Just Being Honest

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1. Tell Your Partner What You Want It sounds so obvious, to just be honest in your relationship and tell your partner what you want, to say what your needs are, but a lot of people find it hard to do. They keep this information to themselves, and then resentment and hostility start to bubble up. Your partner can’t read your mind, […]...
2. Behavior Over Feelings Many rationalize harmful words and actions towards the people they are closest to by telling themselves they’re only being authentic, that it wouldn’t be right to hide how they’re really feeling, that they’re just being honest and honesty is important. But the question is, how are you going to let a feeling, something ephemeral and […]...
3. Complicated Therapeutic Relationship The paradox of the professional therapeutic relationship is that in order for it to be effective there has to be emotional intimacy. But this creates role confusion and justified concerns from clients about how to define the relationship. You can’t shy away from this problem or overlook it as not very important. Actually it would […]...
4. Be Honest About Needing Your Own Space A lot of people in romantic relationships are desperate for their own time, for their own space, but something stops them from securing it, from asking for it. That something is more often than not the unspoken feeling that wanting time apart is equivalent to disliking the other, undervaluing the other, betraying the other. But […]...
5. Wanting Out Of A Relationship How many people all over the world are still in relationships they desperately want out of due to not wanting to hurt the feelings of their partners? So many, and what a bad reason to stay. On the surface it almost seems noble, a form of self-sacrifice, putting the needs of someone else before your […]...
6. Wanting To Grow Versus Wanting To Go Back To The Womb A lot of mental health problems are caused by unconscious inner conflicts, simultaneous and competing drives and desires that pull people in two directions at once. The result is often the paralysis of action because any decision seems like the wrong decision. One of the major conflicts, fundamental to the human condition, is wanting to […]...
7. Positively Reinforcing Honesty A challenge therapists face all the time is the same challenge most people face in their close relationships at some point too. It’s important that we are prepared for it in order to overcome our natural inclinations. When people finally tell us the truth we want to punish them, to call them out on all […]...
8. Addressing Ambivalence In Motivational Interviewing If you are using motivational interviewing and not addressing ambivalence, meaning simultaneous conflicting feelings about moving on to the next stage of change, then you’re missing out on a rich source of information that can positively influence the whole therapeutic endeavor. The stages of change are pre-contemplation, contemplation, planning, action, and maintenance, and at each […]...
9. Abandonment Issues If you have abandonment issues as an adult it probably means you were abandoned by one or both of your primary caregivers in childhood. Therefore the most important thing to realize is that your issues didn’t just spring up out of nowhere, they are the logical outcome of your circumstances. As Viktor Frankl was fond […]...
10. Silence As A Form Of Abuse We have often written that although most people think of abuse in terms of violent words or actions abuse actually comes in many shapes and sizes. Its external packaging is less important than its internal intent, which is to instill doubt in order to maintain control. If the purpose of a behavior is to instill […]...
11. Trying to Possess Someone “Caring for but never trying to own may be a further way to define friendship.” – William Glasser Glasser makes the incisive point in one of his books that if you think of your longest lasting and healthiest relationships they are probably with friends, and what separates the way you relate to friends with the […]...
12. Accepting Criticism Accepting criticism, even when it’s constructive and sincerely meant for our betterment, can be really difficult to do. Many of us find ourselves shutting down, rejecting what is being said before even taking the time to seriously consider whether or not there is an element of truth. Depending on the circumstances criticism can be utilized […]...
13. Depression Versus Grief Depression and grief are both total responses to a given life situation. To use a poker analogy, we could say that whether you’re depressed or you’re grieving you’re all in. And the two syndromes have many symptoms that overlap, symptoms like despair, hopelessness, guilt, diminished interest in activities that used to seem pleasurable, inability to […]...
14. Best Way To Deal With Lying If someone has been lying to you and then, for whatever reason, finally decides to tell the truth, your first instinct is probably righteous indignation. You want to get on their case, you’re frustrated you were actively misled, you might feel like they deserve to be punished, and certainly that they deserve to be called […]...
15. You Do Not Have To Tell Your Partner Everything You Are Thinking And Feeling There is a pretty common sentiment out there in romantic relationships that it would somehow be dishonest or inauthentic to hold back certain thoughts or emotions. Even when these thoughts or emotions are destructive to the relationship, damaging its foundations, disintegrating trust and intimacy, some people feel like it’s their obligation to communicate the information. […]...
16. What Does It All Mean? The question ‘What does it all mean?’ pops up when given sources of meaning no longer feel relevant. For many the problem never arises, they remain content with the life purpose laid out for them by the society in which they find themselves. But for those who come to feel these mores are lacking the […]...
17. Supporting The People We Care About When They Are Hurting Try to be That Supporting Shoulder Despite our best efforts many of us don’t do a very good job at supporting the people we care about when they’re hurting. What they need is not always advice or encouragement but rather someone to simply exist in that painful space with them, what they need is a […]...
18. You Are Acting Childish Usually when someone tells you that you are being childish it is meant as an insult. Time for you to grow up and stop being so immature. But kids have a lot going for them that would make adults much happier if they incorporated these aspects into their daily lives. Children are mindful without even […]...
19. No One Wants To Hear Your Excuses When we don’t perform as well as we wanted we often feel an almost irresistible compulsion to let those around us know the reasons why. We believe we alone have access to the relevant variables, variables that handily explain why we came up short. If not for these variables the result would have been much […]...
20. Spending Time Alone And Spending Time Around People Good mental health means finding a healthy balance between spending time alone and spending time around people. But actually it’s not the presence or absence of people that counts as much as that we interpret being alone as solitude rather than existential isolation and that we interpret being around others as community rather than existential […]...