struggles and helps them to more rapidly lead their clients to healing and the benefits of Full Respect Living®.

Successful change in any psychotherapy alters the patient's relationship to his particular form of suffering. In Relational Life Therapy (RLT), we ask partners to become conscious of their emotions and behavior towards each other. In fact, according to Terry Real, one of the major concepts that distinguishes RLT from more traditional forms of therapy is that we ask partners to change behavior first understanding that a shift in their feelings and attitudes will then follow.

RLT is therefore very much a behavioral treatment and a psychodynamic one. In fact, a leading principle of RLT is that changing behavior changes character and vice versa, changing character changes behavior. We work from both ends. We ask partners to step back from their knee-jerk reactions and work on themselves and to disengage from destructive behavioral responses. This is done by appealing to or utilizing secondary consciousness and becoming mindful of what is happening in the moment.

Mindfulness is a capacity or skill that allows us to be less reactive emotionally to what is happening in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience -- positive, negative, neutral -- with a certain centered-ness or equanimity so that our overall suffering is reduced.  Becoming mindful allows our sense of well-being to improve. To be mindful is to recognize what is happening in the present moment. It is the choice to pay attention to intention.

Mindless vs. Mindful: What conscious behavior looks like

Mindlessness or primary conscious behavior, as we talked about last week is that first instinctive reaction, that knee-jerk habit you have of reacting to your partner when you feel triggered by something he or she does. Mindlessness is what happens when:

1. Your core negative image -- or worst impression -- of your partner is triggered and drives your habitual reactions and patterns.
2. You experience an internal boundary failure -- you rage, point blame, tell an adult what to do.
3. You act with contempt for the other person, and trigger his/her passive-aggressive response.
4. In general your reaction causes your partner and your relationship to be weighed down and continue to drown in past traumas, preventing the forward motion of a healthy relationship.
5. Emotions from the mutual hurt skyrocket so quickly that functional adult behavior cannot override the anger response, and your behavior becomes boundary-less.

By contrast, when we mindfully step back, take a breath and choose to suspend our knee jerk judgment to what is in our consciousness, we can let go of the immediate negative thoughts and habitual reactions. We take a brief moment to notice our thoughts or ideas, and just let it flow like water molecule down a river to the sea. The thought doesn't control our actions, it doesn't become the reality, nor do we have to react to it. We can just let it be.

Acceptance, along with non-judgment, is another fundamental aspect of mindfulness.  "Acceptance" adds a measure of kindness. It is a willingness to let things be just as they are in the moment that we become of aware of them -- accepting the painful experiences as they arise. In Relational Life Therapy, this is akin to accepting your partner's subjective perception of reality even when it conflicts with your own.  In mindfulness practice and RLT, the concept that one persons sense of reality versus the others is "the" reality is anathema. No one person's thought is any "more real" than any other's.

Learning how to be mindful

I have found that mindfulness as an attitude about life and relationships can be cultivated through mindful awareness practices such as meditation, yoga, T'ai Chi, etc. What these practices have in common is the repetitive exercise of focusing attention. Through this, they enable the individual to exercise and develop an increased capacity to regulate attention, focus on the present moment, be open an curious to experience, and adopt a perspective that non-judgmental and accepting. Most of these practices use the act of breathing as a focal point for the individual to listen to the mind's activities. In daily meditation, for instance, the one meditating focuses attention on breath, mantra or a visual image, and when he becomes aware that thoughts are intruding, he notes the thoughts, accepts them and then gently refocuses back on the breath, mantra or image.

It is not easy to describe how meditation works. It is better to try it and see for yourself.  As we practice mindful awareness with effort and regularity, we purposely train the mind to act out of secondary consciousness and avoid the mindless knee-jerk reactions.

The bottom line about mindfulness for clients and therapists

My thesis is just that as meditation has helped me to personally shift attention away from negative thoughts and sad feelings about my lost shoulder function, partners who enter Relational Life Therapy can be similarly taught to buttress or strengthen their secondary consciousness to navigate the bumps along the relationship road.

As for my colleagues in the therapist community, I would like to share that an important tenet in RLT is that the work starts with the therapist's own self-care and psychotherapeutic work. Terry Real teaches us to speak from our own experience, not one-up or one-down. Sharing our own path in recovery is encouraged as long as it does not burden the client. In this regard, I would like to suggest that the practice of mindfulness meditation is a way for the therapist to take care of him/herself and to be a model for the client -- "walking the walk" so to speak.

How mindfulness practice and RLT are improving my life

I have noticed subtle yet palpable changes in the months since I began my meditative practice. I am more aware when I am drifting from the moment-to-moment interaction in a client session.  I try not to judge myself for inattention but simply to note it and then focus back on the client and what is happening. I am sustaining more concentrated time in the moment, and I am finding it easier to discover interesting issues to explore as my mind becomes a bit more nimble.

Another interesting benefit that I have noticed is that I seem to accept a couple's negative emotional energy with more equanimity. My internal boundary has become more effective at non-absorption of the intensity of the room. As tensions rise, I breathe more slowly and deeply, and I focus on what needs to be done. My "edge" seems to have softened.  A certain type of grandiose man has always evoked my edge. I have enhanced by becoming mindful of this, and I find it easier to have "loving kindness" for the personal history that has empowered his negative behavior. T am then able to move to meet it with skill and moderation.

Finally, I have become more aware of when I'm on "automatic pilot" and moving three steps ahead of where I am. This "catastrophic living" is not reserved only for my office, but is present in my life in general. I am becoming more mindful when I am not present in my relationship, my work with clients or wherever I am. At these times, I try to gently take a breath, become more aware of what is happening in the moment, and slow down to appreciate it.

My life has become more colorful and joyful.

Mindfulness can help participants in Relational Life Therapy to "get" what Terry Real calls secondary consciousness. By giving partners a metaphor to understand how the mind functions and by teaching meditative exercises, it is possible to expedite the learning curve of the Relational Living skills that are being taught.

Since awareness and present focus is the goal of mindful practice, enhancing this mental capacity could help couples refrain from their typical negative dynamics and rather employ the "new deal."

Meditation helps the user become non-reactive, non-judgmental and to be able to use words to label experience. All of these capacities will leave the RLT participant in good stead for the work ahead.

CONFESSIONS OF A THERAPIST: Mindfulness as a Relational Life Skill - Part 1

By Dan F. Pollets, Ph.D.

Dr. Pollets describes himself as "an enthusiastic practitioner" of Relational Life Therapy® (RLT). He is a faculty member of the Relational Life Institute, and an ASSECT certified sex therapist.

In this essay, Dr. Dan explores the intersection of his professional exploration and practice of Relational Life Therapy with his clients and the application of those principals in his personal life. Unlike many forms of therapy, RLT practitioners are strongly encouraged to regularly apply relational living to their personal circumstances. This active learning process enables them to more fully engage with and understand their clients' struggles and helps them to more rapidly lead their clients to healing and the benefits of Full Respect Living®.

As any competent therapist, throughout my 30 years of clinical practice, I have pursued my own therapeutic or personal growth work, which has enhanced my technique and made me more aware of my "edge." For the last four years or more, I have been a serious student of Terry Real's Relational Life Therapy®. I have discovered a form of therapy that involves an interaction between participants (couples and groups) that is more exciting in the same way that symphonies are far more interesting than solo recitals.

Plunging into Terry's work has been like finding water in the desert, and incorporating and utilizing it has saved me countless headaches and made me a better therapist. Relational Life Therapy (RLT) is like having a GPS for the long relationship road ahead. If you make a wrong turn, there is always a comforting voice telling you how to get back in the right direction.

As I have worked and practiced this model, I have been fascinated with how couples differ in their capacity to adapt, learn, practice and "get" the orienting concepts or philosophies and ultimately learn relational skills. I do not think the differences are a factor of IQ (although perhaps "emotional intelligence may be at play).  We all know those couples who stay rooted in the core negative image or preconceived notions of each other and who resist the therapeutic work to pry them from their negative stance. They become exceedingly activated emotionally. They react and are easily triggered by their partner's stuff. It is difficult to get them to step back from the typical roles they play out with each other in the maladaptive dynamic of their interactions.

These couples require significant therapeutic energy. They use a lot of the oxygen in the room, and are no fun to play with early on in the therapy. They have their "fight," and they're sticking to it!

In terms of RLT language, the primary consciousness from the adapted child has won out over the secondary consciousness  of the functional adult. It is clear that the couples who more quickly and effectively understand, integrate and then learn the skills of RLT are more likely to be adept at what Terry calls secondary consciousness.

Terry defines secondary consciousness as the Voice of Reason, maturity and relational savvy which interrupts your initial (primary consciousness), knee-jerk reaction and offers a more constructive alternative. This is a learned behavior. He continues, "Growing into this functional adult part of the self, arming it with tools, and strengthening its power to override automatic reactions is the essence of relationship practice." (From How Can I Get Through to You, page 78).

I have wondered whether relational life therapy work could be expedited by focusing and elaborating on the concept of secondary consciousness as defined above. In other words, is there a way to teach a "meta-skill," if you will, to help the partners step back in awareness from their over-determined, automatic through and behavioral responses to become aware of what is happening as prelude to disengaging from those patterns. Could there be a psychological equivalent to the calisthenics, stretching or aerobic conditioning for the mind prior to running the race we call Relational Life Therapy so that the participants are primed, open, flexible, adaptable and in shape to engage in the therapy?

It is clear that awareness and attentive focus on what is happening at the moment is crucial in secondary consciousness so that one can step away from automatic responses. It seems logical then that a practice that encourages one to focus on selective attention to the moment and achieve non-judgmental acceptance might generalize to the therapy. These are precisely the capabilities that are woven into and utilized in mindful awareness practice.

My Personal Path to Mindfulness

In the past year as I have been honing my RLT work in supervision with Relational Life Institute faculty member Jan Bergstrom, I have had to cope with a personal medical crisis that threatened my equanimity. Due to overuse of my left shoulder joint and an inflammatory response to a drug injection, I lost the use of my shoulder function and needed a total shoulder replacement. This threatened my lifelong identity as an athlete and tennis player as well as the relationships that orbited the game. I fell into a deep anxiety over future functioning, pain and the ordeal of recovery.

As my wonderful wife Felice would say, I had become a kvetch. Never one to shy away from sharing my feelings, I would overwhelm her loving patience with an endless stream of worry and complaints. Finally, in an act of self-preservation, she limited me to five minutes of complaining, two times per day. Needless to say, my feeling of being victimized by the medical establishment fed this self-preoccupation and dwelling on loss, deprivation, sadness, and of course pain.

Around this time, I attended the Psychotherapy Networker Conference in San Francisco where I heard a keynote address on Mindfulness and the Brain given by the brilliant and relationally-oriented neuro-psychiatrist Dan Siegel. I was inspired to begin my own meditation practice again. I also began to practice Yoga with my wife, who is a lifelong practitioner.

As a result, while my shoulder is slowly rehabilitating, I have been successful at changing the focus of my attention from loss to the present moment and to the aspects of my life that, as Terry would say, are "rich in abundance." 

Meditative and Yoga practice are helping me alter my consciousness around the thoughts of my shoulder and life. I am not so wedded to a specific outcome, measure by shoulder function, to guarantee life satisfaction. I have become better at shifting from "kvetch" consciousness to non-judgmental acceptance of the way things are now.

It is important to underscore that this is a practice of becoming mindfully aware, and as my imperfect mind drifts to negative thoughts, I take note of them in a non-judgmental manner. I take a deep breath, and I come back into the moment. This is the cultivation of secondary consciousness or mindfulness. It is becoming conscious of your thoughts and emotions and holding them in non-judgment in order to allow other "realities" to become known. I can become aware that one isolated thought may not be the way the situation really is.

In the next issue of the Real Advice Blog on Tuesday, April 29, Dr. Dan explores Mindfulness and Secondary Consciousness as a Concept and as a Practice.

THE NEW RULES OF PARENTING: How to tell your kids to "Just Say No" when you said "yes"

By Terry Real

Remember when having “the talk” was about the birds and the bees? Oh if it were just that easy these days.  Educating our kids about sex is nothing. It’s talking to them about alcohol and drugs that makes us weak in the knees.

So how do parents of the drug-soaked 60s, 70s and 80s tell their kids to “Just Say No” when they said yes, especially when the kids look back and ask, “Did you?”

The bottom line is that most parents feel like hypocrites on this subject, and it paralyzes them. For many, tossing back a six pack with their buddies, sneaking a cigarette behind the school or smoking pot was part of their identity as rebel youths. Sure, they may be straight-laced, gated community-dwellers now, but there’s still some rebellious pride in being able to score a joint and sneak out on the porch when the kids are at a sleepover.

One of my favorite stories is about some clients who were a couple of old Baby Boomers. They had a very old bag of pot left over. It was part of their identity as ex-hippies, and they didn’t want to get rid of it, but their kids were getting older, and they didn’t want it found either. What did they do? They wrapped it in freezer paper, marked it “liver”, and stuck it in the fridge.

The New Reality

There are several major concerns about keeping kids away from drugs. One of the most depressing new realities is that the peer pressure to imbibe now begins in middle-school. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, kids as young as the 4^th grade (ages 9 and 10) are being approached to try pot. And this early exposure is not limited to the inner cities; it is rampant in the suburbs.

Cigarettes and marijuana are the ports of entry to alcohol and other drug use as well as early sexual behavior. The longer kids wait to enter into these behaviors, the fewer problems they will have with these issues. Therefore, “the talk” as soon as possible is very important.

Just because pot was a relatively benign drug back in our day doesn’t mean it’s benign anymore. The marijuana kids are being offered today is substantially stronger than it was back then. In fact, pot is the number one reason for drug addiction in America.

Marijuana addiction is misunderstood. We think of addiction as a drug that causes physiological withdrawal, but that’s not the way professionals define addiction anymore. Addiction is now defined as the persistence of harmful behavior in the face of known consequences.

In addition to the illegality of the matter, it is particularly problematic for underage kids to experiment with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs because their central nervous systems are still developing well into their teen years.

The Act vs. The Behavior

This is where the real parenting on the matter begins: Looking at the behavior versus the act itself. The important thing is to not let your own history disempower you from setting clear boundaries with your kids. The real question is do you feel like a hypocrite, and how do you take your own youthful indiscretions out of the equation?

Your official position should be that you do not condone underage smoking, drinking and drug use. On the other hand, as kids enter their teen years, smoking pot is rampant, especially among highschoolers. So, if you catch your kid in the act or if you find evidence of it, don’t get too hung up on the act itself. Of course you have to admonish him for doing it, but focus on the behavior and the real consequences if you want to make an impact. It has less to do with the pot or the beer per se than your kid’s relationship to it.

Again, your official position should be that you want them to wait until they’re at college or off on their own, but the fact is that the world is not coming to an end if they are just experimenting once or twice. It didn’t for you, did it?

The real issue for you as a parent is how much is this behavior causing trouble with your child’s growth and development, school performance and friendships? Simply put, if it’s getting in the way, it’s getting in the way.

You know it has become a problem if you notice his grades are dropping, if he becomes less attentive or less active with his extracurriculars, or if there is a radical shift in his social groups. That’s when you sit the child down and say, “Look, this is a bad thing for you, and here’s why…” Don’t focus on the pot or booze as much as you focus on the problem, “Your grades are dropping, and I don’t like the kids you’re hanging with.”

Once you’ve had the chat, you monitor the situation. If he does have a problem then you take him to a professional and have him evaluated, and if he’s stoned all the time then you need to think about rehab.

So, don’t be afraid to be a hypocrite – stand up and express your concerns. Have frank conversations and most of all keep your eyes on things.

Parenting and the Belligerent Child

By Terry Real

The parent-child is a sober example of what it means to be “relational” in a relationship.

The normal skills that we think of as expert such as a doctor working on a body or a mechanic working on a car do not apply. In those situations, the professional diagnose what’s wrong and fixes it.

In personal relationships, your are reacting to the car, and the car is reacting to you. You have to be very smart in your diagnosis and efficient in the way your fix it. There are no rules, because it is not static, it’s a relationship. You take a position, and see if it works.  If it isn’t working, try intensifying your position a few more times. If it isn’t doing anything or making things work, then you shift to a radically different position.

In relationships you have to be smart, but you also have to be humble. When you try something to affect or adjust the behavior of a child, you have to be connected and sensitive to the response and then be flexible in movement to the response – it’s a dance.

The reason I start out by saying this is because being a good parent is dancing well.

When dealing with a belligerent child, you learn very quickly that what works one time could be a disaster the next.  You can take the Gameboy away and get the kid to straighten up, but the next time you try that it has no effect.

All relationships are like a dance, but the one with a difficult child is even more intense. It’s like a Tango -- you make a move, see how it works, and intensify it.

What do I mean by “intensify”, you ask?

Good question! How much is it going to be about setting limits and standing up to bad behavior and how much is it going to be about compassion.

I have two sons. A disciplinary tactic with one might get me a scowl and a pout while the same tactic with his brother would produce world war three.

Remember, to get what you want – good behavior – you have to pay attention to what will give you leverage with the kid. There are small moments and responses in that child that you have to pay attention to.

Having said that however, there are some general principles.

If you have a child that is being chronically difficult, I want you to be sure that you feel like you understand what’s really going on the kid.

• Is he or she acting differently at school? I the child not behaving normally with friends at school at home?
• Ask the teacher. Raise the possibility of an evaluation. Identify if there is learning issue that is causing your child stress.
• Rule out depression because a lot of kids who chronically act out or who exhibit difficult behaviors are masking developmental difficulties or in some cases biological psychiatric conditions.
• You have to be clear about the fact that it is behavioral vs something deeper.

Get feedback from teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, camp counselors, anyone who can talk to you about your child’s environment beyond what you see and experience yourself is enormously helpful. If you start getting reports that the same difficult behavior that you’re seeing is happening across the board, then you have a more difficult problem.

However, if your kids is better behaved at school and other people’s houses then it’s a tip off that you may need to look at your own parenting skills, but be sure to pause and see if you can get a sense of the big picture and that there are no systemic disorders.

There is no systemic problem – my kid is just a brat!

And, sometimes a brat is just a brat. If I’m dealing with a kid that is chronically difficult in a family then I’m dealing with a kid with too much power. The answer is to take this kid’s inordinate power away.

I’m a strong believer in healthy parental authority (or parental hierarchy). What really distinguishes Relational Life Therapy from other forms is that we don’t just focus on helping people come up from shame, rather we also help people come down from grandiosity. The young brat is all about grandiosity and being contemptuous to authority.

What we mean by “grandiosity” is, looking down your nose, contempt, feeling “better than”, etc. Pia Melody, my mentor and colleague, offers great insight that has made a tremendous contribution to my thinking. She says there are two forms of child abuse. We naturally think of disempowering abuse – making a child feel impotent, small ,worthless, defective, unlovable, etc. Yet, she says that there is also the abuse of false empowerment -- pumping up a child’s natural grandiosity or not doing the work of putting a child in his place.

All children are natural animals and when we go against shame and go against grandiosity we are civilizing our own natural animal behaviors.

Many times I’ve spoken about my own childhood. One time I came home with a terrible report card, and I expected him to fly into a violent rage. Instead he threw it down and said, “It’s because you’re too bright and those [bloody] teachers don’t know what to do with you because you’re too bright,” and he walked out. He did me no favor by saying that because I got C’s and D’s thru high school.

As the father of two boys there were times when they were growing up there was about 60-70% it was about setting limits and understanding about being sensitive to others around them.

The other day I was shopping, and there was a child running amok always on the verge of destroying something. He was keeping all of us distracted, and he almost broke six things in a row; his parent completely ignoring this all the while. At one point he touched something that I had put aside to purchase, and I said to him very sternly, “Don’t touch that.” That snapped his parent to attention, and the kid was finally wrangled. Another parent might have even challenged me, a stranger, for disciplining the child, to which I would have responded, “What makes you think you have the right to let this little kid run around and trash this store?”

So what is the cultural imperative here?

I think a lot of parents are afraid of being disliked by their children. When you set a limit you have to allow yourself to be disliked, and they’re uncomfortable with their children disliking them at all. In the northeast, we euphemistically call this, “The Cambridge Syndrome.” That’s when you treat little Johnny like he has a Ph.D. “I’m putting you to sleep at 7:00 instead of 9:00 because you need more sleep, because, because, because….”

Over explaining why you are setting the limit treats the kid like he’s an adult. He can’t process all of that information, and frankly you shouldn’t apologize for putting him to be early because he needs it, period.

So what makes a brat?

False empowerment, pure and simple. An absence of guidance and limits and negative consequences for bad behaviors. Failing to tame bad behavior through sensitive but strong and appropriate parental hierarchy is actually causing harm to your child and his ability to relate in the world.

You can (and should) appreciate your three year old’s dabble in the arts, but come on, every finger painting is not a Picasso. No child has the right to have more power in the group than you – the adult/parent should have. Unless you have offered the child the choice in what movie the family is seeing, he does not have the right to say I don’t like it and cause the whole plan for the outing to change. A child does not have the right to interrupt the adults and just keep talking.

CYBER-PORN ADDICTION: When healthy fantasy becomes a secretive compulsion

By Dan F. Pollets, Ph.D.

Dr. Pollets describes himself as "an enthusiastic practitioner" of Relational Life Therapy (RLT). He is a faculty member of the Relational Life Institute, and an ASSECT certified sex therapist.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The names of all clients as well as any other identifying information in the REAL Advice blog are changed to protect their confidentiality and privacy. Also this post discusses the topic of sexual intimacy in a frank manner.

As a sex and couples therapist, I have been impressed with how often issues around cyber-porn find their way to my office. The common link in these cases is that the client (or spouse) is spending time chasing sexual images on the easily available and often free porn sites on the Internet.  What eventually motivates the person to seek treatment is that this behavior begins to significantly effect his mood, functioning or and/or relationship.

Mental anguish, profound worry and dismay, shame, anxiety and depression accompany this addiction as well as feelings of being out of control.  There are powerful feelings of shock, fear, loss, and worry on the part of the spouse who discovers her partner’s predilection.  As such, it poses a significant threat to the relationship.

MIKE, GEORGE and BETH: Three patients in search of a cure

MIKE: A 24 year old single man living with his girl friend (Dora) of four years reveals that he has an “unhealthy” sexual desire for teen age girls.  He requests treatment to help “cure” him of this sexual interest.  While not acting out his sexual desire, he has been secretly spending 3-8 hours per week hunting images of young girls on the Internet.  He acknowledges that his compulsion has hurt his relationship and his sex life.  He is extremely ambivalent about his relationship but has not talked about his feelings openly with Dora.  He has been avoiding sexual contact with Dora as well as having difficulty getting himself to the gym and other outside interests and activities.  He states that his mood has been more depressed and he is anxious about his compulsion being revealed.  He feels guilty, ashamed, and preoccupied.

GEORGE: A 49 year old married man with a two year old boy.  He has a history of alcohol addiction and cyber-porn addiction.  Four years ago he was successfully treated for these addictions with a combination of in-patient, outpatient, and group psychotherapy.  He is a writer and has taught English at a variety of local colleges.  After three years of recovery from alcohol and cyber-porn addiction, he relapsed following his being laid off from his teaching position in an administration change.  He has not begun drinking but is again “medicating” his anxiety by spending large chunks of time watching cyber-porn.   He presented to treatment after becoming increasingly more agitated, depressed, ashamed and “fed-up” with himself.

BETH: A 42 year old married woman with two children requesting a consultation regarding her husband Frank’s behavior and her marital situation.  She had discovered Frank had been visiting porn sites on his computer.  She confronted him and he became outraged, defensive and accused her of violating his privacy.  He refused to join her in seeking treatment. She did not know how much time he spends visiting porn sites but had a list of the particular sites he visits.  When she looked at the sites, she was shocked and disgusted at the graphic images, some of which involved gay sex.  She said that she has been concerned for a long time about their diminishing sex life and the emotional disconnection she feels.  She is confused and scared about what this porn viewing suggests about Frank’s sexuality and about the future of her relationship.  She would like help sorting her feelings out and developing a plan about dealing with this with Frank.

SEEDS OF ADDICTION

In my experience there are deeper causative factors which form the fertile soil of this addiction.  Sometimes it is a history of sexual abuse or pre-mature entry into sexuality (prior to mid-adolescence).  The person becomes fixated at the age to which they were “initiated” into sex.  As a result, they are attracted to girls the same age as they were when the abuse occurred. I have also seen a greater than expected frequency of mood disorder (depression, bi-polar disorder) in these clients.

It is also my experience that once the cyber-porn addiction is discovered it leads to an issue in the relationship. Typically, there is an emotional disconnection between partners, a “walling-off” in the relationship leading to a reduction in sexual contact and intimacy.  Instead of directly and honestly attending to the breach, there is escape into the easily available and non-demanding world of cyber-sex and self-stimulation.  The viewing becomes compulsive, immediately gratifying and soothing of anxiety states.  This behavior is highly reinforced and therefore tends to progress or increase in frequency.

FANTASY VS. ADDICTION

Compulsive viewing of cyber-pornography, a sub-group of sexual addiction, appears to have a recognizable behavior pattern similar to other addictions (Carnes, 1999).  This involves acting out a pattern of out-of-control sexual behavior (e.g. compulsive masturbation, persistent viewing of pornography, having consistent affairs, etc.)  in which severe mood change relates to sexual activity.

The sex addict experiences severe consequences due to sexual behaviors and an inability to stop despite these consequences.  These consequences can include loss of a partner, severe marital or relationship problems, loss of career opportunities, suicidal obsessions, and exposure to STDs.  Sex addicts gradually increase the amount of sexual activity because the current level of activity is no longer sufficiently satisfying.  As tolerance or numbness develops around their viewing, individuals may find themselves seeking out more unusual sexual experiences and more graphic pornography.

The explosion of the Internet into our day-to-day lives, the Average Joe has transformed the use and popularity of pornography and has ratcheted up the rates of cyber-porn addiction.  Explicit X-rated porn catering to all possible tastes and predilections are now merely a click away from any room in your house. Those vulnerable to this form of addiction no longer have to leave the safety and anonymity of their own homes and confront embarrassment and shame about buying porn; they simply surf from their home computer of hand-held device.

Besides the pornographic images available to the viewer, the Internet makes other forms of cyber-sex experiences easily available.  They include interactive experiences and a smorgasbord of virtual intimacy for users.  On-line videos, chat rooms, games, photo-galleries, web-cams, meet-n-greet sites provide users with several different mediums through which they can obtain and experience porn or hook up virtually or in real life.

What is so attractive, compelling, and reinforcing is that this alternative universe of sexuality can be accessed from any computer where users can safely and anonymously fantasize, flirt, and get intimate.

HOW TO SPOT THE ADDICT

Currently, a cyber-sex addict classified as one who uses the Internet for sexual purposes for 11 or more hours per week.  I think this underestimates the frequency of the problem.  It might not be the hours spent per se that defines the addiction but how it is affecting the person’s functioning and relationships.

WHEN TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP

Unlike most women, men will typically view pornography as innocent and will believe that its viewing has little negative effect on the relationship.  Often these men rationalize their pornography interest as a solution for loneliness and not having a partner.

In the context of a functional relationship, the viewing of erotic images can be used to enhance the sexual relationship.  For many couples, sharing fantasies and communicating about them can be a positive and healthy aspect of the relationship.  It can intensify a couples’ sexual relationship and introduce novelty, inspire experimentation and generally add some spice to lovemaking.

This being said, there is a discernible boundary between healthy viewing of erotica and secretive and compulsive use as there is a difference between moderate or recreational drinking and excessive use of alcohol.  It is also a different story when both partners are in agreement to view pornographic images (“informed consent”), as opposed to secretive use and if the use serves a self-medication function.

As in most cases where there is a secret in the marriage, when discovered the partner can feel deceived and betrayed, and this is obviously corrosive to the marriage.

If a man’s use of pornography is discovered and his partner has strong feelings about the issue, this is by definition a conflict in the relationship and needs to be dealt with.  It is in the process of managing the conflict that will determine the degree of relationship dysfunction.  It seems pointless to argue over whose right or wrong.  There are very strong feelings at work and this need to be validated by each partner if disconnection and disruption is to be avoided.

If the issue cannot be discussed in a calm and respectful manner, professional help may be needed.  Clearly, reliance on pornography at the expense or avoidance of the emotional and/or physical relationship suggests a deeper problem.  It may be not be so helpful to get into a debate over the moral issues around the viewing or pornography (how women are depicted, degraded and so on) as to focus on how the use is impacting on the user’s presence and functioning in the relationship and how his partner feels about it.

In other words, the better strategy in the onset of the discussion about the issue to emphasize the emotional and relational costs and consequences of the viewing.  Again, while the man might see his use of pornography as totally innocent, the fact that his partner has such strong feelings and it is effecting the relationship makes it no so innocent.

As in many of the issues that divide couples, the capacity to speak the truth about the issue and be validated by his/her partner and then compromise separates a functional relationship from one that might need help.