Relationship Material

Validation refers to the process of communicating to another person that their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are important and they matter. Validation doesn’t mean agreeing or approving. In fact, it conveys that a relationship is important and solid – even when two parties disagree. Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) identifies six methods of validation that a practitioner can employ with a client, ranging from validation level (VL) 1 through 6, increasing sequentially in difficulty. Although initially developed to treat patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), these validation strategies are useful in any interpersonal context. ...

While there are many couples therapy approaches in use, only a few have been subjected to repeated empirical testing. Two particularly promising treatments are Behavioral Couples Therapy (BCT) and Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT). BCT originates from operant learning theory and the observation that distressed couples tend to punish each other for relationship-harming behaviors more than they reward each other for relationship-enhancing behaviors. The two main components of BCT are behavioral exchange training and communication and problem-solving skills. Behavioral exchange training involves each partner learning which of their behaviors reinforce their partner, and agreeing to mutually engage in those behaviors. Techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have also been incorporated into BCT (with the resulting treatment termed Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy), since evidence indicates that distressed couples show thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that exacerbate dysfunctional patterns. ...

In a 2013 paper, Stanford researchers Dan McFarland and Dan Jurafsky analyzed the conversations of nearly 1000 heterosexual couples during speed dating encounters to find out why some people felt a sense of connection after the meeting and others didn’t. The participants in the study were graduate students at Stanford, and wore audio recording devices during their dates. The dates lasted four minutes each, and after they were done, the participants filled out a scorecard that asked them to rate how connected they felt to each partner (“clicking”, on a scale of 0-10) and whether they would like to go on a real date with that person (“willingness”, on a yes/no basis). ...

Dr. Alexandra Solomon, professor of Northwestern University’s popular “Marriage 101” class and author of Loving Bravely, posits that the most important trait of a partner is relational self-awareness. People with this quality can talk about how past relationships shaped them, identify their feelings instead of merely acting on them, view relationship issues as a combination of “me” and “you” stuff, and listen to feedback in a healthy way. You can assess this in a date by looking at (1) their stimulus-response process in frustrating moments (do they fight, flee, freeze, or study the moment and respond in a composed way?), and (2) how they talk about past relationships — do they see events in black and white, or are they aware of the nuances of context? Is there blame and/or shame? Do they play the victim or do they take shared responsibility? Do they cast other people as villains, losers, or fools? Is there a focus on growth? The canonical financial disclaimer that “past performance may not be an indicator of future results” does hold – but how we process our past may be one of the most telling indicators of how we will function in current or future relationships.

Many of us are familiar with the political horse trading that’s part and parcel of the modern romantic relationship. We do Thankgiving with your parents, and Christmas with mine. I take the dog to the groomers, you mow the lawn this week. This kind of trading is an example of an exchange norm in a relationship. In academic papers, an exchange norm is typically contrasted with a communal norm. The exchange norm, while sometimes very convenient, may not be optimal. Indeed, much of the book 80/80 Marriage by Nate and Kaley Klemp deals with how to move away from the idea of fairness (a key requirement for a successful exchange) to a relationship defined by radical generosity and a spirit of shared success. One argument they make that it’s often impossible to draw an equivalence relationship between the things being traded – how many kitchen countertop wipe-downs are equal to one trip to the dog groomer? The subjectivity inherent in the valuations rendered by each side makes this kind of exercise fraught. ...

The ability to express your frustrations in a mutually non-triggering way is a core skill in relationships. In this post, I’m doing a high-level comparison of three models for interpersonal communication that I’ve come across: Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC) model as presented in the book by the same name, Nate and Kaley Klemp’s Reveal and Request (R&R) model explained in their book The 80/80 Marriage, and the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model developed by the Center for Creative Leadership. ...

On her wedding day, Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that she was given this sage piece of advice by her mother-in-law: “In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.” (And I would add, a little forgetful!) But no matter how deaf – or forgetful – we may be, transgressions big and small are part of any meaningful long-term relationship. And consequently, the ability to apologize for these transgressions is a vitally important skill for relational wellness.1 ...

In his book Wired for Love, therapist and clinician Stan Tatkin introduces the notion of a couple bubble, which is a “mutually constructed membrane, cocoon, or womb, that holds the couple together and protects each partner from outside elements.” It’s essentially a safe zone for the partners, buttressed upon an agreement to put the relationship ahead of other life priorities – a mutual pact to put each other’s well-being, self-esteem and distress relief first – as well a shared vision of relationship, and a concordant approach to navigating life together. In brief, Tatkin describes it as an us against the world mentality. ...

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. - Greg McKeown If everything is important, then nothing is important. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. - Garr Reynolds Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do - Steve Jobs We’ve all heard the above sayings, or some version of them. Yet in our culture where “beehive activity is a large part of the human condition,” it’s easy to convince ourselves that we can keep all the balls in the air and somehow make it all work. ...

If you’ve ever taken an economics course, you’d recall that basic economics is founded on the assumption that an individual is a fundamentally rational creature. This infallible being, homo economicus, when in possession of complete and accurate information, always chooses the option that maximizes their well-being. Of course, we all know that this is a flagrantly inaccurate assumption – people constantly act against their objective rational self-interest. In the 1970s, Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman studied and catalogued some of these irrationalties. Through meticulous and often creative experimentation, they found patterns in the way that we are sometimes at odds with rationality. Tversky and Kahneman’s research spawned a new field called behavioral economics to study these predictable irrationalities. Thus far, behavioral economists have identified over 100 of these persistent mental errors – called cognitive biases – that distort our decision-making. ...