Category Archives: Marriage

Dogs and Health, a Winning Combination

We know that exercise is good for the heart. We know that having companionship is good for health. But did you know that owning a dog helps relieve stress and lower blood pressure and heart rate? 

Psychology Today Magazine published an article in its April 2006 edition about a research project completed at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In this study, 480 people experienced various stress-inducing tasks. Sometimes, the subject could have their dog present during the task, and in other cases, the dog could not be with its owner. The same was true of the subject’s spouse. Sometimes, the spouse could participate, and the spouse was absent in others. Before, during, and after the experiment, blood pressure and heart rate were carefully monitored and documented. The results of the study were fascinating:

Results:

The tasks required of the subjects were successful in sending heart rates and blood pressure soaring.

When a participant’s spouse was present, blood pressure and heart rate were the highest of all participants, even though the spouse could provide any social support they thought necessary.

Stress response was lowest among those allowed to have their dogs present during and after the task.

It is not surprising that the researchers speculated that those with their dogs present had a better outcome because dogs are comforting and non-critical.

This study coincides with another recent research project, which showed that loneliness and the lack of social support in an individual’s life lead to high blood pressure. A pet, particularly a dog, goes a long way toward providing owners with a sense of responsibility, comfort, and companionship that has real health benefits. 

The mere process of walking a dog leads to the opportunity to speak with people and interact. Children, other adult dog owners, and interested neighbors stop interacting with those walking their dogs. In addition, dogs are always welcoming when their owner returns home from having been elsewhere. This welcome feels very good and reassuring for those who live by themselves and may feel socially isolated.

Financial Problems Impact Mental Health

Not since the great depression have so many people collectively been dealing with financial hardship. The Covid pandemic locked down nations and caused people to lose their livelihoods. It is not surprising that we also see increases in the rates of depression.

Other studies have also linked depression and anxiety with financial burdens. This study suggests that individuals with depression and anxiety are three times more likely to be in debt.

It’s a Vicious Cycle

Solving any problem requires clear thinking and an ability to take action. When financial burdens cause a person to become anxious and depressed, they live in an emotional state that makes it almost impossible to solve their financial problems.

For instance, when people feel depressed, it is common for them to feel overwhelmed and out of control. They want to avoid problems because they can’t bear the weight of it all. 

Depression and anxiety can also make it hard for people to get proper sleep. The lack of sleep creates a mental fog, making it incredibly hard to figure out a solution to any problem.

Talking to Someone Can Help

No, I’m not talking about a financial planner. I’m talking about speaking with a therapist. A licensed therapist can help you find some calm in the storm. Working with a therapist often brings clarity that can help you heal from depression and anxiety and get your financial life back in order.

There is no reason to be ashamed. At one point, most of us have experienced trouble with our finances and felt depressed and anxious. It is a standard part of living in these modern times when the economy seems to go against us.

If you or a loved one have been having a hard time financially and feeling stressed and overwhelmed, please contact me. I would be happy to help you deal with your current situation.

Trauma and Gaslighting

Gaslighting Quotes That Capture This Emotional Manipulation

  1. “Gaslighting is mind control to make victims doubt their reality.” — Tracy Malone.
  2. “Gaslighting is a subtle form of emotional manipulation that often results in the recipient doubting their own perception of reality and their sanity. In addition, gaslighting is a method of manipulation by toxic people to gain power over you. The worst part about gaslighting is that it undermines your self-worth to the point where you’re second-guessing everything.” — Dana Arcuri.
  3. “It frightens me because I feel vulnerable to attacks, an easy target for gaslighting. Phrases like ‘No, I didn’t say that!’, ‘You don’t remember,’ and ‘You must have forgotten,’ start rattling my brain and making me jittery.” — Ankita Sahani

There are many times of childhood trauma, where family members state it happened a long time ago, and it’s time to get over it. The same people who say that engage in gaslighting the survivor of childhood trauma.

What is meant by gaslighting?

Gaslighting refers to the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the surrounding environment, or their feelings and memories. Ultimately, the target of gaslighting may doubt their sanity.

The trauma of childhood abuse can have long-lasting repercussions that affect your understanding of yourself and the world around you. For many, the effects of abuse show up in dysfunctional interpersonal relationships resulting from attachment disruptions at pivotal points of childhood development. By examining the impact of childhood abuse on interpersonal relationships and the role of therapy in healing, people can better understand their experiences and the possibilities for recovery.

One result of childhood trauma can be dissociative disorders:

Dissociative disorders involve the inability to distinguish between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in involuntary and unhealthy ways and cause problems with functioning in everyday life. In one case, a patient dissociated when she had to move from her apartment after many years. Any stress can set off this disorder. 

The Impact of Childhood Abuse on Interpersonal Relationships

In the absence of secure attachments, survivors of childhood abuse often develop dysfunctional attachment styles that disrupt your ability to interact with others in healthy ways. Emotional abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse are more strongly associated with interpersonal distress in adulthood than physical abuse. However, it is essential to remember that any abuse survivor can experience profound interpersonal difficulties, including:

  • An inability to trust: The ability to trust others is a critical part of forming and maintaining healthy relationships. However, when someone has experienced childhood abuse, that ability is often diminished or even removed altogether. As a result, you may be reluctant to engage in honest and open relationships for fear that you will be betrayed or harmed. Staying closed off, guarded, or hypervigilant can make it difficult for others to feel close to you, and you deny yourself the opportunity to form healthy and meaningful bonds. The lack of trust also affects all insecure attachment styles.
  • Avoidant attachment: Some people who do not experience the benefit of secure attachment in childhood must avoid attachment to others altogether. Avoidant people are unable to trust others. It also arises due to extreme self-reliance. Many abuse survivors learned that they could not rely on others to meet their attachment needs early. Those with an avoidant attachment may decide to ignore those needs or attempt to meet them yourself. In adulthood, this typically translates to social avoidance or the formation of emotionally distant relationships in which you remain unresponsive to the needs of others.
  • Ambivalent attachment: Survivors of childhood abuse develop a weak attachment style. People with an ambivalent attachment style desire intimacy. However, they are ever watchful of change in the relationship, sometimes to the point of paranoia, “frustrated and resentful, particularly if you feel misunderstood or vulnerable.
  • Disorganized attachment: People who experience this style are deeply fearful of relationships. However, they crave emotional closeness. You are at once afraid of intimacy and of being alone. As a result, you may lash out if you feel ignored or unloved while being reluctant to show affection for others. These patterns create significant barriers to forming and maintaining healthy relationships. 

People who experience childhood abuse are vulnerable to developing mental health disorders that compromise emotional and behavioral stability, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. These illnesses present additional challenges to engaging in healthy interpersonal relationships, leading to re-traumatization that creates further emotional damage.

Contact Dr. Schwartz at

dransphd@aol.com

What is Love

What Is Love?

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing, and forgiving. Through good and bad times, it is loyalty. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” Ann Landers.

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Emily Bronte.

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Aristotle.

Webster Dictionary Definition of Love:

1. strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties. Maternal love for a child.

2. attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers after all these years are still very much in love.

3. affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests love for his old schoolmates

4 .warm attachment, enthusiasm, or love of the sea.

Love:  

After several years of marriage, we take our spouses for granted.

I recently had a case of a married couple who had been together for 18 years. The husband, an amiable and sensitive man, forgot to send his wife some kind of gift for Valentine’s day. She felt hurt and disappointed. We discussed it in couples’ therapy. Clearly, he had no intention of hurting his beloved wife. While he intended to send her a gift, he forgot as he played video games with friends on the Internet. She was very hurt. As his therapist, I joked with him he had better have a good life insurance policy because she retaliated in a deadly way. 

He understood the joke and felt terrible about overlooking the import of expressing his affection, especially on Valentine’s day. 

We take a lot of things for granted, both husbands and wives. Yet, it is essential to express affection and love for our romantic partner. It’s just a reminder that we care. And it means a lot to our spouses. 

There are many ways for couples to express their love for one another. For example, ordering flowers, sending a loving card, cooking dinner for that evening, possibly ending in a sexual episode of lovemaking. These things mean a lot to people. There is more to love and romance and simply sex. People want to know that their partner is highly valued and appreciated. 

Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust. Love can vary in intensity and can change. It is associated with a range of positive emotions, including happiness, excitement, life satisfaction, and euphoria. Still, it can also result in negative emotions such as jealousy and stress.1

It is said by many that love is one of the most important human emotions. Yet, despite being one of the most studied behaviors, it is still the least understood. 

Types of Love

Not all forms of love are the same, and psychologists have identified several types of love that people may experience.

These types of love include:

Friendship: This type of love involves liking someone and sharing a certain intimacy.

Infatuation: This is a love that involves feelings of attraction without a sense of commitment; it usually takes place early in a relationship and may deepen into more lasting love.

Passionate love: This type of love is marked by feelings of longing and attraction; it often involves an idealization of the other person and a need to maintain constant physical closeness.

Compassionate love: This form of love is marked by trust, affection, intimacy, and commitment.

Unrequited love: This form of love happens when one loves another who does not return those feelings.

The Fear of Emotional Intimacy

It is Interesting two people can be married and live together for years yet, not be emotionally intimate. In that situation, both people have committed to each other, but that is quite different from intimacy.

What is emotional intimacy?

Intimacy is the ability to share the most profound feelings with one’s partner. That includes sharing love, passion, creativity, laughter, and joy. It means allowing one’s partner to know the deepest secrets and the most hidden parts of oneself on a deep level. Emotional intimacy is such that one no longer feels lonely. Yet, there are countless numbers of people who feel lonely and unhappy despite marriage. Two people may live together for many years but feel like total strangers. 

One of the prime reasons for this is the fear of intimacy. In other words, commitment is the decision two people make to stay together. Still, intimacy is the ability and willingness to be open and honest. It is a closeness that is both sexual and emotional. But, of course, some individuals fear and avoid intimacy to the extent that they avoid commitment.

How do you know if either you or your partner fear intimacy? I get many email questions that represent problems with emotional intimacy. For example, people write to me complaining that their partner, during an argument or disagreement, gives the “silent treatment.” The silent treatment is the refusal to acknowledge or communicate with one’s spouse. Another complaint is that the spouse reacts to any disagreement by leaving the room. In this, there is a refusal to argue, disagree or talk about much of anything. 

There is nothing more frustrating than to be with a person who refuses to deal with an interpersonal conflict. Keeping secrets is another example of a lack of intimacy in a relationship. Secrecy is the opposite of openness and honesty with one’s spouse. Often, those who keep secrets do not view their partner as their best friend. Finally, real intimacy means that two people can empathize with the feelings and stresses their partner is going through.

People avoid intimacy for various reasons that usually lie in their past experiences. The first and most potent relationship experience begins during childhood. Children who grow up with physical and emotional abuse emerge into adulthood with problems of trust in others. Many of them may avoid commitment and intimacy for fear of being abused and hurt again. 

Then, too, parents who were too controlling and intrusive produce children who learn that getting too close to others may be too oppressive. So, again, there is a fear of being controlled and engulfed.

The absence of one or both people’s ability to show empathy and understanding for their partner is a sign of intimacy problems. A symptom of a problem is a chronic wish to be right all the time rather than learning. Relationships rest on a foundation of willingness to compromise, understand what the other is feeling, and an ability to be flexible and change for the sake of the other.