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Many people suffer from anxiety, and don’t realize that ignoring the problem or relying on medicine isn’t treating the root cause of the issue. A therapist has a multitude of ways to help you deal with these issues while teaching you how to resolve them by yourself. This is why i put together an article explaining How can therapy relieve my anxiety?

What is anxiety?

Anxiety can manifest itself in many ways, but the discomfort it causes is clear. Anxiety is most often characterized as feelings of worry, self-doubt, fear, stress, and any mixture of these. It’s a normal reaction to many circumstances and has become increasingly common in our society. Many experience these emotions passingly, but being exposed to this for a prolonged time can have severe consequences on your physical health, mental well-being, and other aspects of your live. Physical symptoms vary from stomach aches to tense musculature, and go as far as full-blown panic attacks. Life can be much more complicated, and medicine helps to a certain extent, but psychology is the field most apt to treat this.

Perspective:

Anxiety is often characterized by a few emotional responses that when left to their own devices can worsen the problem. One of these is repetitive thoughts and emotions, which repeatedly expose you to the same ideas and only make the problem worse. A therapist can help a lot by discussing the problem and giving you a different perspective on your feelings, or the problems which gave rise to them. Being able to have someone listen in and give you a 3rd person perspective without all the emotional bias we carry living our lives can help change our points of view and make the emotions or problems seem normal and manageable. Anxiety can blow daily circumstances out of proportion in our minds and make it seem as though there’s nothing we can do about them, but this is very rarely the case.

Brainstorming:

Since anxiety often causes our perspectives of issues and emotions to be distorted, this in turn distorts our abilities to deal with said emotions and problems. A Psychologist is someone you can trust to listen to what you’re going through and help you think of ways you could deal with these issues. People are very quick to ask acquaintances and others for help and emotional support, but a therapist is a trained individual who will help you deal with your current situations while preparing you for the future. Although the immediate relief that therapy causes may seem like reason enough to proceed with the treatment, the main goal is to teach you to deal with your emotions by yourself in the future.

Prevention:

One limitation of experiencing your life from within your mind is that our perspective of ourselves, and of our emotional processes are extremely limited. Throughout your life you develop mechanisms to deal with any problems you encounter. These mechanisms are then automatically used to cope with future problems, but sometimes a solution to one problem isn’t the best way to solve another. A Psychologist is trained to guide your, and help give you that extra perspective which can go a long way in preventing you from becoming anxious in the first place. One example of this is isolation; many people become withdrawn in their own minds and this allows your thoughts and emotions to get hijacked by anxiety. Having someone who keeps an eye on how you react to different stimuli, and can give you tips to prevent a small feeling from growing is one of the biggest boons of therapy.

These are only a few ways that a healthy relationship with a therapist can help relieve not only anxiety, but many other conflicting emotions daily life can bring. I hope you found this article helpful, and know I’m always available for consulting!

Sometimes a relationship has been going on for a long time but that doesn’t necessarily mean things are going well or future-proof. That’s why i’ve put together this list containing 6 Signs a couple is stable in the long-term.

1. A shared hobby / common interests:

Although this is something that sometimes brings people together in the first place, some couples don’t share many interests and hobbies on their free time. This can be negative in the long term because hobbies are a great way to do things together, and to deepen bonds and learn each other’s quirks. For example hard working executives, when dating, often don’t have much free time due to work and stress. Although their relationship may have lasted long, quick sex and occasional meals don’t do much in the way of forming a deep, long-lasting bond.

2. Doing something special on a regular basis

Like the shared interests, being able to do something special together for a change of pace is a very healthy sign. Couple can quickly devolve into spending their time together “alone” in a comfort zone. This means they’re together, but apart; couples that take the time to take a drive to the beach on weekends, for example, are much more likely to progress in their relationships. Wanting to experience new things with a partner means you both have trust and feel comfortable enough with each other to risk leaving your comfort zones safety to do something new. Being able to see your partner in different situations is an extremely rare opportunity because people often show different sides of themselves when faced with new situations or stresses.

3. Comfort with family / friends

An extremely telling sign of a healthy relationship is how your partner deals with your friends and family. Everyone has heard tales of a controlling partner forbidding their significant other from seeing certain friends, or avoiding seeing their family. This is a very important sign because in the end there’s no avoiding someone’s social life and history; they’ve spent their life building this and at one point they’re going to be faced with a choice: staying together and abandoning the offending friends/family, or breaking up. This type of issue is unavoidable and set’s traps that are bound to go off sooner or later. This is why i always ask how how each partner deals with the others’ family and friends.

4. How they argue

This one may seem obvious, but the reality of how couples deal with conflicting opinions is much more complicated than it may seem. For example bickering a little bit here and there is not necessarily a bad sign at all. What really matters is how they resolve the issue, and the attitudes and “negotiation tactics” they use to persuade each other. Couples that are honest and use assertive arguments to express their emotions are much more likely to solve problems while getting to know each other better. Couples that scream, use “emotional blackmail”, or even go as far as using violence are doomed to a tragic failure.

5. how much they compromise

If you don’t sacrifice anything for the well-being of your partner, and relationship, you can’t expect much from either. Obviously entirely foregoing your life to serve your relationship won’t help either! Knowing when to give up eating that food you were craving to go have dinner with your loved ones’ family is a sign of maturity and devotion that’ll go a long way in strengthening your bonds. This brings us to the last and most important sign:

6. How they communicate

Couples with honest and assertive communication skills are the ones that last longest, and can get through anything together. This type of couple “discusses” rather than “argues”, and this really sets them on the track for a long bond. Being completely honest about your opinions requires a massive amount of trust, but is extremely rewards. When you share your vulnerabilities, fears, and emotions your partner can get “in your shoes” and understand who you are on a whole different level. This type of trust takes long to develope, but couples who can’t communcate their emotions at all will face a bumpy ride when confronted with any kind of adversity.

I hope this list was helpful, and keep in mind seeing a professional for relationship counseling can greatly improve all of these signs!

Approaching differences without an open mind

It might be hard to admit, but we’re all a little stubborn and set in our ways. Many people believe that compromise is a huge factor in successful relationships, and you can’t compromise without first approaching your partner with an open mind. At the start of your relationship, you will be two different people who might have had completely different upbringings. This doesn’t mean that your relationship won’t work out, it only means that you must seek to learn about your partner. Maintaining an open mind and honest communication allows couples to validate each other’s differences and grow together.

Universal statements

Relationships can be frustrating, especially when someone has a hard time breaking a bad habit or harmful pattern. But, when trying to address these repetitive behaviors, it’s best to avoid making universal statements. These include examples like, “you always do this” or “you never do that.” When you use this kind of language, you are communicating to your significant other that they are nothing more than their flaws. Because these types of statements point out what is wrong as opposed to how to be better, they discourage change and will elicit a defensive response. It is much more effective to gently point out how someone might do something differently rather than the way in which they’re doing it wrong.

Invalidating feelings

Invalidating someones feelings can be a harmful practice that usually ends up causing communication barriers. When someone tells you how they feel and you tell them they are overreacting, you are invalidating their feelings. Another example would be if someone is feeling good about something that you don’t consider to be a big deal and you tell them as much, you are diminishing their feelings. This type of communication is harmful because it can cause instant resentment. When you hurt someone who has trusted you in this way, they could have a hard time trusting you again in the future, and that is a communication barrier that could take a lot of work to break through.

Bottling up

Sometimes it feels like the best thing to do in a relationship is avoid confronting a certain issue because causing a fight might escalate things. There are certain times when it can be prudent to choose to address something at a later time but it’s important to actually address the issue because by simply ignoring a problem and hoping it will go away is unfair to you and to your partner. When you bottle up your frustrations, they might manifest themselves as passive aggression or lack of intimacy. This breach in communication could be keeping you and your partner from working through things in healthy way and strengthening your relationship.

How to communicate better

This may sound counter intuitive, but instead of focusing on how to communicate better, focus on each other. When your partner is talking to you, remain engaged mentally. Listen to what they’re saying with the intent to better understand them, not with the intent to defend yourself or some up with a rebuttal. Pay attention to their body language, read between the lines of what they’re not saying. And most of all, ask questions. By seeking to understand one another, you will face issues together rather than against each other. For more information on positive communication habits, a therapist might be a good idea.

Relationship counseling typically has a good success rate but there are some instances when counseling efforts are doomed before they ever have a chance to get off the ground. To be successful relationship counseling in Toronto requires the active participation of both parties, and by that we don’t mean they should both be yelling. We mean they should both be there for the right reasons and both possess a willingness to see the process through. Because that is what counseling is, a process, not an event. Below we are going to take a look at some of the ways couples set themselves up for failure when it comes to relationship counseling.

Reasons Relationship Counseling in Toronto Sometimes Fails Before It Begins

Here are 5 ways relationship counseling is sometimes undermined before it ever begins.

1. There are deeper underlying problems – Sometimes it becomes apparent during counseling that the real issue goes back to a time before the couple met. Instances of childhood abuse for example change the way a person relates to the world and other people, including those they become emotionally involved with. In this case the relationship issues were likely a symptom of the deeper underlying issue and relationship counseling won’t really help.
2. Using counseling to impose your will – As unfortunate as it is some people approach relationship counseling as an opportunity to impose their will on their partner. They make reconciliation dependent on their partner accepting something they may be fundamentally opposed to. This is a recipe for long-term disaster.
3. Not setting goals – In some instances couples engage the services of a relationship counselor just because they had a few arguments or one party isn’t happy but can’t really say why. Relationship counseling works best when both parties agree on a set of goals up front. Typical goals may include developing tools to change bad habits or finding a way to respectfully disagree.
4. Not being comfortable in the counseling setting – Sometimes a couple will sign up for relationship counseling even though neither partner is particularly fond of the idea of talking about the intimate details of their life in front of a stranger. What typically follows are long silent sessions where neither partner wants to take the lead and nothing is accomplished.
5. Choosing the wrong therapist for you – It’s crucial that both partners feel comfortable with the counselor. However, not all counselors will be a good match for all couples. If you are not completely comfortable with the counselor and yet you proceed anyway it is likely that at some point that antipathy will raise its head and undermine the process.

Relationship counseling can be a doorway to a better future or, if any of the above mitigating circumstances are in play, it can be a dead end street. Before you enlist the services of a professional for relationship counseling in Toronto make sure you have your ducks in a row and that you’re both clear about why you are there and what you hope to achieve.