“This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts,” President Obama said. “When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free.” Same-sex marriage has been legal in England, Scotland and Wales since 2014. A significant proportion of humanity is gay—the U.K. government puts the estimate at 5-7 percent of the population—and there’s no reason to suppose this hasn’t been so since time immemorial. Yet for centuries, it was illegal. As long ago as 1290 homosexuality was mentioned in English common law as a punishable offence. It wasn’t decriminalized until 1967. The world of psychotherapy has been no more enlightened—it perhaps has even been somewhat reactionary, lagging behind society and clinging to the old social “norms" for as long as possible. Homosexuality was long seen as aberrant, a pathology, a mental illness. It was only removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as recently 1973, and even made a brief reappearance—“ego-dystonic homosexuality”—in 1980. Beliefs in “conversion therapy” persist today, though there’s a rising chorus of complaints—and lawsuits—against it. Common sense will prevail. But there’s a long way to go. It’s still illegal to be gay in 75 countries and still punishable by death in 10. In the civilized west, meanwhile, plenty of countries don’t yet allow same sex marriage—including Northern Ireland—and homophobia is hardly a thing of the past. This all has a profound effect on mental health. Studies show for instance a greater prevalence of psychiatric complaints among gay people in states where same-sex marriage was banned compared to those in states where it wasn’t. This should not be a surprise—it’s hardly a revelation that oppression is not great for psychological well-being. We all deserve “equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” as one of the 5 “yes” judges, Justice Anthony Kennedy, put it in his closing argument. We all deserve the opportunity “not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.” There are hundreds of millions of people on this earth who are attracted to the opposite sex, and hundreds of millions who are attracted to the same sex. This simple fact of life is so basic, so incontrovertable, so banal, that you wonder what all the fuss is about. Can’t we all just live and let live? —John Barton Supreme Court decision really good for health From Huffington Post: The Supreme Court of the United States made a historic ruling on same-sex marriage on Friday, voting 5 to 4 in favor of legalizing all unions. Not only does this allow everyone to marry the person they love, regardless of sexual orientation, but it's also a step forward for mental health in a community that's often stigmatized. The SCOTUS decision is a leap in the right direction -- especially when it comes to boosting the mental health of LGBT individuals. According to the American Psychological Association, marriage boosts psychosocial and mental health due to the moral, social and even economic support extended to married couples in our society -- and denial of those rights may impose certain risks when it comes to well-being. A 2012 University of California, Los Angeles study found that psychological distress is lower among gay, lesbian and bisexual couples who are allowed to be legally married, compared with those in unions that are not legally recognized. In other words, science suggests that letting people marry who they want boosts mental and maybe even physical health. The UCLA study isn't the only evidence that champions legalized same-sex marriage for this reason. Around 2004, when state bans on same-sex marriage started to peak, the National Institutes of Mental Health conducted a survey that examined respondents' mental health. Results showed gay, lesbian or bisexual individuals who lived in states where their unions were banned experienced a notable increase in psychiatric disorders, NPR reported, including mood disorders and alcohol-use disorder. U.K. NEWS Black and minority ethnic people are shortchanged by mental health services From The Guardian: Ramone is in his mid-20s and with his family emigrated to the UK around 10 years ago from eastern Europe. He developed a severe mental illness that requires long-term care, but is not eligible for treatment. This means that when he becomes extremely ill, he is sectioned (usually by the police) and admitted to a mental health unit where he is medicated to a point where he can be released, with no care afterwards. This pattern has repeated itself for six years. People from some black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are more likely to use crisis mental health care. Racism, poor mental health services and stigma are often cited as the reasons for this inequality. However, once in crisis care, many people like Ramone find the care they are offered does not work for them. His was one of dozens of stories we collected at the Race Equality Foundation to show the experiences of BME people, and was used as evidence by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in their review of mental health crisis care. What we found mirrored much of the CQC’s findings. People had generally had bad experiences in a crisis system that left them feeling disempowered. They often didn’t believe staff would be caring and compassionate. When asked whether they had complained, they normally responded that they felt nothing would change as a result. Male matters: 'Psychologists should lead the way on male mental health' From Telegraph.co.uk: A group of Britain's most senior psychologists are so concerned about the unique – and increasingly fatal – problems facing modern men, they are urgently calling for a dedicated Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. Although there has been a women's section of the BPS since 1988, there is no male equivalent, even though “vast public health issues” face men, including the fact they are three to four times more likely to commit suicide. Today, eminent psychologists and keynote speakers will gather at the second annual Male Psychology Conference at University College London to address this pressing matter. To meet criteria, a mere one per cent of BPS members – around 500 signatures – must vote for it. As 300 have already done so, that means a mere 200 further signatures are needed to make their dream a reality. Mental health problems rise among teenagers From The Times: Teenagers are suffering growing problems with mental health, reporting difficulties with sleep, anxiety and eating disorders, according to two studies. One study found that more than a third of older teenagers had suffered sleeplessness in recent months as they wrestled with anxious thoughts and stress. A second found that eating disorder admissions in under-19s had almost tripled in ten years. U.S.A. NEWS Could brain scans help guide treatment for OCD? From HealthDay: Psychotherapy can help some people avoid the disruptive behaviors linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and a new study suggests that brain scans can help spot those patients for whom the therapy will be most effective. The treatment is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It works by placing patients in controlled situations where they are exposed to anxiety-causing stimuli, so that they gradually learn to deal better with these situations. "Cognitive behavioral therapy is in many cases very effective, at least in the short term," said Dr. Jamie Feusner, an associate professor of psychiatry at University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Semel Institute's Adult OCD Program. However, the treatment is "costly, time-consuming, difficult for patients and, in many areas, not available," Feusner noted in a UCLA news release. So, "if someone will end up having their symptoms return [after treatment], it would be useful to know before they get treatment," he reasoned. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE “A victory for love” Schopenhauer said all truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. One such supposedly controversial truth is the idea that regardless of gender, two consenting adults should be allowed to marry each other. This hardly earth-shattering concept took a massive step towards becoming self-evident when America’s Supreme Court declared on Friday that same-sex marriages are now legal in all 50 states, with 5 of the 9 court judges ruling that any attempt to ban them is now unconstitutional. The narrow majority was hailed as a “victory for love.” Horses that heal: how equine therapy is helping people find peace of mind From The Guardian: It’s Saturday night in downtown Long Beach, California, and laughter can be heard from the streets below. Sarah Smith is sprawled on her bed, diligently peeling through sociology notes, preparing for her impending exams. An acoustic guitar rests against her bed, and a colorful gay-pride flag is pinned next to her bookshelf. At first glance, Sarah comes across as a typical college student – but her serious blue eyes sometimes betray a history of violence, abandonment and emotional trauma. ...Horses make great companions for psychotherapy because they can mirror and respond to human behavior. Being herding animals, they rely on an acute stream of sensory data to sense safety or danger; they can also hear the human heartbeat within four feet, and research on heart-rate variability indicates that horses have a profound ability to synchronize their own heartbeat with that of human beings. When people are introduced to the herd environment for therapy, horses respond within the same spectrum of physical and emotional responses that govern their own behavior, allowing therapists an insight into the inner psychology of the client. Clouds hung dramatically low above the stables of Ortega Equestrian Centre in San Juan Capistrano and in the main arena, a herd of three mares donated by the nonprofit Otra Mas were awaiting Sarah’s arrival. The program director, Carol Caddes, is a horse lover and licensed marriage and family therapist with over 20 years of experience. Sarah, for her part, had very little experience with horses and had never undergone any form of emotional treatment outside of medication and traditional office-based talk-therapy. WORLD NEWS South Africa: Counselling on wheels in Khayelitsha From AllAfrica.com: "It will be like an emotional ambulance." This is the vision of 28-year-old Banetsi Mphunga: a mobile psychology clinic in Khayelitsha which will see kids in the township receive free help dealing with psychological trauma. "I grew up in Khayelitsha. I am a registered counsellor by profession. The idea of the mobile clinic started after realising the need for psychological services here in the township. I realised this from the kids that I worked with in a previous programme; it was an after school care programme. I was a programme manager for psycho-social skills, high school level, which is the group that is most vulnerable when it comes to substance abuse and gangsterism." Mphunga said while working with children he found that some had problems that needed psychological interventions. "They always manifested in front of other children and I had to constantly intervene.” ...Mphunga said he was familiar with the kinds of problems that today's youth face especially when it comes to substance abuse. "I also experimented with drugs while growing up, I started smoking weed and then from there I did mandrax, but luckily I managed to stop before I became an addict and before my family found out. But these days, kids are not that lucky." Mphunga bought a green Volkswagen Microbus popularly known as iCaraCara, in May. He has already used it for a study group consisting of four kids. "A Combi is more or less the same size of the rooms that I have viewed that I would be using and running the practise from.” Yoga can cure India's rising mental health issues From NDTV: Leading mental health experts have advocated Yoga as an efficacious tool for managing rising mental health issues in India, a statement said ahead of the International Yoga Day. Crediting Yoga as an effective tool in holistic maintenance of health, Sunil Mittal, a senior psychiatrist at Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioral Science (CIMBS), New Delhi, said Yoga is beneficial as an "adjunct to mainline treatment". "Yoga can be an effective preventive tool in fighting stress and other mental health concerns, and while Yoga may not be an alternate to medical intervention, it can be beneficial as an adjunct to mainline treatment," he said. Sharing the experience of his team at CIMBS, Mittal added: "Yoga and medical intervention can compliment each other well." "By combining the two, we have seen positive outcomes in the over-all well-being of our patients," he said. VIEWPOINT Do I need therapy? How do I find a good therapist? From Judith S. Beck PhD in the Huffington Post: You may not need therapy if you are weathering the trials and tribulations life throws at you pretty well. If you are basically emotionally healthy, have good problem-solving skills and call on a support network when you need help, you are probably already dealing with your challenges effectively. You certainly should consider therapy if you have psychological problems, psychiatric symptoms, a medical condition with psychological components, difficulty implementing a health care plan, disturbances in your relationships or your functioning or other pressing difficulties you can't resolve on your own or within your social network. You may find therapy desirable, however, to improve your life: to identify your core values, set goals, reduce stress, function more effectively, get unstuck, gain a different perspective, solve or cope better with a problem, accept an unmodifiable situation, make an important decision, improve your mood or get you started in making lifestyle or relationship changes -- that is, if you (even with the help of family and friends) don't seem to be able to bring about or sustain the changes you want to make. Or if you're uncertain about what changes you should make. Schwarzenegger: marriage counselling the ‘biggest mistake I’ve ever made’ From www.thestar.com: Schwarzenegger, 67, opened up to Howard Stern about the collapse of his marriage — and the counselling that didn’t help. “This was without any doubt the biggest setback and the biggest failure,” the former governor said of his split with Maria Shriver. “. . . You really feel like: ‘I’m to blame for it. It was me that screwed up.’ You can’t point the finger at anyone else.” Stern said that when he was divorced in 2001 — from a wife he paid tribute to in the 1997 film “Howard Stern: Private Parts” — he saw a psychiatrist. “Did you seek out therapy?” he asked Schwarzenegger. “Yes,” Schwarzenegger said. “. . . It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made because that guy was so full of s---.” Schwarzenegger said Shriver talked him into counselling, but he was met with “nonsense talk” that was “counterproductive to our future relationship.” “Maria talked me into it,” Schwarzenegger said. “I went and I felt instinctively maybe I shouldn’t go because I know I screwed up. I don’t have to go to anyone to have him explain to me anything. I apologized to Maria. I apologized to the kids and then tried to move forward.” Schwarzenegger made it clear that this was not a Tom Cruise-like rant against psychiatry. “I think people should get help when they need help,” he said. “. . . I’m not against that, but in my particular case it was not helpful.” Schwarzenegger said his family is now in a much better place, recounting a story in which he was met with balloons and gifts from his four children by Shriver and Shriver herself at a premiere of the new “Terminator” film. “That is the relationship I was really looking forward to after this complicated bump,” he said. Stern said he was moved “almost to tears” by Schwarzenegger’s success in repairing his relationship with his family. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. This famous dictum, variously attributed to Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello and Thelonius Monk, to name a few, could also be applied to museum exhibits about sex: They are destined to dissatisfy, to miss the point, to prove hopelessly inadequate compared to the experience of the thing itself. Nevertheless, undeterred, notebook in hand, world of therapy went to investigate the Wellcome Collection’s Institute of Sexology exhibition, where you are invited to “undress your mind.” There’s an area devoted to Sigmund Freud, as you might expect. The father of psychoanalysis did more than anyone to bring sex out into the open as, in his view, not bringing it out into the open was a problem—the major cause of neurosis. You can read some of his philosophies, listen to a marvellous self-righteous recording of him from a 1938 BBC interview—it sounds like a Monty Python parody—and see a small sample from his vast collection of cultural artifacts. His favourite was a small bronze of Athena from the 1st or 2nd century which has lost her spear—a perfect symbol for Freud of penis envy. Freud was also fond of double-faced figures. There’s a 3rd century BC Etruscan bronze with one face of a Satyr and another of a Maenad, which for Freud illustrated the binary nature of human existence. We are governed by antagonistic forces, polarities that pull us in opposite directions. We are made from a male and a female, and both parts live within us (according to Freud humans are inherently bisexual). We love and hate; live and die (Freud spoke of Eros and Thanatos—our libido duels with our “death drive”). We want intimacy, we want to be alone—come here, go away (another exhibit from Freud’s collection, another metaphor, is a porcupine—Freud noted that they huddle with others for warmth but then they poke each other, get hurt and separate). Maybe you have your own particular polarities, too—perhaps you are a rebellious conformist, or a privileged outsider (or deprived insider). A self-sacrificing narcissist (or a greedy do-gooder). Highly emotional yet numb. A cheerful depressive. A creative accountant. Spiritual atheist. Champagne socialist. Fully alive, but deeply diseased. And so on. Life is an oxymoron; a double bind. And so it is with sex, too. Personally, culturally, historically, there are powerful opposing forces of liberation and repression at play. Stop! No, don’t stop! Both are on display at the museum. One the one hand there are early copies of the Kama Sutra (written between the year 200 and 400), ancient phallic amulets, saucy postcards and other erotica. On the other there are old papers detailing the moral dangers of sex, female desire resulting in “hysteria” for instance, or masturbation causing a range of disorders from nervousness to paralysis. In Berlin on May 6, 1933, three months after Hitler came to power, the forces of oppression broke into the library of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld—an outspoken advocate for the study of sex and justice for sexual minorities—seized his vast collection of books, documents, photographs and artifacts, and threw it all on a bonfire. Hirschfeld was Jewish. He was out of the country on a speaking tour at the time; he never returned to Germany. Besides Freud, the exhibition details the lives of some other notable names: • Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s influential Psychopathia Sexualis, published in 1886, was the first book to describe in forensic, scientific detail the variety of human sexual practices. It popularised words like sadism and masochism and became the definitive psychiatric and legal guide to sexual pathology. Despite his professional interest, von Krafft-Ebing believed sex was strictly for procreation, not recreation. • Havelock Ellis wrote the first textbook on homosexuality, Sexual Inversion, in 1897 and went on to study narcissism, autoeroticism and transgender phenomena. Ellis married a lesbian, and suffered from impotence until the age of 60, when he made the surprise discovery that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. • Marie Stopes’ incendiary book Married Love, turned down by several publishers, was an instant hit when it was finally published in 1918. She dared to speak the unspeakable, dispensing advice of relationships, sex, marriage, children and birth control. The Wellcome exhibition includes some touching letters of gratitude to her from people who had no one else to turn to for guidance. Today, Marie Stopes International is an NGO devoted to sexual and reproductive health around the world. (These pioneers weren’t unanimously enlightened. Stopes, like Ellis and many prominent Victorians of the day, believed in the oppressive and usually racist philosophies of eugenics and social Darwinism: the elite decides it wants to improve the human gene pool by encouraging breeding by the “right” people—people like them—and discouraging the “wrong” people, sometimes with extreme measures such as compulsory sterilization or “ethnic cleansing.”) • From 1915 to 1918 anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski studied and lived alongside the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea’s Trobriand Islands, detailing a society where sexuality "dominates in fact almost every aspect of culture," and where some sexual behaviour among children was the norm. • In a similar vein, Margaret Mead’s study of the people of Samoa in 1925 also highlighted a relaxed, permissive culture of sexuality that challenged the more constrained attitudes in the West. • Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychoanalyst who like Freud believed that neurosis could be a symptom of thwarted or denied sexual desires. Unlike Freud, however, for Reich, sex and psychoanalysis were also political: He believed the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany to be the result of a national culture of sexual repression. Reich, author of The Function of the Orgasm, among other works, invented the “Orgone Accumulator”—a cabinet that patients sat in and got blasted by “orgone” radiation that he claimed could cure cancer, liberate repressed sexual energy, and heal the world. The “sex box” became increasingly controversial, Reich became increasingly delusional, and he was charged with contempt of court in his adopted home country, the U.S. He died in prison in 1957. • Alfred Kinsey discovered there was more scientific literature on the sex lives of farm animals than people. In the mid-20th century decades, McKinsey and his team set about filling in the blanks: They interviewed more than 18,000 Americans about their sex lives, highlighting the prevalence of homosexuality, extramarital sex and other sexual activity which departed from the supposed “norm.” • William Masters and Virginia Johnson recorded physiological changes during sex—their results, published in 1966, revealed the intricacies of the “female sexual response cycle” and bolstered the feminist movement and calls for women’s sexual liberation. Fifty shades of sex The Wellcome exhibition leads us on a historical journey of sexual culture. Where has it led to—where are we today? Is society generally more permissive about sex? Or are the forces of repression and discrimination still at play? Yes, and yes. Evidence abounds that from the 1960s onwards there has been a kind of sexual awakening in western life and culture. But all the action has inevitably been met with an equal and opposite reaction. Psychotherapist Tanya Glyde writes in The Lancet that today there is much more acceptance of alternative, kinky, BDSM practices, and a hunger for them, as evidenced by the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon—the book has been bought by more than a hundred million people (evidence too of a masochistic tolerance for painfully poor writing). “Is BDSM an orientation, a lifestyle, or both?” writes Glyde. “Some people are wired to be dominant or submissive from birth. Some discover a love of it when young, and some get into it later in life. This could be because they discover that it enhances their sex life, or because conventional genital sex doesn’t work for them, and they are looking for other ways to deepen physical and mental connection. People tell me they have experienced a personal renaissance when exploring BDSM ... Many report profound, life changing, therapeutic, and even spiritual experiences.” But Glyde argues that, while kink is far more widespread than we think, it happens in secret because of prejudice, not least from a prudish mental health establishment. The free-spirited “id” goes underground (sometimes literally); the restrictive “super-ego” is given free reign. The cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin describes the “charmed circle” of sexuality: if the sex is heterosexual, married, monogamous, procreative, non-commercial, in a couple from the same generation, in private, and involving bodies only, then it is considered “normal.” The “outer limits,” by contrast—bad, unnatural, damned, perverse, socially unacceptable—is sex that is homosexual, promiscuous, recreational, commercial, alone or in groups, casual, cross-generational, in public, sadomasochistic, or involving pornography or sex toys. Continues Glyde: “This is not taught on psychotherapy courses (at least none that I know of) because awareness of gender and sexual diversities is barely taught at all. And in some branches of psychotherapy, the further a person departs from being heterosexual, monogamous, vanilla (non-kinky), and cisgender, the more disordered and perverse they are labelled by default.” I once went to a talk entitled, “Help! My client wants to talk about sex.” The speaker said that people in therapy will often desperately want to talk about their sexual difficulties—a taboo subject with everyone else in their lives. So, battling shame, they gingerly try to raise the topic, often very subtly, in coded language, testing the waters. An experienced therapist will respond and open up a space for exploration, but many do not because they are uncomfortable with the material. Or if they do engage, they might subtly or not-so-subtly try to steer the client back toward some kind of societal norm instead of being interested in them, their experience and their difficulties. There are many sexual difficulties. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) includes complaints such as: delayed ejaculation, erectile disorder, female orgasmic disorder, female sexual interest/arousal disorder, genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder, male hypoactive sexual desire disorder, premature ejaculation, and unspecified sexual dysfunction. Sex addiction, like any addiction, can devastate lives. If any of these sound like you, don't suffer in silence—specialist help is available. But beyond these pathologised realities, so many sexual problems—and so much of human distress—are the result of trying and inevitably failing to live up to some supposed ideal, to be who we think we should be instead of who we are, to conform to other people’s standards or desires. These “shoulds” are so often in conflict with our innate personhood, and with each other, and can be profoundly unhelpful. Being a slave to such strict internalised demands is bondage of a most unenjoyable kind—a guarantee of suffering. In and out of the bedroom, our challenge is to find ourselves. Instead of conforming to some imagined uniform, plain-vanilla conception of normality, we are free to embark on a postmodern exploration of individual preferences and practices in all their glorious multicoloured variety (and we are free not to, too, of course). There are infinite enjoyable ways of expressing libidinal energy; straight sex is but one. The new rules of sex So how are we to proceed in this confusing modern world? If none of the old rules of engagement apply, and "anything goes," how are we to live and love? In Rewriting the Rules, Meg Barker summarizes the tired old prevailing western “rules” about sex: • Sex is very important, and a defining feature of our relationships and identities. • We should have normal sex in our relationships. • We must not stray into abnormal sex. • It should be great sex. • We mustn’t communicate openly about what we really want sexually. Then Barker rather splendidly rewrites the rules. She too invites us to undress our mind: • Sex can be wonderful but it doesn’t need to define us or our relationships. It is something that ebbs and flows throughout our lives. • There is a wide diversity of ways of expressing sex and sexuality. • It is fine to be sexual in whatever ways feel right to you, so long as it is consensual for all involved. • Sex can be all kinds of things at different times, just like food. Expecting it to be great every single time is a lot of pressure to put on it. • We must communicate openly about what we do and don’t want sexually (with ourselves and with the people with whom we are sexual). It's up to each of us to make and break our own rules. The answers lie within ourselves, our experiences, our relationships. And there is guidance, too—from partners, therapists, workshops, books, and from people like Barker who, from Marie Stopes to the present day, have given us permission to be ourselves. They are on the side of freedom, expression, discovery and release. Our most pressing question is: “Am I normal?" They respond unanimously, with a resounding verdict: “Yes! yes! yes!" It’s Valentine’s Day. The day when there is some kind of Big Brother (or Big Sister) command from on high that today you must be romantic, offer cards and pink fluffy things to the person of your dreams, make grand gestures intended to demonstrate the extent of your commitment, and perhaps go out for an evening meal in a red rose-strewn restaurant offering a “special” (ie. monumentally overpriced) menu. For many couples, Valentine’s Day is a day of judgment—a day spent feeling bad that their relationship does not measure up to how love “should” be (Christmas can have a similar effect). One study found that relationship breakups were significantly higher around Valentine’s Day than at other times of the year. Some couples resent the obligation, the command to conform, and all the crass mass marketing of love that goes with it, and deliberately do nothing at all to observe the day. For people in the early, fledgling days of a new relationship, Valentine’s Day can unhelpfully raise the stakes. For people who are suffering from loneliness, it can make you feel 10 times worse. Crisis hotlines will see a spike in calls today. Valentine’s Day can be great of course, a start, or a celebration, a renewal. But love, romance and sexual arousal don’t tend to respond to command. Perhaps overall, on the balance sheet of human joy versus human misery, Valentine’s Day is a net contributor to the latter rather than the former. Neverthless, with love I offer here a humble buffet table with some Valentine’s Day morsels and delicacies about love, sex, relationships etc. Some headlines • Dealing with love, romance and rejection on Valentine's Day • The psychology of why Valentine's Day ruins relationships • 7 science-based tips to make you sexier on Valentine’s Day • A Valentine's Day look at sex through the ages • Happy couples are probably deluding themselves • What straight couples can learn from gay couples And good advice from The Guardian’s Oliver Burkman: All dating advice is as terrible as the people who give it. Your relationship demystified The key to happiness is love and understanding. The more you know someone, the more you can love them; the more you love them, the more you know. Attachment style—mine and yours—is the scaffold upon which a relationship is built. To understand the dynamics of your relationship—past, present or future—check out the 6 relationship types. What colour is yours? (This is far and away the most popular, most viewed thing I've written on this blog.) Marriage guidance The latest news Shocking to hear that Black Eyed Pea Fergie and Josh Duhamel are in marriage counseling after six years together—if those two beacons of togetherness are struggling, what hope is there for the rest of us ... the Ministry of Social Affairs in Saudi Arabia is implementing a mandatory pre-marital couples counselling program ... a similar mandatory scheme has recently been proposed in Colorado ... a voluntary government-funded marriage counselling program in Australia was recently dumped after attracting just 10 per cent of the expected participants ... pre-marital counselling in Jamaica ... domestic violence can sometimes be perpetrated by women against men as this report from Ireland points out. From Relate • 42% of UK marriages end in divorce • Almost half of divorces involve children under 16 • In 2011, 66% of divorces were on petition of the wife • Of every divorce in 2011 - it was the first divorce for both partners in 70.1% of cases, while in 19.7% one party had been divorced previously, and in 9.6% of cases both had divorced previously • Second marriages are more likely to be successful than first marriages. If one or both partners are remarrying they have a 31% chance of divorce, compared to 45% if it is both partners’ first time • 34% of marriages are expected to end in divorce by the 20th wedding anniversary • 16% of marriages reach the 60th wedding anniversary without separation or death • Those who marry younger are more likely to divorce. Having children or staying childless has no clear effect on risk of divorce • While divorce rates are falling—people are getting married at older ages and are increasingly cohabiting beforehand—the number of divorces among the 60+ has significantly increased from 1991 to 2011 • Reasons proven for legal divorce: --36% of divorces granted to men and 54% of divorces granted to women were due to unreasonable behaviour --32% of divorces granted to men and 22% of divorces granted to women were granted following 2 years of separation and consent --16% of divorces granted to men and 9% of divorces granted to women were granted following 5 years of separation --15% of divorces were granted for adultery, same across genders --Less than 1% of all divorces were granted due to desertion • In 2010-11, one third of all children aged 16 and under were not living with both of their birth parents • Almost 25% of families in the UK are lone parent families --44% of resident parents said their child either splits their time equally, or sees their other parent at least weekly --29% of resident parents said that their child never sees their other parent --20% of all resident parents said that their child has not seen their other parent since separation • There are 7.7 million families with dependent children: --4.7 million (60%) are married couple families --1.2 million (15%) are unmarried opposite sex couple families --1.9 million (24.5%) are lone parent families (8.8% of lone-parent families are lone-father families, the remainder are lone mother families) --8,000 (0.001%) are civil partnered couple families --5,000 (0.001%) are same-sex cohabiting couple families • The first UK civil partnership was on the 5th December 2005: approximately 120,908 individuals entered civil partnerships between 2005 and 2012 • The number of civil partnership dissolutions granted in 2012 was 794, an increase of 20% on the 2011 numbers. By the end of 2012, 3.2% of male and 6.1% of female civil partnerships in England and Wales had ended in dissolution Relate also offers 6 secrets of how Relationship Counselling works, and from the Huffington Post: Everything You Need To Know About Premarital Counseling. The top-10 nations for divorce It’s nice for Belgium to have something to be famous for: It’s the country with the highest divorce rate in the world. According to The Richest: “A first glance, Belgium appears an example of European modernity: a nation with a rich history and splendid architecture which is the centre of power for the European Union and Parliament. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll realise that all is not well in the nation so famous for its chocolate. Politically, Belgium is fiercely divided between the French speaking south, which includes the capital Brussels, and the Flemish speaking north, close to Holland. The nation is so divided that successive elections have resulted in collapsed governments with Belgium going a record 535 days without a government as a result. Against this backdrop divorce levels have been climbing, with the decline of the Church cited as a key factor in these figures.” Ratio of divorce rate to marriage rate 1 Belgium 71 2 Portugal 68 3 Hungary 67 4 Czech Republic 66 5 Spain 61 6 Luxembourg 60 7 Estonia 58 8 Cuba 56 9 France 55 10 United States 53 Three poems
Love poem I live in you, you live in me; We are two gardens haunted by each other. Sometimes I cannot find you there, There is only the swing creaking, that you have just left, Or your favourite book beside the sundial. —Douglas Dunn To a stranger Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, I ate with you, and slept with you- your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass- you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return, I am not to speak to you- I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone, I am to wait- I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you. —Walt Whitman On Raglan Road On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue; I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way, And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day. On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge, The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay - O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away. I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say. With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay - When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day. —Patrick Kavanagh (sung here by Sinead O’Connor and here by Van Morrison and here by Mark Knopfler) My Funny Valentine Chet Baker sings it in 1959, 29 years old, already a hardened heroin addict, but with the sweet voice of an angel. You can see the ravages of time and hard drugs when he plays it again 28 years later in concert in Tokyo. A year after that he fell to his death from a hotel room in Amsterdam. Obligatory quote from Gandhi “Where there is love there is life" After the formalities, the details, the terms and conditions of therapy, the first thing a therapist might say to a new client is: “So, what brings you here?” There are three different kinds of client, according to Steve De Sheza: • Visitors are highly ambivalent about the whole exercise—very often they are there grudgingly, at the behest of a partner, boss, educational establishment, medical professional or court of law. • Complainers love to catalogue all their problems, how much they suffer and are mistreated by others, but they refuse to see any role that they might play in either the cause or the cure. They are greatly attached to their troubles and have no intention of actually doing anything to relinquish them (they will defend them, wrote Freud, like a lioness defends her young). • Customers—the best clients—are present, open, engaged and highly motivated. They want things to change. They’ve had it with the status quo, with feeling bad all the time, with aspects of their life that have become worn out or problematic. They’re tired of being stuck. They have faith that better days lie ahead. “Customers” have a sense of some kind of direction or goal for their therapy. A partial list: --to feel less anxious, depressed, afraid, panicked, unsafe or stuck; --to improve relationships; --to express and manage emotions in a better way; --to change specific unhelpful repetitive behaviours, habits or patterns; --to come to terms with some kind of loss; --to process difficult events or trauma of the past; --to explore and “find” oneself; --to be supported in coping with a great, transformative challenge such as leaving home, bereavement, redundancy, divorce, illness and disease; --to make sense of the story so far; --to live life more fully; --to find some meaning, purpose or spirituality; --to prepare for death. Can therapy meet these goals? Sometimes, to some extent, for some people. But change is not always so easily steered. Unhindered, it happens naturally: we’re born, we grow, we blossom into a gorgeous ripening. We can't help but grow—it's what we do. We are fluid, like a river, as Heraclitus argued two and a half thousand years ago. Nothing will ever again be quite the same as it is right now. But sometimes our growth can be stunted, stuck or skewed. We don’t get the optimum psychological light, water, nutrients and nurturing that we need. Life’s troubles, stormy weather and other obstacles get placed in our way. We get shackled; as Rousseau wrote we are “everywhere in chains.” What prospects for growth, for change, in these circumstances? Carl Jung wrote: “We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate; it oppresses.” This paradoxical theory of change, echoed by Carl Rogers, Arnold Beisser and others, says: We can only become more like the person we want to be by first fully cherishing the person we are. I believe this acceptance arises from two factors: self-knowledge, and, for want of a better word, love. We are troubled by our symptoms, defences, age-old problematic patterns, unconscious desires or other less pleasing, disowned or denied parts of ourselves. But when we have a thorough grasp of these things and where they came from, coupled with an acceptance of them by both Self and Other, they cease to bind us so tightly and in some cases simply melt away. We come to realize that we do not need our crutches any longer, that the world will embrace us without them, that it is safe to lay them down. By contrast, when we don’t understand them, don’t have compassion for them, cannot accept them, we are subjecting ourselves to oppressive condemnation. We try to command our stifling troubles away but discover that they only cling to us ever tighter. We have limited success with our diets, our New Year’s resolutions. Our CBT assignments may offer respite from our symptoms, but the relief seems superficial and short-lived. We quickly develop negative thoughts about our doomed attempts to “think positive.” For lasting change to occur, both ingredients are necessary: an integration of knowledge and love, head and heart, the intrapsychic and the interpersonal, “Logos” and “Eros,” yin and yang. • Knowledge can emerge through reflection and self-help, but is more effectively gleaned in therapy, via collaborative exploration, enquiry, interpretation and analysis. Our unconscious processes, evident in the “transference”—our habitual emotional responses that get activated in the consulting room—are made conscious. The experience of therapy can deepen emotional and physical knowledge, as well as the purely cognitive kind. We come to understand and make meaning out of how we have learned to be in the world—we did what we had to do to survive our childhoods or later challenges. We shine some light on the shadows. We gain insight, and some control. We become more integrated. The river flows freely again. • Love is clearly a highly-charged word. It's a hopelessly simplistic shorthand for a kind of human energy that comes in many flavors. In this context I mean it as a quality of the therapeutic bond between client and therapist, nurtured by Rogers’ “core conditions” of empathy, congruence and “unconditional positive regard,” and greenhoused in a non-judgmental, safe, boundaried space. According to Jackie Gerrard: “Unless and until there can be felt moments of love for the patient by the therapist, the patient is not able to develop fully.” But love is not just some positive affirmation that the therapist directs towards the client; what is beneficial is to be able to love as well as feel love; to experience a certain sort of intimacy, to explore vulnerability in the presence of another, a sense of what Karen Maroda goes so far as to call “mutual seduction” and “emotional surrender.” This kind of love is what keeps you both in the room when things get bumpy. It allows the client to trust that it’s OK to reveal the more unpalatable, unspeakable parts of their experience. Love allows you to admit to hate, for instance, and work with it, which can be highly therapeutic. In a letter to Jung, Freud wrote: “Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love." The love gets internalised; self-rebuke and condemnation are replaced by self-compassion and acceptance. The dodo bird Outcome research shows that there is little difference in effectiveness of one kind of therapy over another—the so-called “dodo bird verdict.” However, research also shows huge variation between individual therapists within the same orientation. So what makes the best therapists so special? Different authors and researchers have emphasized the importance of different common factors. Miller et al argue, for example, that “supershrinks”—the best of the best therapists—demonstrate “deliberate practice”: they think, act and reflect with the client’s goals and tasks always in mind. For O’Brien and Houston, therapists “need to have the ability to engage the client in a co-operative participation with regard to the goals and tasks of therapy, to provide an opportunity for the client to express emotion and to create a healing therapeutic bond.” Perhaps it is simply the capacity for client and therapist to form a relationship which transports them to a place of knowledge and some kind of love that is most helpful in facilitating change. All a therapist has to offer is their subjectivity—the flawed, imperfect sum total of their personality, training, years of therapy, life experience and history. There are, of course, some things that can’t be changed. I don’t believe the idea that you can have anything if you just want it enough and work hard enough to achieve it—this is often a piece of self-aggrandisement offered by privileged people who have been the lucky recipients of a fortunate environment. I don’t believe in “conversion therapy”—I want to live in a world where people are free from oppression, the subtle kind and the not-so-subtle kind, for their natural, human, unimpeachable sexual orientation. I don’t believe people have much opportunity to bring about change in the levels of inequality, social immobility, and government and corporate power that weigh on them—the so-called “complainers,” it turns out, have much to complain about. Life is more of a Greek tragedy, less of a Richard Curtis movie. Circumstances conspire against us; we don't get anywhere near to reaching our potential. I agree with David Smail that psychotherapy’s tendency to suggest all a client’s problems exist within the client—to “blame the victim”—is disrespectful, unethical and oppressive. Smail takes the argument to an extreme, as if we have no personal agency at all. “There is no such thing as an autonomous individual,” he writes. But even from that vantage point, he sees a modest role for therapy—to provide clarity, encouragement and solidarity. Ultimately, change is not an event but an ongoing process. Therapy is perhaps less about achieving a specific, tightly-defined goal, and more part of an ongoing attempt to foster greater self-knowledge, and an enhanced capacity for love. Armed with these, the client (not to mention the therapist) is in a good position to heed the call of the “serenity prayer”: We walk out of the consulting room and back into real life with heightened reserves of courage to tackle what can be tackled, of serenity to accept what can’t be tackled, and of wisdom to know the difference between the two. What colour is your relationship? When we walk down the metaphoric aisle towards coupledom, we’re both dragging behind us a sackful of experiences, memories, ideas, habits, fantasies and other oddments collected over the years. An important part of all that baggage is our attachment style, our habitual way of relating to other people—a tendency we might crudely characterize as either hot, warm or cold. It's how we learned as children to be in the world. We adapted to our environment. Our early attachment experiences as babies and infants inform all our relationships in later life. They are the backdrop to every romantic entanglement and disentanglement, to every Machiavellian workplace manoeuvre, to how we operate as parents. They can be felt in the raw anguish of John Lennon’s voice as he sings “Mother.” It is through early attachment that we become who we are. Attachment, too, provides an X-ray vision into our relationship patterns, which as a result can be broadly broken down into 6 different types. But first, a little background. Attachment: How we relate—then and now The idea that children seek strong, nurturing early relationships with caregivers for optimal social and emotional development, was formulated by John Bowlby in the 1950s, following a World War in which so many attachments were violated. His ideas were strenuously resisted by the psychoanalysts and drive theorists of the day, but gradually his position became accepted as more child studies revealed the impacts of early maltreatment. Paraphrasing Schopenhauer, attachment theory, like all truth, first was ridiculed, then violently opposed, then accepted as self-evident. Largely thanks to Bowlby, many of the old parenting norms, such as limiting newborns’ exposure to their parents in maternity wards, rationing the attention parents paid to babies, and even subjecting them to prolonged periods of isolation outdoors, fell out of vogue in the 1950s and ’60s. These anachronistic attitudes live on in spirit still, however, with notions of “controlled crying” and bestselling parenting guides that reject “baby-led” approaches in favour of the imposition of strict and sometimes cruel one-size-fits-all routines peddled by the likes of Gina Ford. In the 1960s and ’70s, one of Bowlby’s former researchers, Mary Ainsworth, devised and developed a study in which infants were subjected to brief, controlled separations from their mothers. It became known as The Strange Situation. Ainsworth discovered that the children’s behaviour fell into specific patterns of responding, which were dictated by the habitual patterns of communications between mother and child. This gave rise to a classification system of attachment styles or “schemas”: • “Secure”: The infant misses the mother on separation, shows signs of distress, is comforted on return, then quickly resumes play. Ainsworth said that securely attached children are beneficiaries of “maternal sensitivity”—the mother’s ability to notice the infant’s signals, interpret them correctly, and respond appropriately and quickly—a skill known as attunement. Two-thirds of infants are estimated as being “secure.” Or, at least, secure enough. • “Insecure-avoidant”: The child shows few overt signs of missing the parent on separation, offers little protest, then ignores and avoids her on return and continues to play throughout—an apparent unemotional indifference. However, physiological studies show there is a significant nervous/stress response. The child has typically experienced consistent maternal unresponsiveness, insensitivity or rejection—postnatal depression can have such consequences—and in response deliberately detaches. • “Insecure-ambivalent/preoccupied”: The infant is greatly distressed on separation and highly focussed on the parent, and cannot be soothed on return, alternating between clinging and displays of anger, and generally failing to return to play. This is associated with inconsistent responsiveness or availability from the mother, sometimes including moments of intrusiveness—when mothering becomes smothering. This parental Jekyll & Hyde inconsistency, an example of “intermittent reinforcement,” leads to a maximised focus on the attachment system—the baby becomes an expert in interpreting and predicting the mother’s mood. Donald Winnicott memorably described this as “studying the weather.” (A fourth category, “insecure-disorganized/disoriented,” added in 1990, is reserved for those rare, tragic children whose odd, erratic and inappropriate behaviour shows no consistency. They have generally been victims of frightening or disorienting patterns of communication from the parent; fear and love get mixed up. Such children are at the greatest risk of developing psychiatric problems.) Many studies have shown the persistence of attachment styles across generations. Secure children generally have secure mothers; insecure-avoidant children have “dismissing,” unresponsive mothers; insecure-ambivalent children have “preoccupied,” inconsistently responsive mothers. (Insecure-disorganized/disoriented children have “unresolved,” terrifying mothers.) These categories are of course gross simplifications. I like to think of attachment as a spectrum; a bell curve. The dial on the attachment meter is marked “cold” at one end and “hot” on the other. Dismissive/avoidant people are deactivated; underinvolved with emotions and with other people, cherishing their own autonomy, self-reliance, stiff upper lip. Preoccupied people, by contrast, are hyperactivated; overinvolved with emotions and other people, organising their behaviour around their emotions, often letting their heart rule their head. Secure people—“warm” on the dial—fall somewhere in the middle. We all constantly jump around on this scale—the “temperature” is in constant flux—though for each of us there is a default setting dictated by childhood attachments. What’s your default setting? And what’s the setting of your partner, or partners past, or imagined partners in the future? Here are my 6 archetypal relationships derived from the matrix of possible hot-warm-cold combos—again, I acknowledge that this is just a simple model, a coarse categorisation that masks all kinds of varied partnerships. Each and every relationship, of course, is unique. Read the descriptions, decide what colour your relationship is, then tell us by taking the poll. The 6 relationship types 1. The Yellow Couple: When “avoidant” meets “avoidant” (cold+cold) Terry & June This can be a stable but oh-so-quiet, arid kind of connection. These are the couples who keep a polite distance from their own feelings, from each other, and from everyone else. They marvel that over all the years, they’ve never had an argument. They sit in silence in restaurants with nothing to say. Conversation—and sex—petered out years ago; they’ve lost any physical and emotional intimacy, if they ever had it. They appear to be biding time, waiting for the end, existing rather than living. “Anything for a quiet life” is their coda. They sip their tea from matching mugs that say: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” This can be a stale, fetid pool where marriages might collect if left unattended. I can’t really remember much about the unrelentingly beige 1980s sitcom “Terry and June” save that it seems to represent perfectly a certain kind of suffocating, suburban existence. For American readers, it’s hard to find an equivalent to this uniquely British celebration of the mundane. Maybe Terry and June are roughly what "Friends" Chandler and Monica might become after moving to Connecticut. 2. The Red Couple: When “preoccupied” meets “preoccupied” (hot+hot) Burton & Taylor Fireworks every day! This relationship—which often starts as an illicit affair—is a volatile, tumultuous, dramatic roller-coaster full of passion, obsession and jealousy, with violent storms and ecstatic sunsets; a potent cocktail of love and hate, break-ups and make-ups, and lots of sex. Alas, whether it’s Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde or Sid & Nancy, the relationship is doomed to self-destruct. The fireworks burn everyone in sight, or simply burn out, and the show is over. Motto: “Can’t live with you, can’t live without you.” Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were both married when they began their affair. They had a white-knuckle ride of 10 years of marriage, then divorced. “You can't keep clapping a couple of sticks [of dynamite] together without expecting them to blow up,” said Burton. The divorce didn’t hold: they remarried a year later, then redivorced a few months after that. Between them they had 13 marriages. 3. The Blue Couple: When “avoidant” meets “preoccupied” (cold+hot) Charles & Diana Opposites attract . . . until they annoy. The former, the avoidant one, loves the excitement, drama and passion of the latter. The latter loves the security, peace and calm of the former. But gradually, after the honeymoon period, these kinds if couplings can dissolve into a never-ending argument between never-enough and always-too-much, the nagger and the nagged, Felix and Oscar in “The Odd Couple”; "Abigail's Party." The avoidant half is mystified that he is constantly berated for leaving his shoes in the wrong place, or buying the wrong kind of pasta, or any number of seemingly-trivial offences that the preoccupied partner sees as more entries on the huge and ever-growing rap sheet of you-don’t-really-love-me slights. So he curls up in a ball, like a hedgehog, which enrages the neglected partner even further, exacerbating the problem. Maybe she eventually abandons the boring hedgehog and his unwelcoming spikes and goes looking for love instead. After 13 years together, Prince Charles said his marriage to Lady Di had “irretrievably broken down.” What’s remarkable is it lasted that long. The monarchy hoped it might turn yellow, or perhaps beige, but Diana wanted brighter colours. 4. The Purple Couple: When “avoidant” meets “secure” (cold+warm) Bogie & Bacall A well-adjusted person, often female, might be drawn to a “strong, silent type,” often male. The latter gets to bask in the charm, vivaciousness and social network of the former without actually having to contribute or do much. Eventually the more secure partner tires of the avoidant’s moribund lack of generosity, his paucity of spirit, his refusal to engage—to live. She now sees his once so seemingly strong silence for what it really is: fear. She leaves him behind—he can’t be budged from the sofa, or his laptop—goes out on her own, and has a good time among her many close friends. Maybe she meets someone new. Unless they can meet halfway. “Successful marriage is the infinite capacity for taking pains,” said Humphrey Bogart of his fourth-time-lucky union with feisty Lauren Bacall, 25 years his junior. “I guess I didn’t take quite enough pains over the other three.” 5. The Green Couple: When “preoccupied” meets “secure” (hot+warm) Bill & Hillary The secure partner can be a real anchor for the preoccupied person, if she’s willing to put up with his excesses and be supportive. Preoccupied people ride on emotions—their own and other people’s. As a result they often have an ability to connect, swiftly and deeply. They have a lot of libidinal energy that can manifest in conversation, charm, creativity—and cheating. They love their partner dearly . . . but they love everyone else, too—especially other highly-charged, preoccupied people. Lots of successful people have a high-rev, preoccupied attachment style—and a secure, rock-steady partner. There are lots of David Furnishes who put up with the tantrums and hissy-fits of the Elton Johns of this world. There are lots of Marge Simpsons who forgive their Homers time and again. Despite the enormity of the public humiliation and shame, the Clintons are still together—Hillary did not desert Bill. Society is however far less forgiving of women who stray and too much follow their heart. From Anna Karenina to Madame Bovary, from the bunny boiler in “Fatal Attraction” to the disgraceful contemporary phenomenon known as “slut shaming,” the femme fatale gets punished. 6. The Black and White Couple: When “secure” meets “secure” (warm+warm) John & Yoko You are alike but not too alike. There is safety and security but also uncertainty and excitement. Your partner is someone you know really well, yet also a complete mystery. There is yin and yang. On the vast, complex board game of relationships, this might seem like the winning square, the destination; a place to call “home.” The optimistic goal of hopeful but troubled couples who haven’t quite yet given up on their ancient vows, who doggedly drag themselves week after week to see a relationship counsellor, who keep trying, against the odds, despite it all, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. In truth, we never quite get there. Thinking that we “should”—that there’s a fundamental flaw in any relationship that hasn’t arrived in this exalted place, this mythical land of wine, roses and happily ever afters—is a major cause of marital dissatisfaction, discord and divorce. In fact, any of the 6 relationship types can work just fine. No one can say one is better than another. Every square on the board game contains a potential treasure chest of love and happiness. Not getting there, actually, is kind of the point. Love is a process, one that is not meant to run smooth. For as long as a relationship lasts, it is a commitment, a choice, a belief (“I don't believe in Beatles,” John Lennon sang in “God” in 1970. “I just believe in me. Yoko and me. And that's reality.”) It is work, the kind of work that is really helped along by insight into, understanding of, and making allowances for your self, your partner, and the relational dynamics between you. It is helped, too, by communication, not just in words but feelings; by generosity; by play; by laughter. Love is not a destination. It is not some kind of heaven. Because heaven, as the song goes, is a place where nothing ever happens. If you ever find yourself there, there’s one thing you’ll know for sure: the game is over. What colour is YOUR relationship? Did you survive “Divorce Day”? Monday was supposedly “Divorce Day.” Subjected to the stress test of Christmas, relationships that were already shaky came apart at the seams. At the first opportunity—the first Monday after the holidays—one or both parties call the lawyers to start the long goodbye. A selection of some of the stories: • It's divorce day – let's bust some marriage myths If you’re married, there is a one in five chance you’re considering a split (according to a survey by legal firm Irwin Mitchell); it sounds improbably large, but there it is. If it’s not you, it’s probably him; check his phone, that’s how all the best divorces start. (The Guardian) • Today's the most popular day for women to file for divorce, so . . . why can’t husbands see when wives stop loving them? In my 30 years as a marital therapist, I’ve found men aren’t only reluctant to call it a day, but rarely even recognise there’s a problem. That’s not to say that any woman takes the decision to ask for a divorce lightly. Even after years of unhappiness, it’s always the last resort. So, when they do finally pluck up the courage to say 'I don’t love you', they don’t expect it to come as a surprise . . . But it almost always does. (Dailymail.co.uk) • 'Divorce Day' blues? Counselling can help Many couples will have made a conscious decision in the New Year to seek the help and support of counsellor, having realised over the festive period that something is not right in their relationship. Others will have decided that they want to end their relationship and will begin the difficult process of separation and possibly divorce. (Scotsman) • Couples you meet in counseling: The wife who wants more and her annoyingly satisfied husband Although I thought I was done after Mr. Perfect and His Crazy Wife, The Ice Queen and the Martyr, and Mr. and Mrs. Just not Feeling it, I have realized that I have neglected the most common couple that I see in counseling: The Wife Who Wants More and Her Annoyingly Satisfied Husband. (PsychCentral) Nominate your heroes here Deputy Prime Minister launches search for “Mental Health Heroes” One in four people will experience a mental health problem this year but for many the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental health will make it harder for them to speak out and seek the support they need. That’s why the Deputy Prime Minister is calling for nominations for local Mental Health Heroes to celebrate those from every region - from healthcare professionals to next door neighbours - who have gone above and beyond to help, support or inspire people with mental health conditions. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “It could be the woman sitting next to you on the bus, the dad picking his child up at the school gates or a colleague from work - everyone knows someone living with a mental health problem. “I want to celebrate those who have gone that extra mile, whose passion and commitment have helped someone get through their darkest days and helped challenge the taboo around mental health which has existed for far too long. “It is my ambition to bring mental health out of the shadows and create a fairer society where people can speak up about how they feel and get the support and treatment they need to live the life that they choose.” To nominate someone complete and return the nomination form. (Gov.uk) Other news • Children's mental health services ’cut by £50m’ NHS spending on children's mental health services in England has fallen by more than 6% in real terms since 2010, according to official figures. The cut, equivalent to nearly £50m, was revealed by NHS England in a parliamentary answer. Labour, which had asked for the figures, accused the government of breaking its promise to make mental health a priority. (BBC News) • Online counselling: easier for students to seek help The case for using online counselling services as an additional fixture is strong. Considering the fact that Generation Y are digital natives, offering an online counselling service that enables students to get help as and when they want it is an appealing option. (The Independent) • One woman's fight for mental healthcare in China According to a 2009 study published in British medical journal The Lancet, around 173 million Chinese suffer from a mental disorder. However there are only 20,000 psychiatrists, equaling 1.5 for each 100,000 people, or a tenth of the ratio in the United States. Last year saw the introduction of China's first mental health legislation, which took a reported 27 years. (CNN) • Good diet, good mind? What you need to know Obviously, a good balanced diet is important for everyone, but for people who might be prone to mental health problems, it’s often advised that, in addition to exercise, we try to manage our diets especially carefully so as to ensure optimum health. In terms of scientific evidence, it’s only relatively recently that scientists have started looking into how diet might affect mental health. However, what they’ve seen so far is that the link is, to quote one researcher, “unusually consistent.” (Care2.com) You spoke to no one today. The sun came up, moved across the sky, then went down. Nobody cared what you wore, what you did, what you thought, how you felt. You came home to no one. No messages. You imagine that you could die tonight and no one would discover your corpse for days, maybe weeks. You try to keep busy, or you slump in front of the TV, then you go to bed for another restless night. The world is utterly indifferent to you and your existence. You’ve never felt so alone. Haven’t we all had days like this? Certainly we’ve all felt the bitter sting of loneliness. You’re definitely not alone—we’re all in it together. Britain is the loneliness capital of Europe. Five million Brits have no friends. Nearly 30 percent of households in the U.K. now consist of one person. This has been called the “Age of Loneliness.” We’ve become an alien-nation, isolated from each other—and our own selves. The cup of human kindness is empty these days. What exactly is loneliness, anyhow? We might define it as a painful subjective experience borne of insufficient human contact and intimacy. The subjective part is important: Only you can judge whether or not you’re lonely. There is no external standard; no required threshold of Facebook friends. It’s possible to have a life filled with people and feel very lonely. It’s possible, too, to feel completely content with a solitary existence. (Possible, but not very likely—as Sullivan wrote: “There is no way that I know of by which one can, all by oneself, satisfy the need for intimacy.”) A significant contribution to our understanding of loneliness came from British child psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1950s, who claimed that contact and intimacy are basic needs in themselves, as vital as food and water to our survival both as individuals and as a species. He used the term “attachment,” which he defined as “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.” We are social animals. We seek connection; it is through what Cozolino calls the “social synapse” that we develop and grow, certainly as babies but throughout our lifespan, too. As Sue Gerhardt writes in the excellent Why Love Matters: “My understanding is that human beings are open systems, permeated by other people as well as by plants and air and water. We are shaped not only by what we breathe and eat but by our interactions with other people.” Loneliness, then, could be thought of as useful information akin to hunger or thirst. It is a call to arms, a warning, a klaxon in the dark night. We can tolerate it for a while and carry on, but the more socially starved and weakened we become, the harder it’s going to be to rectify. And we do need to address it. Because loneliness can be a toxic companion. It is bad for your health. Ever since Émile Durkheim’s 1897 book Suicide, we’ve understood the dramatic negative impact of social isolation. “We know that loneliness shaves about eight years off your life expectancy,” says Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, which are those places around the world known for extraordinary longevity. One study claims that chronic loneliness increases your chances of an early death by 45 percent. By contrast, the opposite of loneliness—love, connectedness, belonging—promotes longevity. Love is not all you need, nor does it make the world go round. But it is certainly a vital part of being human. OK. Loneliness is painful enough without having additional, secondary things to feel bad about, like its impact on your health. Or anxiety that it will always be this way. Not to mention the guilt and shame of loneliness, the bitter pill that you’re not living life the way you’re “supposed” to, the way you hoped, the way others hoped for you. Calls to the Samaritans are always highest around the Christmas holidays, when the stream of TV ads depicting perfect people being nourished by perfect meals, perfect friends, perfect families and perfect gifts makes us feel so utterly starved. Are we getting lonelier? We imagine loneliness to be a modern malaise, and to an extent, it is. In the olden days, we suppose, people would spend their sepia-coloured evenings together, gathered round the hearth, the repast, or the piano, at the beating heart of the home, family and town where they grew up, where they would live, work, marry, procreate, recreate, retire and die. Then central heating came along and we retreated to our bedrooms. Then the TV was turned on and conversation petered out. Headphones—we retreated further still. Then aeroplanes—we could get even further away from each other. Then came the Apollo rockets, and the aching prospect of an infinite outer space, and the terrifying idea that when it comes to life, our planet is all alone—or the terrifying idea that it isn’t. The capitalist machine cranked up a gear. It used to serve mankind; after what Polanyi called “the great transformation,” mankind existed to serve the machine, and ever since we’ve been working longer hours, moving to the ever-sprawling suburbs, and spending an awful lot of time commuting. Meanwhile, the old customs and niceties have been bulldozed in the name of progress and development. In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. With society already on its knees, along comes email, the internet, mobile phones, virtual reality. Kafka-esque scenes of humans avoiding real contact with each other and their environment, even at social gatherings, family meals, weddings, vacations. We commune instead with tiny little screens. The lure of texts, emails and what is laughingly called “social” media. Alfred J. Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons. Ours are measured out in “likes” on Facebook. “Did you have a good life?” the nurse will ask us on our deathbed. “I don’t know,” we will answer, “I missed most of it. I was too busy checking my email.” Broken attachments—we’ve been ripped apart from one another and scattered to the four winds. The family, the clan and the community lie in pieces. We’re disillusioned with the state; we’ve lost faith in faith. Without a social life, society breaks down. All the old certainties gone. Loneliness: a key to love? In reality, however, though social cohesion may well be declining, on a broader, more philosophical level, loneliness might be as old as humankind, an inextricable part of the human condition. Mijuskovic says we are “intrinsically alone and irredeemably lost”; the human being is “continually struggling to escape the solipsistic prison of his frightening solitude.” (I don’t know—maybe Mijuskovic just spends too much time alone in front of his typewriter.) Loneliness has always served an evolutionary purpose, ensuring that cavemen sought out other cavemen and created cave babies. Thanks to loneliness—and other unpleasant tendencies like anxiety, which has kept us ever-alert to threats—our species survived and thrived. Thanks to loneliness, our ancestors, stretching back to the dawn of time, got together with each other. Thanks to loneliness, you and I are here, today. In his classic, slimline 1961 volume Loneliness, Moustakas writes: “Man's inevitable and infinite loneliness is not solely an awful condition of human existence but . . . it is also the instrument through which man experiences new compassion and new beauty." In the womb, we are alone. At death, we make a journey to something else, and again, we travel solo. In the part in between, our hour upon the stage, we might well essentially be alone. But if we can embrace it, it is our loneliness that guides us and teaches us how to live. It shows us that life is better with other people around, people we see into and who we feel see into us. We are more human when there is humanity—when there is love. What to do about loneliness I wrote an article for the Harley Therapy blog site called How to Overcome Loneliness:
The basic premise is that before you can know and love others, you have to know and love your loneliness—and yourself. Krishnamurti beautifully sums this up: “The entity who tries to fill or run away from emptiness, incompleteness, loneliness, is not different from that which he is avoiding; he is it. He cannot run away from himself; all that he can do is to understand himself. He is his loneliness, his emptiness; and as long as he regards it as something separate from himself, he will be in illusion and endless conflict. When he directly experiences that he is his own loneliness, then only can there be freedom from fear.” Read my how-to-beat-loneliness story by clicking here. Videos about loneliness • TED Talk: The lethality of loneliness by John Cacioppo. • Orson Welles debates loneliness with Henry Jaglom in Jaglom’s terrific, unknown movie “Someone to Love.” • Eleanor Rigby: “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” Books about loneliness • Loneliness. By Clark Moustakas • Loneliness in philosophy, psychology, and literature. By Ben Lazare Mijuskovic • On love and loneliness. By J. Krishnamurti |
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AuthorJohn Barton is a counsellor, psychotherapist, blogger and writer with a private practice in Marylebone, Central London. To contact, click here. |