Is the communication between you and your partner open or a constant issue? Do you try to fix or control one another? Do you feel distant and/or disconnected? Are you able to express your needs and feelings? Do either of you seem to always have to be right? Are conflicts directly resolved or do they go unresolved? Do you trust each other or has trust been broken?

Research shows that couples tend to seek professional help from a qualified therapist after seven to eight years of fights, unresolved conflicts, lack of intimacy, and/or other challenges. Healthy relationships are characterized by common attitudes and behaviors that protect the relationship and creates safe environment where intimacy flourishes. The difficulties your marriage or relationship is facing can be an opportunity to turn things around.

Couples therapy is often a wise first step toward a healthier and happier relationship. Caring and effective counseling from a qualified relationship therapist may help save your marriage.

Dr.Baya Mebarek, Psy.D.,LMFT

Do you have a strong willed child? Do you know how and when to discipline your child? Are you disciplining your child more and getting less cooperation from him? Correction and discipline are definitely part of parenting but they are not the most important part, they are just the top of the iceberg. Often though when disciplining or correcting a child who is not responding well to it parents have a tendency to do more correction and/or to try different methods of discipline or correction. Maybe a better approach will be to do more training and teaching as correction depends on teaching/training. Maybe you should ask yourself if you are correcting/disciplining your child without teaching/training him. The key to effective correction is effective teaching/training. Similarly the effectiveness of your teaching/training depends heavily on the quality of you relationship with your child. It might be time to get the support and direction of a qualified child therapist.

Dr. Baya Mebarek, Psy.D, LMFT

Is your child angry? Is his behavior aggressive? Are you turned off by your child’s aggressive behavior? Does your child have challenging relationships with peers? Does your child have a poor self image?

Clinical and field studies of aggressive boys in angry families show that a pattern of violence and disobedience is established early, and quickly get out of control (Tavris, 1982). Under particular stressors such as grief, divorce, prolonged unemployment, acute or chronic illness, alcohol and/or drug problems, managing a family and parenting children can become overwhelming. In addition, sometimes a child can have a difficult temperament.

A stressed parent might then inadvertently permit or even encourage the child disobedient and aggressive behavior. The child then becomes more rebellious, disobedient and aggressive. As a result, other children reject him. He might even have behaviors that can cause you as his parent to dislike him. Your child might begin to develop low self-esteem and poor school performance. Often, that leads to you getting more frustrated with him and he might answer with increasing angry disobedience and even socially inappropriate behaviors.

Patterns of disobedience, aggressive and violent behavior are established early in life (Patterson, 1992). Thus, if you and your child can learn appropriate tools to help your child, you are setting him up for more positive outcomes later in life rather than ones of potential violence and aggression when he encounters challenges.

Do not let your child behavior and your relationship with him get out of control. Get him the help he need sooner than later. A qualified family and child therapist can teach him how to control his anger, how to solve the problems that generate his anger, how to soothe himself, and how to get along with other people.

Adapted from a book by C. Tavris

Dr. Baya Mebarek, Psy.D, LMFT

Anger is a difficult emotion. Modern anger therapies have made great progress in treating angry people. They recognize that anger can be destructive to one’s relationships and teach them to understand manage and redirect their anger appropriately.

Anger involves the mind, the body, and the ineffective behavioral habits that people have acquired over the years in coping with emotions. People who want to “let go” of anger have to readjust their thinking as well as lower their pulse rates. For this reason, therapies that rely mainly on emotional release or on relaxation techniques, are only attending to part of the problem.

Effective anger therapies teach the person to identify the perceptions and interpretations that generate anger, relaxation techniques to help the person calm down, and new effective habits and coping skills.

Each angry person has patterns to their anger. Their anger occurs in particular situations, with particular people, or under particular circumstances perceived as provocations. Anger is not wholly in the “self” but in the situation and how the person chooses to react to the situation. Most angry people choose with whom they allow themselves to lose control. For example, most people will not lose control with a policeman or with their boss as they understand the consequences of that are higher than they would like to pay.

Moreover anger is maintained, and exacerbated by the statements angry people make to themselves and to others when they are or feel provoked. They take things personally and interpret events in ways that offend them. Experts have found that teaching them how to become slow to anger helps them to reinterpret events in ways that allow them to try to find explanations for other person’s behaviors and eventually, even empathize with them (Novaco, 1985).

Some example techniques people can learn to deal with their anger are: using cooling/calming thoughts, problem-solving thoughts, or learn to walk away from the situation when they begin to feel angry until able to deal with it calmly ( Jerry Deffenbacher, 2008). Sometimes, not taking oneself too seriously and using some humor can also help one get some distance from one’s problem.

If your anger is long standing and has affected your relationships, seeking help from a qualified individual and relationship therapist can help provide hope and tools that can you can change your life for the better.

Adapted from a book by C. Tavris

Dr.Baya Mebarek, Psy.D.,LMFT