FLORIDA ADLERIAN SOCIETY nEWSLETTER
July / august / September 2005
Negotiating Open and Hidden Power Struggles in Couples
Counseling
By Yvonne Schurer
A Speech given at the 23rd
Congress of the International Association of Individual Psychology,
Torino, Italy May 26 – 29, 2005
A
congress on Intercultural Living and Power would not be complete without at
least a few presentations in the field of couple counseling. In intimate
relationships we have both:
- female and male cultures either
mingling with or bouncing against each other as they interact.
- overt and hidden manifestations
of power.
In
my presentation I shall focus on the latter.
Having
worked with couples in conflict for over 35 years now, I have become quite an
expert when it comes to power struggles. I am not unlike one of those dogs at
the airports, which sniff around for drugs in the unsuspecting travelers’
baggage. That is, I believe I am able to detect power struggles in any area of
a couple’s daily life. And I am equipped with some
tools I use to deal with this phenomenon. One of those tools I am going to
present here is a method, which helps reveal open and hidden strategies
employed by partners in conflict.
I
know it is not new and I am not trying to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.
The
method is based on the knowledge of my teachers, who are not with us any more:
Rudolf Dreikurs, Bill Pew and Erik Blumenthal, who
were outstanding couples counselors, all three of them. I have been working
with their ideas throughout my professional career; I have been applying them
to specific needs in various situations; and finally, I have gained enough
expertise and experience to develop my own method, which I hope will be useful
to some of my colleagues, who work with couples.
Couples
counseling, as we all know, is not an easy task, for many reasons. Perhaps, the
greatest obstacle we face here is the fact our clients mostly pursue somewhat
ambivalent goals: On the one hand they want to improve their relationship with
their partner, but on the other hand they want to win their fight against them.
They have come to a point where they believe their partner no longer
understands them, and that their living together has lost much of its former
quality. They had other ideas of a marriage, of a partnership. They feel hurt,
they feel deceived, they feel “way down”. Thus, when a
couple wants counseling we generally have to deal with two desperate fighters,
who originally both had the best intentions.
But with the years they had been getting themselves entangled in
ever-aggravating problems, and by the time they are coming to see us, they feel
completely lost, not knowing which way to turn.
Therefore, in most of the cases, our first job or task will be to
rearrange things, to bring some light into the chaos.
When it
comes to conflict resolution, according to Rudolf Dreikurs
the first essential point is
“to be able
to see the goal behind the conflict.”
A
Publication of the Florida Adlerian Society 2005
Editors
Corner
By Lisa Pergament
Runyon
This newsletter
contains a Call for Proposals for our 11th Annual conference
to be held February 9 – 11th, 2006.
We hope that all of you talented presenters will fill it out and send it
in. We appreciate the variety of your
interests and your willingness to share your knowledge with us. You make our conference the best.
Our current newsletter features the first half
of an article by Yvonne Schurer on Power Struggles in
Couples Counseling, which is something that I think we can all relate to. Yvonne
lives in Switzerland and is active in the Alfred Adler
Institute in Zurich and is a teacher at ICASSI. She has been a therapist and psychologist for
many years and often lectures and teaches all over the world. If you are attending ICASSI this year, you
can take her class on “Making your Lifestyle work for you: the use of Early Recollections and
Lifestyle.” The second half of the article will be
published in the next issue in October.
Congratulations to: Dr. Roy Kern, he was honored
and recognized for all of his achievements in the Adlerian
world: teaching, writing, creating the
BASIS A, lecturing all over the world, etc.
with the
Lifetime Achievement Award given at the NASAP 2005 conference in Tuscon.
Condolences to:
The family and friends of Mary Alice Lausell.
Mary
Alice passed away on June 12th,
2005
in Puerto
Rico. She was well loved
and an inspiration to many people. She
brought Adlerian principles and concepts to Puerto Rico and inspired and
influenced many people. She was the
receiver of the Lifetime Achievement Award from NASAP last year. She will be
deeply missed by all who knew her.
Florida Adlerian
Society
Board
of Directors (2005-2006)
President: Randall Gainforth
Vice-President: Nicola Haddak
Secretary: Gloria
Harvey
Conference
Coordinator: Charla
Conroy
Treasurer:
Lisa Pergament Runyon
Executive
Director: Tim Evans
Director: Tony Miller
Director: Ross Cannon
Director: Lolita Grohmann
Director: Becky Razaire
Director: Matt Welch
Director: Geri Carter
Director: Stacy Henderson
Director: Lynn Allen
Director: Amanda Keating
Director: Dominique DeLaet
Articles for inclusion
in the newsletter are encouraged and requested.
The deadline for quarterly publication is the 1st of March,
June, September and December for publication the following month.
Advertising rates for
4 issues, based on page size of 8 1/2 x 11 inches, with 1/2 inch
margins on all four sides. All ads must
be copy-ready, black and white.
Full page - $100 Three-Quarter
page - $75
One-Half page - $50 One-Quarter page - $25
One-Third page - $38 Business Card - $15
Membership in the
Florida Adlerian Society is open to all people
interested in the Adlerian concepts.
Membership is based on a year that runs from February to January, for an
annual fee of $20 per person.
The wife tells us:
Suddenly he came storming into the kitchen shouting:
“Could you stop talking to your mother and get your things ready?”
I tried to ignore his aggressive tone, but he went
on: “I am warning you: If you are not ready in time you can stay
where you are. I shall leave this place in 30 minutes.”
The husband tells us:
I had been waiting far too long. I did not intend to
intrude, because my wife was having an intimate conversation with my
mother-in-law. But, all the same, I had to remind her we had to catch our
plane. She completely ignored me. She treated me as if I didn’t exist. She sighed, she shook her head and went on speaking to her
mother in a soft voice.
I went out, I waited for
another 10 minutes.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and gave her
a second warning. She said in an icy voice: “I shall be ready in time. Mind
your own business. Can’t you see that I am having a conversation with my
mother?”
How can we see the facts,
when our clients have as Adler would put it, such a “biased apperception”? Both
claim to be the victim of their partner’s aggressive behavior and they are
convinced that they, themselves, had been behaving in an appropriate way. We could come to the conclusion that they are
trying to confuse us, to mislead us, and that we must try to obtain a more
objective view – perhaps, somewhere in the middle of both statements.
But this would be all wrong.
We have to observe what is going on - yes.
But we also have to look at each of the 2 stories separately without
comparing one with the other. It is the inward dynamic, the innermost, delicate
workings of the psyche of a person, who is telling us about the incident, which
should indeed be the focus of our attention. Therefore, even if the wife were
to state she had been hit by her husband - even then, we should forget about
the facts. They are irrelevant. We must concentrate on a victim’s experience,
on the way he/she felt, and how he/she was dealing with the facts.
There is only one way to
create a firm basis for mutual
understanding:
We have to give room to each
of the partners to enable them tell their tale without the fear of being
interrupted. However biased it might be, however far from the so-called “facts”, the partner isn’t allowed to interfere either verbally, or
non-verbally.
And this is where the
difficult part of the counseling process comes into the picture: We have to
make each partner listen carefully to the story, which the other is telling.
This means they have to listen to the representation of their own wrong-doings.
And they also have to ‘listen’ to the feelings, which the narrator has
experienced during their quarrel. I must admit this is tricky and that this is
not an easy task and sometimes I do fail.
But once I succeed in winning
him - or her – over; when they all of a sudden dare step into the boots of
their mate, when they begin, according to Adler
“to see with the eyes
of another,
to hear with the ears of another
to feel with the heart of another”
i.e. when at last their “Gemeinschaftsgefühl”,
their social interest, their love is are reactivated, then, and only then, we
can proceed to the next step of conflict resolution, which is
“to understand what is going
on.”
Our clients, too, must be
able to see their goal behind their conflict.
Here, now, the counselor can
be of a great help to the couple: He has the advantage of knowledge. Thanks to
psychological models, the Adlerian model for example,
he is able to build a professional hypothesis about the discouraging dynamics,
which are at work in his clients’ partnership.
And now, how, can the
counselor transfer his way to look at things, his suppositions to his clients?
I think that many of you must already have been familiar with the counseling
technique of applying the metaphor of a ping-pong game to the situation - that
is to a couple’s power struggle.
It is the Ping-Pong
Effect. I
personally have found visualizing the ping pong effect extremely
helpful. For this purpose I have created a handout that is easy to understand
and which forms the basis of my work with couples. Visualization is a great
help to them when it comes to understanding the ups and downs of their daily
fights. At the heart of the idea lies actually the Adler’s model of the
individual striving for superiority.
Let me show you how I
explain it to my clients, who mostly have no profound knowledge of psychology:
We all feel good when we are
convinced that we belong somewhere and that we are respected as an equal human
being. As long as this condition is granted, an individual behaves in a
friendly, cooperative way.
But as soon as the person
gets the impression of being in a lower position they immediately become
self-conscious, self-focused and self-oriented. The deeply-rooted conviction of
being “way down” manifests itself through a surge of strong, negative emotions:
hate, shame, fear, or isolation. These feelings are a warning sign. Because
human beings are inherently of social nature they can’t endure to be left out.
They need to belong somewhere – i.e. to their social environment.
As soon as their internal
alarm goes off, sending out a message “You are out!” their inferiority feelings
urge them to compensate for their unfavorable situation. The mechanism that is
responsible for this strife toward regaining a good position is then activated.
They start to force their
way “upwards” in order to overcome the feeling of inferiority and get back to
the place, where they would regain that lost feeling of belonging and
worthiness.
Unfortunately, individuals
rarely achieve their goal to get the feeling of belonging, of embedment back.
It is out of fear that the individual tends to exaggerate his upward movement
and is striving for superiority.
As far as couples are
concerned this applies to both partners:
As long as both are feeling
equal there is no need for couple counseling.
--------------♀♂--------------
The trouble starts as soon
as one of them begins feeling inferior.
He or she might feel
neglected, overruled, or hurt - whatever. It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t
even matter if the feeling is traceable or whether the experienced “wrong” is
based on a mere fiction. It’s the emotions that count. These emotions are
urging them to get even. And from that moment on a friendly exchange is no more
possible; the harmony is broken.
--------------♀----------------
♂
This is generally the moment
when they start using their power as a weapon against their partner.
The easiest way to get on
top will be to push the partner down.
(This article will be continued in the
next issue of the Florida
Adlerian Society’s newsletter).
Adlerian Events In our
Community
Randall Gainforth is running Supervision
Groups on Thursday nights from 7:00
p.m. – 8:00 p.m. These groups will be for registered interns
who want group supervision. Randy is a
qualified supervisor for those going for their LMHC and LMFT licenses. The cost is $25/hour. Please register with Randy by calling
220-0262 or email: rgainforth@aol.com. This
is a great opportunity to get
quality supervision and is offered through the Florida Adlerian
Society Institute.
NASAP started an opportunity called TAPTalks. They take place on Monday nights at 9:00pm, the first Monday of every month
and feature a different Adlerian speaker each
time. You can obtain directions for
dialing into the TAPTalk by sending an email to
taptalk@adler.ca. NOTE: TYPE IN THE E‑MAIL
ADDRESS OR CUT AND PASTE. For some reason, an error results when you attempt to
click on it, You will receive a response by return
email with the phone number and discussion code. If you wish to obtain an hour of continuing
education credit, send a check for $5 to NASAP Headquarters (614 W. Chocolate Ave., Hershey, PA, 17033) within a week following the TAP
Talk.
Tim Evans is leading a Choice Theory Focus Group
for Mental Fitness
on Wednesday evenings. The next group
will be on July 13th and the group is held every other week. This is to be a safe, supportive refuge, where
people who would like to be happier can meet and support each other. The only
requirement is you become acquainted with the book Warning: Psychiatry Can
Be Dangerous To Your Mental Health, written by
William Glasser. This will be a study group where you
can attend as long or as often as you wish.
Anyone
interested can contact Tim Evans via phone at 813-251-8484 or e-mail: tim@evanstherapy.com
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
for the 11TH ANNUAL BAY AREA CONFERENCE
Full Day
or 75 Minute presentations, February 9 - February 11, 2006
Proposal
Guidelines:
Proposals
are invited for one day workshops; and for 75 minute presentations to be
offered for February 9 - February 11th, 2006.
The process of granting Continuing Education Units (CEU’s)
is essential for the success of the conference, and necessitates the extensive
accounting of your presentation (state requirement). Please type/write
guidelines below:
1. Title of Program:
2. Proposal description (60 Words or less). This will appear in the Conference Program:
3. Goal of workshop (One or Two Sentences):
4. Professional Learning Objectives. List three to five learning objectives stated
in behavioral terms, such as,
"participants will be able to...":
5. Give name(s), highest degree, and work
setting for each presenter:
6. Briefly state your experiences for doing this
workshop, such as other workshops you have conducted or work experiences.
7. Attach a professional vita for each
presenter.
8. Please give the Name, Mailing Address, day and
evening phone number of main presenter or contact person.
9. List your Audio Visual Requirements.
Send your
proposal to: Florida Adlerian Society, Attn: Tim Evans, 9122 Rockrose Dr., Tampa, FL
33647.
For further information contact Tim Evans at (813) 251‑8484, or
e-mail: tim@evanstherapy.com
CALENDAR OF SOCIAL EVENTS
July 17 – 30th International Adlerian
Summer School (ICASSI)
2005
Marsascala, Malta. For more information,
contact: Mike Balla
at mjballa@sympatico.ca Or go to www.ICASSI.net
Sept. 30 – Oct. 2
South Carolina Conference of Adlerian Psychology
2005 Springmaid Beach, Myrtle
Beach, SC
Contact: Dr. Frank Walton at (803) 798-0300
February 9 - 11 Florida Adlerian Society 11th
Annual Conference,
2006 Tampa, FL
Contact: Dr. Tim
Evans @ (813) 251-8484 or tim@evanstherapy.com
"Today a husband and wife cannot live peacefully with
each other if they do not treat each other as equals." Rudolf Dreikurs
Florida
Adlerian Society
Provider
# BAP 170 - 3/2006