Relationship and couples therapy in Copenhagen
Regardless of what is causing the relationship to falter, this therapy presents a new opportunity for the couple to apply techniques that enhance communication and deepen understanding, and establishes a foundation for renewing and sustaining intimacy.
The capacity for appreciative presence is the capacity for mentalisation. Mentalisation is a comprehensive concept that encompasses attachment, survival strategies, self-definition and emotional regulation Recognising presence is a skill we can develop throughout our lives!
Attachment styles and behaviour in relationships
A natural part of couples therapy is to examine your attachment styles and behaviour. The attachment between a mother and child or other carer is of paramount and crucial importance to how you later interact within your relationships, and especially the way you interact as part of a couple. It’s a basic pattern or behaviour that shapes us in the first years of life – from 0–3 years old. There are four attachment styles:
1)Secure attachments
2)Insecure avoidant attachments (dismissive/avoidant)
3)Insecure anxious attachments (insecure/anxious behaviour)
4)Insecure disorganised attachments
You may recognise yourself in more than one of these attachment styles depending on what you experienced during your childhood. If one of these four attachment styles particularly stands out to you, you may have a better understanding of why you and your partner act the way you do in conflict situations.
Secure attachment
If you were fortunate enough to have a secure attachment in childhood, you are more likely to listen to and empathise with others’ emotions while effectively managing your own. This means you come from a home where your parents understood the importance of fostering a supportive and safe environment both within their relationship and throughout the household. Your parents will also have expressed a mutual respect for each other and for you. You are likely to have had parents who managed and embraced differences with grace and balance. Your parents would have also co-operated and supported each other and been good at reconnecting with each other and with you as a child after a conflict, stress, periods of insecurity, etc. Couples where both partners have a secure attachment style are far more able to maintain and also re-establish an appreciative presence when a problem arises.
With secure attachment, you’ll find it easier to thrive in a relationship by:
- Showing and receiving love
- Giving and receiving comfort
- Asking for help when needed
- Attaching without losing yourself
- Feeling safe in a relationship
- Feeling and acting in relation to others
Insecure attachment style with dismissive and avoidant behaviour
If you grew up in an environment with an insecure attachment, you may have experienced unmet needs for predictability and attention from your caregiver. The child needs protection as they are often rejected, overlooked or misunderstood. Parents are often dismissive, unpredictable and physically distanced, such as by offering activities instead of closeness. Due to their internal insecurities, children have low expectations of others and are often rejected. The child may feel that they’re not getting the love they need or that they don’t deserve love. As a result, they might attempt to cope without seeking support, becoming avoidant and often experiencing rejection. The child therefore learns to defend themselves against rejection and abandonment. As a result, children fail to seek comfort when they feel insecure and afraid, and they fail to express their own needs, instead orienting themselves towards toys or other objects.
If you grew up with an insecure attachment marked by rejection or avoidance, you may have a limited understanding of both your own feelings and those of others. This can make it challenging to identify and comprehend your emotions as well as those of your partner. For example, you may also struggle to find inner peace and you may be very prone to stress.
As someone with an insecure attachment style marked by dismissive or avoidant behaviour, you may find that you:
- Attach yourself to objects, work, projects
- Have a tendency towards self-sufficiency
- Feel uncomfortable in social situations
- Have a tendency to refuse help and want to work alone
- Have a tendency to withdraw and intellectualise
- Struggle to relate to major life events that involve attachment
- While you are able to interact with other people, you struggle to relate to them on an emotional level
Insecure attachment style with insecure/anxious behaviour
If you grew up in an insecure family environment where your parents’ availability was unpredictable, this may have often left you feeling unsupported in your need for security. Perhaps one or both parents spent a lot of time away from home due to work, stress or physical or mental illness. This may have resulted in your parents having very fluctuating and unstable contact with you. With this type of attachment, the parents have been less responsive and unpredictable in giving attention to their children’s expressions of anger and frustration. Parents often exhibit a profound concern for their children, but they may be inconsistent in their approach to handling conflict. At times, you’ll notice that the parents are very engaged, while at other times, they pay minimal attention.
As an adult, you may find yourself overwhelmed by emotions that are difficult to regulate, leaving you feeling almost paralysed.
As someone with an insecure attachment style marked by insecure/anxious behaviour, you will:
- Be perceived as clingy by others
- Be overly aware of others’ reactions
- Experience separation anxiety
- Have an ongoing need for contact
- Be able to give up your own identity in favour of attachment
- Idealise partners and overlook their faults to avoid separation
- While you are closely connected to your emotions, you struggle to interact with others
General conditions for individuals with insecure attachment with both dismissive and insecure/anxious behaviour
Couples where both or one of the partners have an insecure attachment style have grown up in an environment without sufficient predictability and attention from their parents. In these situations, there is often a sense of mutual disrespect or lack of recognition, making it challenging for one or both individuals to maintain or re-establish a supportive and appreciative presence. The individual is fully engaged in their own survival strategy.
For example, if we long for closeness in our relationships, we will naturally try to reach out for it. If we are subsequently ignored or rejected, it naturally triggers a survival strategy aimed at seeking more attention and pushing for contact. This can lead to conflict in the relationship, especially if one or both partners have an insecure attachment style.
Disorganised attachment style
The last of the four attachment styles is disorganised attachment. Your upbringing is likely to have been extremely disruptive, and contact with your parents was very difficult to maintain. This is often because your parents held onto (and perhaps still do hold onto) stressful experiences or events from their own childhood. And if the parents’ unresolved trauma is not treated professionally, it will result in the parents not being able to meet their children’s need for safety and connection. These parents react with irritation, aggression or anxiety when their children cry or are perceived as demanding – simply because the child wants contact and closeness. This can lead to parents physically and/or emotionally abusing their children. The result is that on the one hand, children are afraid of their parents’ reactions, while at the same time they instinctively try to bond with them. This is an impossible task for toddlers and leads to them becoming an adult who:
- Will be unpredictable in all contexts and also in close relationships
- Will be torn and feel constant inner turmoil in all situations, including relationships
A course of couples therapy with me will typically be based on Relationship Focused Therapy or IMAGO
If you both want to develop and deepen your relationship, Relationship Focused Therapy/IMAGO is the best way to practise new communication skills. The emphasis here is on integrating new knowledge as a crucial step in ongoing change and development within the couple or family. In its basic form, it’s a couples therapy method where the couple learns to listen and put themselves in each other’s shoes in an inclusive and compassionate way. Characteristics that foster the right conditions for growth include addressing the psychological baggage we all carry and examining how we interact with our partner.
This is based on the premise that frustrations are the key to more knowledge, which automatically provides access and opportunity for potential growth and personal development. Because when we realise that behind every criticism lies a frustration, and that behind every frustration lies a longing, and behind that an old longing, then we have a great opportunity to develop individually and/or as a couple.
Couples therapy and other forms of therapy
As well as Relationship Focused Therapy, couples therapy will often include a mix of other methods, such as behavioural therapy, ACT, hypnotherapy and Mindfulness and/or Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), depending on the couple’s wishes and goals. If any traumas surface during the process, it may be beneficial to transition to trauma therapy, where I incorporate the EMDR method for effective healing.
In couples therapy, I also use the 90/10 rule as a starting point.
This means that 90% of the frustration you feel is a result of past experiences you still carry with you. The remaining 10% concerns the current situation or behaviour you are experiencing with your partner that has triggered the frustration itself. In a nutshell: What you feel is yours, and therefore you own 90% of the emotions that arise inside you. The remaining 10% is what your partner has either expressed or perhaps lacked.
Past experiences are often subconsciously carried into relationships and parenting. So unfortunately, a simple rational decision is not enough to change less-than-ideal patterns of behaviour.
Instead, new skills must be developed over time—new ways of being together—with the goal of both partners striving to build a more inclusive, insightful and compassionate relationship framework. As a couple, you have a unique opportunity to develop both your relationship and your parenting, helping your child/children while developing yourselves.
When is it a good idea to choose therapy?
When a couple wants to develop a relationship, it makes sense to use couples therapy as a means of agreeing on whether to stay together or end the relationship.
With couples therapy, I can help you strengthen your relationship by:
- Exploring the underlying desires, longings and needs of each partner and developing these in line with a joint plan
- Working out ground rules that you both feel comfortable with
- Developing your conscious parenting
- Psychoeducation – the study of how to better understand the psychological reasons for why we act the way we do. We take a very natural glance back at our childhood, while grounded in the crises and frustrations we face in the here and now.
- Practise a special conversation technique from IMAGO to make it much easier to deal with your partner’s frustration without reacting. It’s about learning to stay in your own lane.
- Helping you create a safe space to express any negative emotions appropriately
- Practise how to reconnect after one of you has shown anger or fear so you can feel safe with each other again
- Eliminate all criticism as this is demotivating and triggers feelings of inadequacy
- Discover how to demonstrate accountability to each other by resolving disagreements and conflicts swiftly while maintaining a close and connected relationship
- Make space to appreciate and recognise each other
- Talk about what you can do to become more intimate if that side of the relationship has been lost
- Explore how you can be supportive and authentic with each other
- Establish a shared framework for making important family decisions
- Share dreams and ideas
- Clarify your shared values as a couple and in other important areas that overlap with your relationship or family life
- Develop and find the common goals that help you move towards your shared values
Between sessions, there will be a strong emphasis on self-study, including recommended books, topics for reflection and practical exercises to work on.
If you’re experiencing a relationship breakdown, I can help you to:
- Explore the best way for you to end your relationship so that you can focus on parenting in the future and continue working together if, for example, there are children involved.
- Together, we’ll develop a comprehensive plan and strategy that addresses the best interests of everyone involved, covering aspects such as finances, children, housing, in-laws and future relationships.
