Our attachment to being right
‘The most destructive element in human relationships is the urge to make other people bad or wrong, and then judge, reject or punish them for that.’ - John Welwood
The controversy over how different countries have responded to the coronavirus challenge has brought up yet again the danger of assuming that our own opinion or outlook is somehow correct and ‘good’ and that other opinions are obviously wrong and, in some cases, ‘bad’ or ‘wicked’.
This is a tendency I recognise in myself. Sometimes it just seems so obvious that what I believe is the truth and what others believe is simply wrong.
Couple therapy – making sense of emotions
Recognising and naming what we are feeling is a valuable part of couple therapy, but it’s not something that comes easily to most of us.
It is important to learn how to recognise and name what we’re feeling because, in one sense, we are what we feel. It is often through our feelings that we reveal ourselves to others, that they get an understanding of what we want, what we’re passionate about, what moves us. And that helps create intimacy.
The power in therapy of ‘talking to yourself’
One of the revelations that many who enter therapy experience is that the process becomes not just talking to the therapist but also, in a deeper, way talking to themself.
This was highlighted recently by artist and cultural commentator Grayson Perry, in the BBC Radio Four programme Start the Week. (see link at bottom of this post).
