Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Fighting in a relationship: Know the rules!
One of the things Dr. John Gottman and other therapists know from scientific research is that in any healthy marriage or relationship how you deal with arguments, fights, and mistackes,,miststakes...mistakes...is critical. In this short video John Gottman talks about a simple technique to deal with relationship mistakes, he calls this "repairs." Take a look at the video, and then take a look at Dr. Gottman's books, DVDs or MP3's. You can find more information about Gottman based therapy on my website (www.relatedminds.com) or feel free to call me for an appointment (778.998-7975).
As usual, I will repeat my advice on finding a couples/relationship/marriage or family therapist. Find someone who is actually LICENSED or REGISTERED in the field. Not someone who claims to be a counsellor or therapist and also does relationship or family therapy. Someone who is REGISTERED by a regulating body in that field and has met their minimum standards for practice in the field. Here in BC the field of marriage and family therapy is regulated by the British Columbia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. To be a Registered Family Therapist you need a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. not counselling, psychology or social work. In family and marriage issues. PLUS you need to have one or two years of full time experience in the filed. A full year. Registered Clinical counsellors (who are not really "registered" as there really isn't a regulating body) are required to have 100 hours of supervision, and no where is there a requirement for them to have a specific period of supervised practice like 3,6,9 or 12 months). Registered Marriage and Family Therapists have, at minimum, one year of full time practice under a certified and specially trained supervisor. Some Registered Marriage and Family Therapists are also registered as psychologists here in BC, so if your insurance insists on a psychologist, go to the BCAMFT website and find someone who is both. and ask questions. Someone who is a "counsellor" and claims to be providing "Gottman" therapy may have very little experience, no supervision in family or marriage therapy and only attended a weekend workshop by John Gottman or someone speaking about John Gottman. Ask questions. Be aware!
............................
More information about my services can be found at either the British Columbia Psychological Association (click here), Psychology Today (click here) or my AAMFT Family Therapist website (Click here). I am a registered Psychologist here in British Columbia, along with being a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist. There is also some specific information on treatment for aggression and anger in children on my webpage called "The Angry Child," (Click here) as well as many other resources. Remember, if your having problems with anger, depression, anxiety or sleep...talk to your medical doctor first. He or she can help you make a decision about where to go and who to see for treatment
I look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Jim Roche
Registered Psychologist
778/998-7975
Offices in Burnaby and Vancouver, British Columbia
As usual, I will repeat my advice on finding a couples/relationship/marriage or family therapist. Find someone who is actually LICENSED or REGISTERED in the field. Not someone who claims to be a counsellor or therapist and also does relationship or family therapy. Someone who is REGISTERED by a regulating body in that field and has met their minimum standards for practice in the field. Here in BC the field of marriage and family therapy is regulated by the British Columbia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. To be a Registered Family Therapist you need a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. not counselling, psychology or social work. In family and marriage issues. PLUS you need to have one or two years of full time experience in the filed. A full year. Registered Clinical counsellors (who are not really "registered" as there really isn't a regulating body) are required to have 100 hours of supervision, and no where is there a requirement for them to have a specific period of supervised practice like 3,6,9 or 12 months). Registered Marriage and Family Therapists have, at minimum, one year of full time practice under a certified and specially trained supervisor. Some Registered Marriage and Family Therapists are also registered as psychologists here in BC, so if your insurance insists on a psychologist, go to the BCAMFT website and find someone who is both. and ask questions. Someone who is a "counsellor" and claims to be providing "Gottman" therapy may have very little experience, no supervision in family or marriage therapy and only attended a weekend workshop by John Gottman or someone speaking about John Gottman. Ask questions. Be aware!
............................
More information about my services can be found at either the British Columbia Psychological Association (click here), Psychology Today (click here) or my AAMFT Family Therapist website (Click here). I am a registered Psychologist here in British Columbia, along with being a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist. There is also some specific information on treatment for aggression and anger in children on my webpage called "The Angry Child," (Click here) as well as many other resources. Remember, if your having problems with anger, depression, anxiety or sleep...talk to your medical doctor first. He or she can help you make a decision about where to go and who to see for treatment
I look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Jim Roche
Registered Psychologist
778/998-7975
Offices in Burnaby and Vancouver, British Columbia
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Bringing Up Emotionally Intelligent Children
What are the five elements of emotion coaching according to John Gottman?
1. Be aware of a child's emotions
2. Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
3. Listen empathetically and validate a child's feelings
4. Label emotions in words a child can understand
5. Help a child come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting issue or situation
It's really that simple! And, yes, it's that hard too. But Gottman has a great idea going (and a great book and video to go with it) that your job as a mom or dad is to simple be a coach to your child. In Dr. Gottman's research he has found that children of "emotion-coaching" parents had more general abilities in the area of their own emotions than children who were not coached by their parents. In other words, these "coached" children grew up to become what Dan Goleman has referred to as "emotionally intelligent" people. What are characteristics of these children?
Dr. Gottman's research demonstrated that emotion-coached children: Are able to regulate their emotional states; Are better at soothing themselves when they are upset; Could calm down their hearts faster after something upsetting happens; Have fewer infectious illnesses; Are better at focusing attention; Relate better to other people, even in tough situations like getting teased in middle school; Are better at understanding people; Have better friendships with other children; Are better in school situations that require academic performance.
Those are the beefits of coaching your child appropriately, and another nice thing is that while doing this your monitoring your own behaviour! Caching involves modelling! I highly recommend Dr. Gottman's book (you can find it on my web page for resources by following www.relatedminds.com). And if your too busy ....get the video. As a matter of fact, donate one to your local library! Here is a sample: Click-http://youtu.be/eVDMATVzhTk You can also go to Dr. Gottman's web page for more of his ideas...based in science and research.
for more information on my services as a marriage and family therapist or registered psychologist you can visit my web page: www.relatedminds.com or my Psychology Today website or at the AAMFT website.
1. Be aware of a child's emotions
2. Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
3. Listen empathetically and validate a child's feelings
4. Label emotions in words a child can understand
5. Help a child come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting issue or situation
It's really that simple! And, yes, it's that hard too. But Gottman has a great idea going (and a great book and video to go with it) that your job as a mom or dad is to simple be a coach to your child. In Dr. Gottman's research he has found that children of "emotion-coaching" parents had more general abilities in the area of their own emotions than children who were not coached by their parents. In other words, these "coached" children grew up to become what Dan Goleman has referred to as "emotionally intelligent" people. What are characteristics of these children?
Dr. Gottman's research demonstrated that emotion-coached children: Are able to regulate their emotional states; Are better at soothing themselves when they are upset; Could calm down their hearts faster after something upsetting happens; Have fewer infectious illnesses; Are better at focusing attention; Relate better to other people, even in tough situations like getting teased in middle school; Are better at understanding people; Have better friendships with other children; Are better in school situations that require academic performance.
Those are the beefits of coaching your child appropriately, and another nice thing is that while doing this your monitoring your own behaviour! Caching involves modelling! I highly recommend Dr. Gottman's book (you can find it on my web page for resources by following www.relatedminds.com). And if your too busy ....get the video. As a matter of fact, donate one to your local library! Here is a sample: Click-http://youtu.be/eVDMATVzhTk You can also go to Dr. Gottman's web page for more of his ideas...based in science and research.
for more information on my services as a marriage and family therapist or registered psychologist you can visit my web page: www.relatedminds.com or my Psychology Today website or at the AAMFT website.
Counseling, Drugs Combo Better for Anxiety Disorders - in Psychiatry, Anxiety & Stress from MedPage Today
Often individuals come in to see me for relationship therapy and have issues relating to anxiety, depression and stress related disorders. One of the things that goes on is that they seem to feel they need to make a choice between either a psychological intervention for their problems, or a medical intervention. Often this is a struggle they are going through and can't seem to move on until they decide, "is this physical, or is it in my head?" The truth is, as far as moving on and fixing a problem goes, the best interventions, especially for moderate to severe issues of anxiety, depression and stress, are "multi-modal" therapies. Therapies that include both medical and cognitive (psychological) interventions. Intervention plans that include both are by far the best intervention plans. This article address more of the recent research on this topic. It's a good read, short, direct and very clear. Medical News: Counseling, Drugs Combo Better for Anxiety Disorders - in Psychiatry, Anxiety & Stress from MedPage Today
for information about my practice you are welcome to go to my website: www.relatedminds.com for more information on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
for information about my practice you are welcome to go to my website: www.relatedminds.com for more information on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Your view of personal goals can affect your relationships
Your view of personal goals can affect your relationships
The authors of this short but interesting paper show how what you think about your goals -- whether it's to improve yourself or to do better than others -- can affect whether you reach those goals. these different kinds of goals can also have distinct effects on your relationships with people, including those you work with, live with and love.
The study looks at two different kinds of goals, "mastery" and "performance" goals. This, in itself, is a good thing to think about and how your goals as a couple or family fit one of these two categories. People with "mastery goals" want to improve themselves. For instance, they may want to get better grades, make more sales, or a skater who wants to land that triple toe loop. They want to master their subject.
People with "performance goals" are try to outperform others -- they try to get a better grade than a someone else, or be Sale person of the Year. They want to do better than others.
P. Marijn Poortvliet, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Céline Darnon, of France's Clermont University, are interested in the social context of these goals -- what they do to your relationships. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these goals. Both kinds of goals can be useful in different contexts. But when and where you have one of these goals can have a deep effect on your relationships.
Poortvliet's work focuses on information exchange -- whether people are open and honest when they are working together. "People with performance goals are more deceitful" and less likely to share information with coworkers, both in the laboratory and in real-world offices he has studied, Poortvliet says. "The reason is fairly obvious -- when you want to outperform others, it doesn't make sense to be honest about information." You don't say, "My intention is to win, to beat you, and this is how I'm going to do it." Nor are you likely to develop a way of expressing yourself that supports openness and sharing, if winning, besting, is your goal.
People who are trying to improve themselves are to the contrary quite open. Poortvliet says. "If the ultimate goal is to improve yourself, one way to do it is to be very cooperative with other people." This cooperativeness can help improve the work environment, even though the people with these goals aren't necessarily thinking about social relations. What they do realize is that they will more likely reach this goal by cooperating, rather than competing. "They're not really altruists, per se. They see the social exchange as a means toward the ends of self improvement." Other research has found that people with these self-improvement goals are more open to hearing different perspectives, while people with a performance goal "would rather just say, 'I'm just right and you are wrong.'"
Poortvliet says it's not always bad to be competitive, "For example, if you want to be the Olympic champion, of course it's nice to have mastery goals and you should probably have mastery goals, but you definitely need performance goals because you want to be the winner and not the runner-up." We all do, some time, need to win. What game would you play where you always lose? How would you feel? Winning is sometimes OK. But how goals affect the social environment and your interactions with others is an important thing to think about. "If you really want to establish constructive and long-lasting working relationships, then you should really balance the different levels of goals," Poortvliet says -- thinking not only about each person's achievement, but also about the team as a whole. The two critical parts to this are: Awareness, and balance. Being aware of what kind of goal you have, and having a balanced set of goals. Appropriate goals, and behaviours, at appropriate times. You can see how this would affect a relationship, how the wrong goals, or a poor balance of goals, would drive a couple apart.
Being aware, and self monitoring, is a good way to keep these goals balance. In the workplace a manager can use different techniques to make sure the workplace has a balance, and therefore is welcoming to cooperation, and encouraging of a little competition. That might make a good goal for a marriage or relationship too.
................................
Dr. jim Roche is a Registered Psychologist and Registered Marriage and Family Therapist. He is a Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and has served as a board member of the British Columbia Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. He has over twenty years clinical experience providing couple, marriage and family therapy. His offices are located in Burnaby, near Lougheed Mall, and Downtown Vancouver. His Burnaby office is convenient to Coquitlam. Port Moody, New Westminster and Maple Ridge. His practice focuses on therapeutic interventions based upon Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and the work of Dr. John Gottman.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about finding a family or couples counsellor.
Dr. Jim Roche
778.9987975
www.drjimroche.com
www.relatedminds.com
Dr. Jim Roche at AAMFT: Click here.
9304A Salish Court
Burnaby, British Columbia
778.998-7975
The authors of this short but interesting paper show how what you think about your goals -- whether it's to improve yourself or to do better than others -- can affect whether you reach those goals. these different kinds of goals can also have distinct effects on your relationships with people, including those you work with, live with and love.
The study looks at two different kinds of goals, "mastery" and "performance" goals. This, in itself, is a good thing to think about and how your goals as a couple or family fit one of these two categories. People with "mastery goals" want to improve themselves. For instance, they may want to get better grades, make more sales, or a skater who wants to land that triple toe loop. They want to master their subject.
People with "performance goals" are try to outperform others -- they try to get a better grade than a someone else, or be Sale person of the Year. They want to do better than others.
P. Marijn Poortvliet, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Céline Darnon, of France's Clermont University, are interested in the social context of these goals -- what they do to your relationships. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these goals. Both kinds of goals can be useful in different contexts. But when and where you have one of these goals can have a deep effect on your relationships.
Poortvliet's work focuses on information exchange -- whether people are open and honest when they are working together. "People with performance goals are more deceitful" and less likely to share information with coworkers, both in the laboratory and in real-world offices he has studied, Poortvliet says. "The reason is fairly obvious -- when you want to outperform others, it doesn't make sense to be honest about information." You don't say, "My intention is to win, to beat you, and this is how I'm going to do it." Nor are you likely to develop a way of expressing yourself that supports openness and sharing, if winning, besting, is your goal.
People who are trying to improve themselves are to the contrary quite open. Poortvliet says. "If the ultimate goal is to improve yourself, one way to do it is to be very cooperative with other people." This cooperativeness can help improve the work environment, even though the people with these goals aren't necessarily thinking about social relations. What they do realize is that they will more likely reach this goal by cooperating, rather than competing. "They're not really altruists, per se. They see the social exchange as a means toward the ends of self improvement." Other research has found that people with these self-improvement goals are more open to hearing different perspectives, while people with a performance goal "would rather just say, 'I'm just right and you are wrong.'"
Poortvliet says it's not always bad to be competitive, "For example, if you want to be the Olympic champion, of course it's nice to have mastery goals and you should probably have mastery goals, but you definitely need performance goals because you want to be the winner and not the runner-up." We all do, some time, need to win. What game would you play where you always lose? How would you feel? Winning is sometimes OK. But how goals affect the social environment and your interactions with others is an important thing to think about. "If you really want to establish constructive and long-lasting working relationships, then you should really balance the different levels of goals," Poortvliet says -- thinking not only about each person's achievement, but also about the team as a whole. The two critical parts to this are: Awareness, and balance. Being aware of what kind of goal you have, and having a balanced set of goals. Appropriate goals, and behaviours, at appropriate times. You can see how this would affect a relationship, how the wrong goals, or a poor balance of goals, would drive a couple apart.
Being aware, and self monitoring, is a good way to keep these goals balance. In the workplace a manager can use different techniques to make sure the workplace has a balance, and therefore is welcoming to cooperation, and encouraging of a little competition. That might make a good goal for a marriage or relationship too.
................................
Dr. jim Roche is a Registered Psychologist and Registered Marriage and Family Therapist. He is a Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and has served as a board member of the British Columbia Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. He has over twenty years clinical experience providing couple, marriage and family therapy. His offices are located in Burnaby, near Lougheed Mall, and Downtown Vancouver. His Burnaby office is convenient to Coquitlam. Port Moody, New Westminster and Maple Ridge. His practice focuses on therapeutic interventions based upon Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and the work of Dr. John Gottman.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about finding a family or couples counsellor.
Dr. Jim Roche
778.9987975
www.drjimroche.com
www.relatedminds.com
Dr. Jim Roche at AAMFT: Click here.
9304A Salish Court
Burnaby, British Columbia
778.998-7975
Saturday, November 20, 2010
About Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Often clients come in or call and ask some basic questions about CBT. For instance, ""What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy?" They've heard about it, or their medical doctor recommended it. So I've posted an introductory video on CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). You might want to look up more about CBT and to help you I would suggest googling CBT, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck (this video is by his daughter Dr. Judith Beck) or going to wikipedia. These are really good places to start. If you come into the office I'll be suggesting some books, and most likely providing an introductory handout for you. If your concern is about CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and anxiety a really good place to start would be the web site for AnxietyBC. You can reach that by clicking here. They also have an excellent selection of information for children and adolescents with anxiety, and most of the techniques are similar to what we use with depression.
I hope this introductory information is helpful to those who have questions about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). One final note: Often practitioners claim to "do CBT." They say they have training or a "background" in CBT. Don't be afraid to ask them more about their background, education and experience. Someone providing cognitive behaviour therapy should have several courses and, more importantly, supervised experience doing CBT. They should have had six months or a year of weekly supervised experience. That means someone well trained in CBT watched them doing it, listened to recordings of sessions, and reviewed cases weekly. This is a little different than having attended a 3 day workshop in what is a rather complicated technique. Don't be afraid to ask!
This blog is not offered as medical advice or as a means of diagnosing or treating depression, anxiety, relationship problems or any other disorder. Don't go on line and take any mental health "test." Diagnosis is complex, and it involves not just looking for a list of symptoms, but also ruling out other disorders that might look just like what you suspect. So avoid these on-line "tests" which are nothing more than a collection of symptoms. You need to see a licensed or registered professional for that. Medical doctors can diagnose, but a diagnosis is complex and often they will make a referral to a Registered Psychologist. You can obtain a referral from the British Columbia Psychological Association for a psychologist near you. See a registered professional, either a Registered Psychologist or Registered Marriage and Family Therapist.
My web page lists a number of resources you can make use of yourself in dealing with individual, couple or family issues. Please visit it at www.relatedminds.com, one of my other sites at either Psychology Today, AAMFT, PSYRIS or my professional site.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessment and treatment services are offered for individuals, couples, families, children and adolescents in the Burnaby, Vancouver, Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster and Maple Ridge areas of the lower mainland. This includes neuro-developmental assessments, psycho-education and cognitive behaviour therapy. I also provide diagnostic assessments for autism and Asperger's Disorder in my Burnaby office.
Dr. Jim Roche
Registered Psychologist, British Columbia 01610
778.998-7975
www.relatedminds.com (couple/family therapy)
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