Other Clinical Programs

Power, Anger, Trust, & Communication

All relationships have a power component. Some of the guises this takes include passive-aggressiveness, breaking agreements, withholding sex, chronic “forgetting,” intentional incapacity, the distancer-pursuer arrangement, and outright power struggles.

When couples do not deal with power issues honestly, anger results. Chronic arguing, conflicts that go unresolved, partners deliberately hurting each other, undependable emotional support, and unfair fighting are some common results. These patterns are often what bring couples into treatment.

Trust is hard to maintain in such an environment. We see couples who refuse to negotiate or compromise, partners who keep secrets or lie, relationships that lack the good will necessary for people to soothe themselves while not taking their partner’s feelings personally. In these circumstances, clear communication is not necessarily rational, and the therapist who encourages it may appear foolish or biased.

Power dynamics cannot be eliminated from relationships. What we can do is help couples be more aware of their power dynamics, their respective needs, the importance of making and keeping agreements, and give them pictures of healthy power–with examples and by our own modeling.

As this workshop focuses on the dynamics of power, anger, trust, and communication, we will examine how they interact in couples’ systems, and the kinds of challenges they often present the clinician. We will see how this understanding can lead to more sophisticated diagnoses and treatment approaches, and we will look at specific interventions. Finally, we will explore the kinds of counter-transference issues that can arise in working with these issues.