Editors
Corner
By Lisa Pergament
Runyon
This
newsletter contains an invitation to the Florida
Adlerian Society’s Holiday Social. We really hope that all of you are interested
in attending. It is wonderful to see
everyone and just hang out and talk, eat great food and enjoy the season and
each other.
There
are a lot of exciting things happening right now. Matt
Welch and John Thomas are
presenting a workshop on Utilizing Adlerian Psychology in the Schools on November 1, 2005
from 1 – 4 p.m. at the Lake Myrtle Elementary Media Center.
For more information you can call Matt @ 727-774-1200. Also, FAS
is moving forward on promoting our Institute
and the first class will begin on November
5th. It will be an Introduction to Adlerian
Psychology taught by Tim Evans and
Geri Carter @ 251-8484.
Our
current newsletter continues and concludes the article by Yvonne Schurer. She has been married for 46 years and has 2
sons and one daughter and states that her interest in psychological studies and
relationships began in her childhood, watching how her older relatives
interacted and how they functioned in their relationships.
Congratulations to:
Geri Carter for publishing
her first book titled: Parenting
Todays Teenager. It is coming out on 9/25/05.
For more information go to: www.authorhouse.com
Becky Razaire and her familyon buying
a house and moving to Lakeland.
Condolences to:
Matt Welch and
his family on
the loss of his grandmother.
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: Ross Cannon
Director: Lolita Grohmann
Director: Becky Razaire
Director: Matt Welch
Director: Geri Carter
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.
Lolita Grohmann and everyone else who lost friends and/or family
and were impacted in anyway by Hurricane Katrina.
Negotiating
Open and Hidden Power Struggles in Couples Counseling (continued from the Florida Adlerian
Society’s July newsletter).
♂
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♂
♀
No matter in which way,
whatsoever, they may let the other feel their power – whether it be by using hard words, violence, silence, by
refusing cooperation, or through sexual rejection - the result will always be
the same:
Their partner, now, is
feeling misunderstood, hurt, abashed - whatever. They also experience
inferiority feelings and use all their energy to overcome them. It is like a
ping-pong game: each strike provokes a counter strike. Their aggressiveness
level is constantly rising. And there they are, in the middle of a power
struggle, that may go on and on.
♂
♀
♂
---♀-------------------------------------------------
♂
♀
♂
♀
So far, this has been my
explanation regarding the dynamics of the power struggle, I am generally giving
to my clients.
Now, let me take you back,
to the example of the couple, who got into a fight before heading to the
airport. Just like we do in counseling sessions we are now going to look at the
short incident through a
magnifying glass. In this
case I started with the story of the woman, because, in this session, she was
the one who brought up the problem.
From now on I am working
with the Ping Pong Effect Scheme. I fill in the peaks and the low points in
accordance to my client’s feelings.
The woman said:
Suddenly he came
storming into the kitchen shouting:
“Could you stop talking to your mother and get your
things ready?”
Now, when I asked her how
she felt at that moment, she said:
“I was irritated and angry. It was very important to
me to give my mother the feeling of intimacy and togetherness before I left. And
my husband was behaving like a wild boar. Therefore, I also was embarrassed.
His boldness doesn’t fit in with the refined manners my mother is used to.”
(Low point)
The second statement of the
woman:
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.”
At this point I was feeling enraged and I had to use
all my self-control to keep my mouth shut. I also felt helpless, because I was
at his mercy. He had the keys to the car, he had my ticket, he had my passport,
- my hands were empty.
(Lowest point)
When we listen to this
woman, it looks like she had always been in the lower position and that her
husband had constantly had the upper hand.
But we must ask ourselves:
“Where are the peaks?” How, in which
way, did she compensate for her inferiority feelings? What was going on in her mind? How did she
fight back? How did she maintain her
self-esteem? How, did she get “even”? Well,
she doesn’t tell us - and probably she can’t.
As a counselor I could bet
that she was feeling superior to her husband, that she was feeling way above
him. But she didn't allow me to go into this. When I tried bringing it up, she
didn’t even know what I was talking about. Later, as the result of our ongoing
counseling sessions, this woman learnt to see her own attitude in a new light.
Instead of pleading to be the helpless victim she dared to have a critical look
at herself. She understood the passive aggressiveness of her attitude, the
devastating power of her moral superiority. But some training was necessary and
lots, lots of encouragement before she could reach this point.
(She now saw the peaks)
Let’s now examine the
husband’s story:
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.
His feelings: I was getting nervous and very tense. I felt
unfairly treated.
(Low point)
But, all the same, I had to remind her we had to catch
our plane.
(Peak: He sees himself as
the reliable one who is meeting the needs of the situation.)
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 felt rejected. She was treating me without respect.
She showed me that I was a nobody.
(Low point)
I went out, I waited for another 10 minutes.
I became more and more nervous; I was very angry.
(Low point)
Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and gave her
a second warning.
It was my duty to remind her. She should have been
glad that I did care.
(This is a peak. He feels he
had a right to intrude.)
She said in an icy voice: “I shall be ready on time.
Mind your own business. Can’t you see that I am having a conversation with my
mother?”
I felt humiliated and helpless like some little boy
who is getting reprimanded by his teacher. (Lowest point)
We can now put the two
different scripts together. They match like pieces of a puzzle. And we are now
able to get the whole picture of the couple’s fight.
If we use the approach of
visualizing the couple’s fights with the help of the ping-pong game metaphor,
they can learn a lot:
First,
they become aware of the fact they both are engaged in that struggle, that
fight, where there are no wrong doers or victims.
Second,
they realize that the facts are irrelevant, that the goal behind their fight is
the wish to overpower and dominate their mate.
Third, It
is easy to see that each strike provokes a counter strike. They soon come to
realize they are caught in an eternal struggle none of them will ever win, or
rather, which both of them are inevitably bound to lose.
However, don’t be misled
into thinking this method leads to depression!
On the contrary: It is a very
encouraging approach. My clients soon discover that they can laugh at the game
they are playing together. At the beginning of the session, when they have to
listen to what the other brings up, they are feeling more relaxed and less
wound-up, as they initially would. They calm down; they know their turn will
come. This helps them to avoid resorting to an instant impulse to defend
themselves.
And they love filling in the
ping pong scheme! It often happens like this: While I am fetching the papers,
they shout: “Bring some more! We had a long fight! It went on and on.” Thus,
they are each made to recognize their own share of the conflict. They learn to
see the negative consequences of each other’s aggressions without being
embarrassed.
Now we are reaching the point where some crucial changes can occur.
We look at the incident again and we ask each partner:
In which way could you have acted differently, to make
it easier for your mate?
At the beginning of counseling sessions no client is
able to answer this question. - “Why should I help her? Why should I make changes? She/he was the one
who misbehaved!”
But as soon as they realize that also their partner
had been suffering during their fight, they start considering alternatives.
When my client wants to prove what a good boy he is,
he might say: “I should have waited patiently until my wife had finished her
conversation with her mother.” But because, at this point, I will already be
familiar with his lifestyle, I must know that my
client is a person who needs very much to be in control. I understand that he
would have felt like a martyr, not being certain to make it to the airport on
time. I must
teach him, therefore, to become more aware of his own
needs; he has to find a better solution, i.e. one which will not force him to
jump over his own shadow.
And I am also not satisfied if his wife declares: “I
should have stopped talking to my mother as soon as my husband came in.” She
would have felt she had behaved rudely towards her mother by giving in to her
husband.
Remember a
second essential point of conflict resolution, according to Rudolf Dreikurs, which is:
“Don’t fight. Don’t give in.”
Both partners must learn to react in a way, which
suits their personal needs. So, if the counseling has been successful, after
some months of training, my clients will be able to handle a similar situation
in the following way:
He knocks at the door, opening it
gently and says: “Sorry to interrupt, but we should get ready soon.” And she
answers: “Thanks for reminding me. I won’t take long.”
Which means that by now they both
are able to meet the needs of the situation: They are ready to communicate and
to cooperate.
This is my way to train a couple to
become more receptive and to learn more efficient ways of conflict resolution.
I wanted to demonstrate how through a structured, and yet flexible, way of
leading the dialogue, the counselor can facilitate and promote mutual
understanding and receptiveness between partners in conflict.
Yvonne Schürer
Im Hang 31
CH-8903 Birmensdorf/Zurich
Switzerland
mailto:
schuerer@econophone.ch
Bibliography
Adler, Alfred. Co-operation Between the Sexes:
Writings on Woman an Men, Love and Marriage, and Sexuality. Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacher
(Eds.). W.W. Norton & Co. New York and London 1982.
Ansbacher, Heinz L. Alfred Adlers Sexualtheorien. Fischer. Frankfurt a.M.
1989.
Blumenthal, Erik. Verstehen
und Verstanden werden: Die neue Art des Zusammenlebens. 5th Ed. Rex-Verlag.
Luzern and Stuttgart 1988.
Dreikurs, Rudolf. Technology of
Conflict Resolution. In: Journal of Individual Psychology, November 1972, pp.
203–206.
Dreikurs, Rudolf. The Challenge of
Marriage. Accelerated Development. Philadelphia 1999.
Pew, Miriam L. and Pew William L. Adlerian
Marriage Counseling. In: Jon Carlson and Steven Slavik
(Eds.). Techniques in Adlerian Psychology.
Accelerated Development. Washington, 1997, pp. 350–361.
Schoenaker, Antonia and Schoenaker, Theo. Die neue Partnerschaft. Goldmann. München 1993.
Adlerian Events In our Community
Randall Gainforth is offering 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 continues TAP Talks. TAP Talks for 2005-2006 have been
scheduled for the first Thursday of each month.
Please note that this is a change from this past years schedule. On Thursday, October 6, Eva Dreikurs-Ferguson will be our TAP Talk guest. She will be followed by Mim
Pew on Thursday, November 3, 2005. At the December 1st Talk, will be
hosting Rich Kopp. To kick off the new
year, Henry Stein will be presenting on February
2nd, 2006. All
Talks are from 9:00 to 10:00 pm eastern time. Directions for dialing into TAPTalks can be obtained by sending an email to taptalk@adler.ca You will receive a return email with the
phone number to call and the code number that will connect you to the group. 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 October 5th 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
CALENDAR
OF CONFERENCES & SOCIAL EVENTS
September
20, 2005 A One day Conference:
FAS 
A
Publication of the