Soul Matters... September 2009

Electronic Infidelities
By Stacy Notaras Murphy
     In my mid-20s, I felt stuck in the most irrelevant job I could imagine. Without really intending to, I found myself at a business news company, employed to write one newsletter about telecommunications and another about multimedia. After six years of trying to make phone companies and the cable industry sound interesting, I ran screaming to graduate school for counseling, which thankfully left to a new, far happier existence as a licensed therapist.
     Still, little did I know that phones, television, and the internet would prove to be central themes in my couples counseling. One premarital couple used texting language during most sessions – e.g. “LMK” (let me know), “CID” (consider it done), and “OMDB” (over my dead body) – requiring a glossary on hand just to keep up. Another couple struggled with the compulsion to read each other’s email accounts. At one point, I estimated that more than two-thirds of my couples were facing some sort of technology-related relationship issue: including Facebook affairs, web pornography addiction, Xbox compulsion, and online gambling. I might have thought I was escaping technology, but my new work made clear that for my clients, the world remained full of temptations that could send even the steadiest couplings into a relationship chaos of shame and self-doubt.
     In Imago Relationship Therapy we talk about closing the relationship “exits” that allow people to disengage from conscious partnership. Texting, email, social networking – all could be categorized as relationship exits, and so it seems simple to put a ban on those activities in an effort at securing the marriage. If we liken telecom addiction to alcoholism or drug abuse, it makes sense that environment plays a big role in supporting sobriety. Yet, removing all temptations is an impossible task, and fixating on abstinence ignores the roots of the so-called “electronic infidelity.”
     In his book “In the Shadows of the Net,” Patrick Carnes applies the 12-Step process to the problem of internet addiction, emphasizing the importance of admitting the problem and setting iron-clad boundaries. But he also explores the reasons why a two-dimensional cyber relationship may feel safer than a traditional relationship for some people, and how the non-abusing partner may be colluding in the deception in ways that engage their own childhood wounds about image and secrecy. In other words, technology may be the vehicle, but there are deeper issues driving the couple apart.
     In treatment we close relationship exits to focus two partners on rebuilding personal communication. With time and commitment, we reopen the exits in safe ways that make both people feel comfortable, while practicing methods for returning to the conversation if things start to feel out of balance again. It is important to recognize that closing the exits – cutting off the web access, canceling the cell phone plan – is not the ultimate solution, but rather a tool for reducing distractions so the couple can spend time exploring the underlying issues.
     It may be tempting for a husband just to demand that his wife simply hand over her cell phone and all will be forgiven, and she might readily comply in the hopes of a quick fix. But this only masks the deeper emotional adaptations that laid the groundwork for the partnership’s breakdown in the first place. Choosing to consider the history that led to the divide is a brave decision. Therapy can be a safe place to explore that history and create connection at the same time. I have seen it work – and both people get to keep their cell phones.

PREFERRED PROVIDERS: Cindy Cole, Home Plate Health
     Several years ago Cindy Cole read an article about how subtle changes in diet could improve her complexion. “Within a week my skin was clear – I thought, ‘This is amazing!’ But I was also furious that I didn’t know about this when I was a teenager,” she says. “I experimented with my own diet and was amazed at the impact that it had on my body and the way I felt.” This realization led Cole to the University of Maryland for a master’s degree in nutrition. Today she runs “Home Plate Health,” a nutrition consultation business that helps people change both their diets and their lives.
     “I work with folks to help them see the difference between treats and a healthy basic diet. Most people eat a lot of processed foods and don’t realize that the additives don’t really help them,” Cole explains. “Many people think that if foods have vitamins and minerals added to them, that’s the same thing as eating whole foods.” She makes the example of how grains lose their nutrients while being processed to make white bread products. “Some minerals may be added back in at the end, but they have lost a long list of vitamins, minerals, and fiber along the way. We really need to base our diets on whole foods and real foods. Processed foods can be eaten, but they should be considered treats,” she says.
     Cole’s view of nutrition counseling is not one-size fits all. Rather, she works with an individual’s personal tastes, finding foods and fitness options that appeals to them specifically. “Different people respond to different foods differently,” she notes. “For example, some people have a harder time lowering their cholesterol than just cutting out ice cream and adding oatmeal. For them it’s not so much taking out the ice cream as it is balancing the rest of the diet. I have one client on a very low-fat diet, but his cholesterol hasn’t come down. For him it’s been about adding in good fats.”
     Cole understands that such changes are challenging for people who are set in their ways, so she works to make the changes gradual and easy to maintain by traveling to meet her clients wherever they are and joining them in physical activities. She usually recommends weekly meetings of 1-2 hours at the outset. Later, monthly check-ins may be more appropriate. “It’s an evolution, I give them ideas and they may try certain things or they may not, so we talk about it again. It’s back and forth,” she says.
     Awareness is one tool to combat nutritional misinformation, and Cole advises people to learn more and talk back to the advertising. “The successful client is the one who recognizes the link between diet and health, both in preventing diseases and in having energy and feeling good.”
Contact Cindy Cole’s Home Plate Health at 202-344-0886 or email her.

REFERRAL CORNER: Sadness ≠ Depression
     Depression is a popular diagnosis in these uncertain times. Many of us who face real daily challenges may question the cognitive-behavioral concept that our distorted thinking really is what is making us unhappy. When we have the ongoing struggles such as financial pressures or physical disabilities, it’s difficult to write our worries off as just the result of distorted or irrational thought processes.
     Dr. David D. Burns, author of “Feeling Good,” makes a simple distinction between healthy sadness and depression. “Sadness is a normal emotion created by realistic perceptions that describe a negative event involving loss or disappointment in an undistorted way,” he writes. Whereas “depression is an illness that always results from thoughts that are distorted in some way.” He notes that either depression or sadness may follow a loss or failure, but that sadness comes without distortion, never includes a loss of self-esteem, and “involves a flow of feeling and therefore has a time limit.” Depression, however, persists or recurs without respite.
     Burns makes the example of losing a loved one. The reasonable thought might be that you will miss the companionship of this person, while a distorted thought may be that you will never be happy again without this person. He holds that our feelings result from the meaning we attach to what happens to us. If we are able to eradicate distorted thoughts, we are then able to deal with the loss or failure in a less painful manner.
Information culled from “Feeling Good” by Dr. David D. Burns, pp.231-257.

PC&CC STAFF NEWS & NOTES

In July, Cate Shea Riihimaki completed the requirements to become a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the District of Columbia.
This month Joanne Comstock begins teaching Clinical Case Supervision I at Loyola College. She also plans to attend the trauma and self-care workshop offered through the school’s Spirituality and Trauma program.
Beret Moyer will attend the American Association of Christian Counselors world conference in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 16-19.
Cindy Thurston Bare will take a class in "Contemporary and Historic Religious Perspectives" this fall at Marymount University.

UPCOMING GROUPS & EVENTS

Kathleen E. Scheg is kicking off another round of her popular anger management group, RTA: Releasing and Transforming Anger on Sept. 16. The 15-week series will take place in our Takoma Park office on Wednesdays from 8-9:15pm. Please contact Scheg at 202-449-3789 x710.
Rebecca Sears will join Imago Relationship Therapy founder Harville Hendrix in presenting a "Flexible Access Clinical Training" session in Imago on Oct. 30-31 at Loyola College's Columbia, Md. graduate center. Contact Loyola's Monique Daniels for more information at 410-617-7608.
The ongoing QuarterLife+10 therapy group for unmarried professionals in their mid-20s to mid-30s is open to additional members. For more information, please contact Nathan Gehlert at 202-449-3789 x716 or email him.
PC&CC staff members are available to present the Couplehood as a Spiritual Path course throughout Maryland, DC and Virginia. Upcoming CASP courses include: St. John Evangelist Church in Columbia, MD running Sept. 26-Nov.7 (Contact Norma Stevens at 410-919-8275); and Washington National Cathedral from Nov. 3-Dec. 8 (Contact Carl Siegel at 202-449-3789 x701).
Our "Getting the Love You Want" workshops for couples led by Carl Siegel and Rebecca Sears can serve as excellent premarital preparation or as a way to supercharge a couple's ongoing marriage counseling. The next workshop will be Nov. 20-22. Please call Carl for more information at 202-449-3789 x701.

RELATIONSHIP TIP: Soul Mate Closer Than You Think?
     Some people torture themselves over whether their marriage was a “mistake." They second guess themselves endlessly about whether they’ve settled for less than the relationship they were supposed to have.
     The most common cause for their doubt is the presence of conflict in their relationship. One of the first reassurances we give couples is that conflict is growth trying to happen.
     Fighting isn’t the problem. The problem is that we haven’t learned to do it well. I’m not suggesting more arguments, but a way of moving through them that produces healing, growth, passion, and spiritual development for the relationship and the two people in it. It’s called intentional dialogue and it’s at the core of Imago Relationship Therapy. Read more about it here.

-Robert Gordon