Attitude towards loved ones. The relationship of man to man: an essay on the important

Working with a client and
his attachment problems
is work with a small
a child in need of love.

Primary and secondary feelings

The types of feelings most commonly seen in therapy with clients are primary feelings, secondary feelings, and demonstrated lack of feelings.

The idea of ​​separating feelings into primary and secondary is not new (see, for example, the article Mikaelyan L.L. Emotionally Focused Marriage Therapy. Theory and Practice. / ZhPP 2011, No. 2).

This article is written in the paradigm of the system-analytical approach in psychotherapy developed by the authors (G. Maleichuk, N. Olifirovich), which implies a holistic view of the emergence and development of the phenomenon under study.

primary feelings. These are feelings of rejection, fear, loneliness. Behind them it is very easy to see needs, primary feelings, as a rule, express them directly. The most common needs behind these feelings are: unconditional love, acceptance, affection.

Presentation by the client at the beginning of therapy of primary feelings is quite rare, it indicates his good contact with your I. Most often this happens in a state life crises, depression.

secondary feelings. This is anger, anger, rage, irritation, resentment. These feelings arise when it is impossible to present primary feelings to loved ones. Most often this happens because of fear (rejection) or shame (rejection). Secondary feelings, such as anger or resentment, obscure the primary feelings that speak of the emotional needs of attachment.

Absence of feelings or emotional anesthesia. The client in this case declares that he has no feelings for close people (father, mother), they are strangers to him, and he no longer needs them. This focus of therapy is rarely a request and most often appears in the course of therapy for other requests.

attachment trauma

Fear and panic are the first feelings that cover a child when parting with his mother. The child is crying, screaming in the hope of returning the mother;

Anger and rage - a protest against abandonment, the child does not accept the situation and continues to actively seek the return of the mother;

Despair and apathy - the child comes to terms with the situation of the impossibility of returning the mother, falls into depression, becomes physically numb and emotionally frozen.

As a result of this kind of traumatic interaction, the child develops either an increased “stickiness” to the parental figure (if he has not yet lost hope of getting her attention and love - fixation at the second stage according to Bowlby), or a cold detachment (in the event that such a hope was for him is lost - fixation at the third stage).

The most serious problems arise in children in the third stage. If attachment behavior to seek and maintain contact with the attachment figure fails, the child develops feelings such as angry protest, clinging, depression, and despair, culminating in emotional withdrawal from the attachment figure.

Moreover, it is important not so much the physical presence of the object of affection, but also his emotional involvement in the relationship. The object of affection may be physically present, but emotionally absent.

Attachment injuries can occur not only due to the physical absence of the object of attachment, but also due to its psychological alienation. If the attachment figure is perceived as emotionally unavailable, then, as in the situation of its physical absence, separation anxiety and distress set in. This is very important point, we will return to it later.

In both cases, the child grows up in a deficit of unconditional love and parental acceptance, the need for affection turns out to be chronically unsatisfied due to frustration.

His Self is deficient (the term of G. Amon), incapable of self-acceptance, self-respect, self-support, such a person will have low unstable self-esteem, extremely dependent on the opinions of other people, prone to creating co-dependent relationships.

In therapy, it is possible to meet with clients fixed at different levels of attachment disorder. The most difficult situation is by far the one when the therapist encounters the client's emotional "insensitivity".

Can meet with different types emotional insensitivity - from complete anesthesia to alexithymia of varying degrees. All alexithymics, as a rule, are traumatics. The cause of such insensitivity, as mentioned earlier, is psychic trauma - trauma of relationships with loved ones or trauma of attachment.

Injuries are known to be acute and chronic. Attachment injuries tend to be chronic. Faced in therapy with a client's insensitivity to a loved one and quite rightly assuming a trauma in a relationship, the therapist, most often unsuccessfully, tries to look for cases in his anamnesis that confirm this.

However, the client often cannot remember vivid episodes of rejection by significant persons. If you ask him to remember the warm, pleasant moments of the relationship, it turns out that there are none either.

What then is there? And there is a neutral to the point of indifference attitude towards the client-child, although at the same time parents often flawlessly fulfill their functional parental duties. The child is treated differently little man with its unique emotional experiences, but as to function.

They can be attentive to his physical, material needs, such a child can grow up in full material prosperity: shod, dressed, fed, etc. The area of ​​spiritual and spiritual contact with the child is absent.

Or parents can be so absorbed in their lives that they completely forget about him, leaving him to himself. Such parents, as a rule, are often "excited" in their parental functions, remember that they are parents when something happens to the child (for example, he falls ill).

Client M. recalls that her mother "appeared" in her life when she was ill - then she "left the Internet" and began to actively carry out all the necessary medical procedures. It is not surprising that this client had a painful way of existence - it was through her illness that she managed to somehow “return” her mother.

The child in the above situation is in a state of chronic emotional rejection. Chronic emotional rejection is the inability of the parental figure (object of affection) to unconditionally accept their child. At the same time, the attachment figure, as noted above, can be physically present and functionally perform its duties.

The reasons for the inability of parents to unconditionally love and accept their child are not a matter of ethics and morality for the therapist, but are related to their psychological problems. They (problems) can be caused both by their life situation (for example, the mother of the child is in a situation of psychological crisis), and are associated with the peculiarities of their personality structure (for example, parents with narcissistic or schizoid characterology).

In some cases, the reasons for parental insensitivity may go beyond their personal life history, but be passed on to them through intergenerational ties. For example, the mother of one of the parents herself was in a state of mental trauma and, due to her emotional anesthesia, was unable to be sensitive to her child and give him enough acceptance and love that he needed.

In any case, the mother turns out to be incapable of an emotional response and therefore unable to satisfy the child's need for attachment and, at best, is physically and functionally present in his life. The above situation can be corrected by the presence of an emotionally warm father, or another close figure, but, unfortunately, this does not always happen in life.

In adult life an attempt to fill the deficit in love and affection is carried out, as a rule, not directly - through parents, but in a substitutive way - through partners. It is with them that scenarios of co-dependent behavior are played out, in which secondary feelings intended for parents come to the fore.

With parents, such clients often behave in a counter-dependent way, playing out the scenario of lack of feelings. And only after getting into therapy and having passed the stage of discussing the client's co-dependent relationship with a partner, it is possible to reach an emotionally detached, distant attitude towards his parents.

Client N. behaves with a partner in a typically co-dependent way - controlling, offended, accusing of insufficient attention, jealous. In her contact with a partner, the whole set of “secondary” feelings is manifested - irritation, resentment, anger.

There is no relationship with her parents: the father, according to the client, was never emotionally close to her, the mother was always more busy with herself. The client has long resigned herself to such an attitude towards her and no longer expects or wants anything from her parents. At the same time, she directs all her flow of unfulfilled need for love and affection to her partner.

Therapeutic reflections

Therapeutic work with such clients is work with the trauma of rejection. In the course of therapy, the client unfolds a process of immersion in the trauma of rejection that exists at an early stage of his development, which we call an actualized crisis.

This is a purposeful, controlled therapeutic actualization of a previously unexperienced trauma in order to re-experience it in the therapeutic process.

The therapy process here has several successive stages. It begins, as a rule, with a discussion of a real crisis in relations with a partner, which is usually a client request.

Here, in therapy, the client actively presents secondary feelings (anger, resentment, jealousy, etc.) towards his partner. The therapeutic task at this stage is to switch the client to the area of ​​primary feelings (fear of rejection, rejection).

This is not an easy task, since the client will have a strong resistance to awareness and acceptance of the primary feelings-needs behind the secondary feelings (for acceptance, unconditional love). Resistance is supported, as noted above, by strong feelings of fear and shame.

The next step in therapy will be the awareness and acceptance of the fact that the primary feelings-needs are displaced from the primary object and directed to another object. This primary object is the parent shape with which the anchor relationship was broken.

The therapeutic task of this stage of therapy will be the successive passage of stages of sensitivity to an object with a broken attachment from the stage of lack of feelings through the stage of secondary feelings and, finally, to the primary feelings-needs.

The therapist unfolds the emotional process from emotional anesthesia and secondary emotions that perform protective function, to the primary feelings that speak of the need for intimacy-attachment and fears of not getting what you want.

Working with a client and his attachment problems is like working with a small child in need of love. The most relevant model of therapy here is the mother-child relationship, in which the therapist needs to contain and give to the client a lot.

If we imagine that at the moments of experiencing primary emotions (fear, pain of loss, feeling own uselessness and abandonment) we are in contact with the childish and vulnerable part of the “I” of the client, then it will be easier to understand and accept him. This is work "here-and-now", at close range, requiring empathic attunement to the current state of the client.

Working with emotions while in a detached position is ineffective. Empathic involvement is the main tool of the therapist's work with the problems under consideration. Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in the place of another person, to understand what it is like for him, to experience sympathy and express it in contact.

The therapist's empathy, nonjudgmental and unconditional acceptance, and congruence (the Rogers triad) help build a secure and trusting therapeutic relationship—a relationship of emotional intimacy that the client has been missing in his or her life.

As a result, the person who turns to the therapist feels understood and accepted. Such a therapeutic relationship is the optimal nourishing, supportive and developmental environment that facilitates the process personal growth client.

There are analogies with secure attachment, which is a safe harbor that protects against life's stresses, and a reliable base from which you can take risks and explore the surroundings and inner world. Even the strongest and most rejected feelings can be experienced and assimilated in closeness, no matter how difficult and painful it may seem.

In the process of interaction, it is difficult for people with attachment problems to be in therapeutic contact. Due to their hypertrophied sensitivity to rejection, they are also unable to maintain themselves in real contact and often indulge in reactions.

In a situation that they "read" as rejection, they develop strong secondary feelings - resentment, rage, anger, pain - and they do not allow them to remain in contact. The interaction partner is a secondary object onto which the feelings addressed to the primary rejecting objects are projected.

Client N. came to therapy for relationship problems with men. In the course of therapy, it turned out that these relationships in her life always unfold according to a similar scenario: after a successful first stage in the relationship, the client begins to have more and more claims to the chosen one, irritation, jealousy, reproaches, resentment, control.

Behind these actions and secondary feelings, in the process of analysis, a strong fear of abandonment, rejection, uselessness, and loneliness is revealed. A client in a real relationship, not realizing these feelings, is trying to put more and more pressure on her companion. It is not surprising that her men "escape" from these relationships with enviable constancy.

This is the point in the relationship that can be realized in therapy and break the habitual pattern of interaction, break out of the usual stereotypical pathological ways of contact.

The number one task for such clients is to try to stay in contact, not indulging in reaction and to tell the partner (using I-statements) about their feelings-needs. It is also very difficult for the reason that in this situation the fear of rejection is actualized. Although the leading feeling is often resentment, which "does not allow" to speak openly about one's feelings (pain, fear).

This therapy may not always be successful. Such therapy, as mentioned above, makes great demands on the personality of the therapist, on his maturity, elaboration, on his personal resources. If the therapist himself is vulnerable to attachment, he will not be able to work with clients with similar problems, since he cannot give anything to such a client.

For non-residents, consultation and supervision with the author of the article via the Internet is possible.

At a time when you want to be yourself and live in peaceful relationships with family and friends, very often the expectations and requests from them become a source of stress and unhappiness for you. Often, peace and sincerity in the family come into conflict, you are forced to choose: to enter into conflicts with relatives adhering to your opinion or to maintain peace and harmony in the family at any cost.

The biggest obstacle to reconnecting with intention is your own ideas about what other people want and expect from you. In those moments when you feel manipulation by your relatives and the imposition of their interests on you, switch your consciousness from this to your own thoughts. When you take responsibility for relationship with loved ones and relatives, you will be able to create a relationship with them that will be in harmony with the universal Spirit.

When asked why responsible person for the attitude towards yourself from your relatives, only you are an intelligible answer: the reason for this is that you are ready to succumb to the pressure that your loved ones put on you and moreover, you are subject to the low influence of such feelings as regret, guilt and anxiety.

When it seems to you that relationship with loved ones you are missing something, it means that this something is missing in you - after all, the shortcomings that you notice in other people. This is just a reflection of the negative aspect of your essence - otherwise, they would not bother you at all, because you would simply not notice them.

In order for the nature of relationships in the family to change, you need to change your thoughts about your loved ones. Throughout your life, people have treated you and will treat you the way you have allowed them to treat you by your behavior. If you constantly think that your loved ones are doing wrong, you will continue to have such wrong relationships with them. If you constantly focus your attention on what irritates you, you will notice this in your relatives as well.

Even though it is common for people to blame other people for their feelings, it is actually only your feelings that you generate with your thoughts. By focusing the energy of life and attention exclusively on positive aspects, your relationships with loved ones can change in the best side. In your mental family relationships, you will stop being angry, offended, annoyed, and even falling into despair. If mentally you intend to live in love and harmony with your relatives, it will be so, it happens in reality.

A real, reasonable egoist is an egoist who will not focus on one thing, will not bet "on one horse." For example, to associate yourself with a person very strongly, to become dependent on his actions and thoughts (“I love you so much that I can’t live without you!”) is deadly! People change over time, and the person close to you too, he may begin to act in such a way that you, my dear reader, will suffer severely from his behavior.

In society, they consider those who cannot be manipulated, who are in their own mind, to be cunning. And, accordingly, they love those who are controlled. Are you ready to pay too much price, my dear reader, to be loved?

Therefore, a real, reasonable egoist is attached to other people, he loves them, but only as long as they do as he wants them to do with him. And while they take into account his desires and needs. But, if they chronically do not do this, then he will cut off all ties with them without regret.

You will probably agree that any of our relationships with people are fixed by contracts (albeit not always written), which set out mutual obligations. If the opposite side systematically violates them, then a real, reasonable egoist will terminate this relationship without hesitation and remorse.

Also, a real, reasonable egoist knows that his family and friends are his most reliable support in life. People who are related to each other by blood will always remain related. You can quarrel with a friend, divorce your wife, leave colleagues for old work and never mention them again. But brothers and sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, mother and father will never (while they are alive) leave us.

As long as you exist, you are responsible for everything you have done. Al Busiri

Therefore, a real, reasonable egoist will always be extremely careful about his relationship with them. And will never chop off the shoulder. Even if his relatives don’t like him much! Even if you do not want to communicate with them at all! But the voice of blood will lead them to you exactly when you are in dire need of support and understanding, when you simply cannot survive without help. And for the sake of this, a real, reasonable egoist will turn a blind eye to the inevitable disagreements with his relatives, will endure them an order of magnitude stronger than the rest!

More on the topic Chapter Eleven Attitude towards loved ones:

1. g) Committing a crime against a person or his relatives in connection with the performance of official activities by this person or the fulfillment of a public duty

Working with a client and
his attachment problems
is work with a small
a child in need of love.

Primary and secondary feelings

The types of feelings most commonly seen in therapy with clients are primary feelings, secondary feelings, and demonstrated lack of feelings.

The idea of ​​separating feelings into primary and secondary is not new (see, for example, the article Mikaelyan L.L. Emotionally Focused Marriage Therapy. Theory and Practice. / ZhPP 2011, No. 2).

This article is written in the paradigm of the system-analytical approach in psychotherapy developed by the authors (G. Maleichuk, N. Olifirovich), which implies a holistic view of the emergence and development of the phenomenon under study.

primary feelings. These are feelings of rejection, fear, loneliness. Behind them it is very easy to see needs, primary feelings, as a rule, express them directly. Most often behind such feelings are the following needs: unconditional love, acceptance, affection.

Presentation by the client of primary feelings at the beginning of therapy is quite rare, it indicates his good contact with his Self. Most often this happens in a state of life crises, depression.

secondary feelings. This is anger, anger, rage, irritation, resentment. These feelings arise when it is impossible to present primary feelings to loved ones. Most often this happens because of fear (rejection) or shame (rejection). Secondary feelings, such as anger or resentment, obscure the primary feelings that speak of the emotional needs of attachment.

Absence of feelings or emotional anesthesia. The client in this case declares that he has no feelings for close people (father, mother), they are strangers to him, and he no longer needs them. This focus of therapy is rarely a request and most often appears in the course of therapy for other requests.

attachment trauma

Fear and panic are the first feelings that cover a child when parting with his mother. The child is crying, screaming in the hope of returning the mother;

Anger and rage - a protest against abandonment, the child does not accept the situation and continues to actively seek the return of the mother;

Despair and apathy - the child comes to terms with the situation of the impossibility of returning the mother, falls into depression, becomes physically numb and emotionally frozen.

As a result of this kind of traumatic interaction, the child develops either an increased “stickiness” to the parental figure (if he has not yet lost hope of getting her attention and love - fixation at the second stage according to Bowlby), or a cold detachment (in the event that such a hope was for him is lost - fixation at the third stage).

The most serious problems arise in children in the third stage. If attachment behavior to seek and maintain contact with the attachment figure fails, the child develops feelings such as angry protest, clinging, depression, and despair, culminating in emotional withdrawal from the attachment figure.

Moreover, it is important not so much the physical presence of the object of affection, but also his emotional involvement in the relationship. The object of affection may be physically present, but emotionally absent.

Attachment injuries can occur not only due to the physical absence of the object of attachment, but also due to its psychological alienation. If the attachment figure is perceived as emotionally unavailable, then, as in the situation of its physical absence, separation anxiety and distress set in. This is a very important point, we will return to it later.

In both cases, the child grows up in a deficit of unconditional love and parental acceptance, the need for affection turns out to be chronically unsatisfied due to frustration.

His Self is deficient (the term of G. Amon), incapable of self-acceptance, self-respect, self-support, such a person will have low unstable self-esteem, extremely dependent on the opinions of other people, prone to creating co-dependent relationships.

In therapy, it is possible to meet with clients fixed at different levels of attachment disorder. The most difficult situation is by far the one when the therapist encounters the client's emotional "insensitivity".

You can meet with different types of emotional insensitivity - from complete anesthesia to alexithymia of varying degrees. All alexithymics, as a rule, are traumatics. The cause of such insensitivity, as mentioned earlier, is psychic trauma - trauma of relationships with loved ones or trauma of attachment.

Injuries are known to be acute and chronic. Attachment injuries tend to be chronic. Faced in therapy with a client's insensitivity to a loved one and quite rightly assuming a trauma in a relationship, the therapist, most often unsuccessfully, tries to look for cases in his anamnesis that confirm this.

However, the client often cannot remember vivid episodes of rejection by significant persons. If you ask him to remember the warm, pleasant moments of the relationship, it turns out that there are none either.

What then is there? And there is a neutral to the point of indifference attitude towards the client-child, although at the same time parents often flawlessly fulfill their functional parental duties. The child is treated not as a small person with his unique emotional experiences, but as a function.

They can be attentive to his physical, material needs, such a child can grow up in full material prosperity: shod, dressed, fed, etc. The area of ​​spiritual and spiritual contact with the child is absent.

Or parents can be so absorbed in their lives that they completely forget about him, leaving him to himself. Such parents, as a rule, are often "excited" in their parental functions, remember that they are parents when something happens to the child (for example, he falls ill).

Client M. recalls that her mother "appeared" in her life when she was ill - then she "left the Internet" and began to actively carry out all the necessary medical procedures. It is not surprising that this client had a painful way of existence - it was through her illness that she managed to somehow “return” her mother.

The child in the above situation is in a state of chronic emotional rejection. Chronic emotional rejection is the inability of the parental figure (object of affection) to unconditionally accept their child. At the same time, the attachment figure, as noted above, can be physically present and functionally perform its duties.

The reasons for the inability of parents to unconditionally love and accept their child are not a matter of ethics and morality for the therapist, but are related to their psychological problems. They (problems) can be caused both by their life situation (for example, the mother of the child is in a situation of psychological crisis), and are associated with the peculiarities of their personality structure (for example, parents with narcissistic or schizoid characterology).

In some cases, the causes of parental insensitivity may go beyond their personal life history, but be passed on to them through intergenerational ties. For example, the mother of one of the parents herself was in a state of mental trauma and, due to her emotional anesthesia, was unable to be sensitive to her child and give him enough acceptance and love that he needed.

In any case, the mother turns out to be incapable of an emotional response and therefore unable to satisfy the child's need for attachment and, at best, is physically and functionally present in his life. The above situation can be corrected by the presence of an emotionally warm father, or another close figure, but, unfortunately, this does not always happen in life.

In adult life, an attempt to fill the deficit in love and affection is usually carried out not directly - through parents, but in a substitutive way - through partners. It is with them that scenarios of co-dependent behavior are played out, in which secondary feelings intended for parents come to the fore.

With parents, such clients often behave in a counter-dependent way, playing out the scenario of lack of feelings. And only after getting into therapy and having passed the stage of discussing the client's co-dependent relationship with a partner, it is possible to reach an emotionally detached, distant attitude towards his parents.

Client N. behaves with a partner in a typically co-dependent way - controlling, offended, accusing of insufficient attention, jealous. In her contact with a partner, the whole set of “secondary” feelings is manifested - irritation, resentment, anger.

There is no relationship with her parents: the father, according to the client, was never emotionally close to her, the mother was always more busy with herself. The client has long resigned herself to such an attitude towards her and no longer expects or wants anything from her parents. At the same time, she directs all her flow of unfulfilled need for love and affection to her partner.

Therapeutic reflections

Therapeutic work with such clients is work with the trauma of rejection. In the course of therapy, the client unfolds a process of immersion in the trauma of rejection that exists at an early stage of his development, which we call an actualized crisis.

This is a purposeful, controlled therapeutic actualization of a previously unexperienced trauma in order to re-experience it in the therapeutic process.

The therapy process here has several successive stages. It begins, as a rule, with a discussion of a real crisis in relations with a partner, which is usually a client request.

Here, in therapy, the client actively presents secondary feelings (anger, resentment, jealousy, etc.) towards his partner. The therapeutic task at this stage is to switch the client to the area of ​​primary feelings (fear of rejection, rejection).

This is not an easy task, since the client will have a strong resistance to awareness and acceptance of the primary feelings-needs behind the secondary feelings (for acceptance, unconditional love). Resistance is supported, as noted above, by strong feelings of fear and shame.

The next step in therapy will be the awareness and acceptance of the fact that the primary feelings-needs are displaced from the primary object and directed to another object. This primary object is the parent shape with which the anchor relationship was broken.

The therapeutic task of this stage of therapy will be the successive passage of stages of sensitivity to an object with a broken attachment from the stage of lack of feelings through the stage of secondary feelings and, finally, to the primary feelings-needs.

The therapist turns the emotional process from emotional anesthesia and secondary emotions that perform a protective function to primary feelings that speak of intimacy-attachment needs and fears of not getting what you want.

Working with a client and his attachment problems is like working with a small child in need of love. The most relevant model of therapy here is the mother-child relationship, in which the therapist needs to contain and give to the client a lot.

If we imagine that at the moments of experiencing primary emotions (fear, pain of loss, feeling of our own uselessness and abandonment), we are in contact with the childish and vulnerable part of the client’s “I”, then it will be easier to understand and accept him. This is work "here-and-now", at close range, requiring empathic attunement to the current state of the client.

Working with emotions while in a detached position is ineffective. Empathic involvement is the main tool of the therapist's work with the problems under consideration. Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in the place of another person, to understand what it is like for him, to experience sympathy and express it in contact.

The therapist's empathy, nonjudgmental and unconditional acceptance, and congruence (the Rogers triad) help build a secure and trusting therapeutic relationship—a relationship of emotional intimacy that the client has been missing in his or her life.

As a result, the person who turns to the therapist feels understood and accepted. Such a therapeutic relationship is the optimal nurturing, supportive, and developmental environment for the client's personal growth process.

There are analogies with reliable attachment, which is a safe harbor that protects against life's stresses, and a reliable base from which you can take risks and explore the surrounding and inner world. Even the strongest and most rejected feelings can be experienced and assimilated in closeness, no matter how difficult and painful it may seem.

In the process of interaction, it is difficult for people with attachment problems to be in therapeutic contact. Due to their hypertrophied sensitivity to rejection, they are also unable to maintain real contact and often start reacting.

In a situation that they "read" as rejection, they develop strong secondary feelings - resentment, rage, anger, pain - and they do not allow them to remain in contact. The interaction partner is a secondary object onto which the feelings addressed to the primary rejecting objects are projected.

Client N. came to therapy for relationship problems with men. In the course of therapy, it turned out that these relationships in her life always unfold according to a similar scenario: after a successful first stage in the relationship, the client begins to have more and more claims to the chosen one, irritation, jealousy, reproaches, resentment, control.

Behind these actions and secondary feelings, in the process of analysis, a strong fear of abandonment, rejection, uselessness, and loneliness is revealed. A client in a real relationship, not realizing these feelings, is trying to put more and more pressure on her companion. It is not surprising that her men "escape" from these relationships with enviable constancy.

This is the point in the relationship that can be realized in therapy and break the habitual pattern of interaction, break out of the usual stereotypical pathological ways of contact.

The number one task for such clients is to try to stay in contact, not indulging in reaction and to tell the partner (using I-statements) about their feelings-needs. It is also very difficult for the reason that in this situation the fear of rejection is actualized. Although the leading feeling is often resentment, which "does not allow" to speak openly about one's feelings (pain, fear).

This therapy may not always be successful. Such therapy, as mentioned above, makes great demands on the personality of the therapist, on his maturity, elaboration, on his personal resources. If the therapist himself is vulnerable to attachment, he will not be able to work with clients with similar problems, since he cannot give anything to such a client.

For non-residents, consultation and supervision with the author of the article via the Internet is possible.

Anna: Changing stereotypes about sexual relationships could keep spouses from having affairs on the side in ninety cases out of a hundred!

Elena: Good point!

Nelly: I was talking to a friend of mine about adultery. Arkady is sure that with his wife he cannot get everything that he can get from his mistress. He actually has a double marriage. As Arkady says, he needs a wife "for weekdays", and a mistress - "for the weekend." With his wife, he "performs his conjugal duty," and with his mistress, he "enjoys." I was amazed at such selfishness! Why you can’t have fun with your spouse, with your closest and dear person?

Alena: For this you need to give up consumer attitude to others! Decide to find the reasons for your dissatisfaction with your relationship with your spouse. Apparently, Arkady is not confident in himself, he cannot decide on changes in relations with his wife.

Faith: How is it connected?

Alena: In order to decide to discuss your dissatisfaction with marriage relationships, you will have to admit to your incompetence. And only a confident person is capable of this!

Yulia: Does this apply only to men?

Alena: This applies equally to both men and women!

Alena: Not only Arkady, but also all other spouses who communicate with each other in the "strict framework of marital relations", it will not be out of place to remember that spouses are the closest people. With whom, if not with a close and dear person, with your beloved spouse or beloved wife, is it easiest to expand these “frameworks”? Who, if not close person understand you best?

Olga: Most likely, such spouses are held back by the stereotype we already know about "shameful sex." I also perceived life in a "pink light". I knew practically nothing about intimate relationships. I sincerely considered sex as a marital obligation.

Alena: Some men and women still consider sexual relations in the family to be a marital obligation. Having decided to commit adultery, they thereby try to "go beyond conventions", "free themselves from stereotypical ideas about sex." Entangled in their stereotypical ideas of "free sex", they decide to change only in intimate relationships with a stranger, with a lover or mistress. In a word, with that person with whom nothing connects you, with whom you can communicate without any conventions!

Rita: It turns out that many tie love story on the side in order to get rid of their stereotypical ideas about sex as a marital obligation with the help of infidelity? Then wouldn't it be easier to get rid of your stereotypes together with your spouse?

Alena: For this, the spouses need to decide on a frank conversation! The fear of a frank showdown for some spouses remains an insurmountable wall! In the process of psychological counseling, spouses are asked to ask each other questions about the most intimate: "What do you feel during an intimate relationship? Do you enjoy intimacy? What touches give you pleasant sensations? What caresses do you prefer?" It turns out that spouses who have lived together for decades almost never ask each other these elementary questions.

Vera: We never talk about these topics with my husband for the same reason ... It’s somehow embarrassing for me to talk to him about my feelings ... especially intimate ones!

Nelly: In general, my husband and I rarely talk about what does not suit us and what we would like to change in the relationship! I'm not sure that something in our relationship will change from frank conversations!

Alena: In marital relations, everything is subject to change! Of course, if two people want these changes!

Antonina: Why do spouses prefer to have an affair on the side?

Alena: Basically, because of the consumer attitude to love. The idea that with a new partner you can switch to new level intimate relationship is nothing but an illusion! To believe that another, new partner will initiate you into the secret of love, teach you everything that your spouse or spouse did not teach, “fill up” the missing warmth, compensate for gaps in communication, “inspire” you with your love means being captured by this illusion !

It would be wrong to say that everything in love and family happiness depends only on women! Often ladies with broken hearts one has to admit that they were just toys in the hands of men who dream, thanks to light love victories, get rid of their male complexes.