Couple Skills Basic Skills Listening Expressing Feelings and Stating Needs Clean Communication Reciprocal Reinforcement Advanced Skills Identifying & Changing Cognitive Distortions Negotiation Problem Solving Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics Coping with Anger Coping with an Angry Partner Time Out Identifying Patterns about Your Partner Old Tapes: Separating Your Partner from Your Parents Coping with Your Defenses Identifying Your Couple System Intervening in Your System Expectations, Rules, and Acceptance
COUPLE SKILLS CHART Column 1. Examine this column to see if you have any of these issues. Column 2. These are the couple skills you will most likely need to resolve these issues. Issue Emotional Distance Lack of Intimacy Anger Arguing Name Calling, Belittling, Threats, Blaming Unexpressed Feelings Feelings of Deprivation Unresolved Cyclic Patterns of Conflict Unexpressed Needs Conflicting Concepts of Partnership Feelings of Unfairness, Inequity Lack of Time Growing Apart Misunderstanding Unmet Expectations Not Feeling Heard Guilt Negative Assumptions about Partner Feeling of Going in Circles Feeling Hurt Discouragement, Depression Negativity Disenchantment Couple Skills Required Listening; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Reciprocal Reinforcement. Listening; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Reciprocal Reinforcement. Coping with Anger; Clean Communication; Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics; Coping with an Angry Partner; Time Out; Identifying Patterns about Your Partner; Expectations, Rules & Acceptance. Clean Communication; Coping with Anger; Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics; Coping with an Angry Partner; Time Out; Identifying Patterns about Your Partner; Expectations, Rules & Acceptance. Problem Solving; Clean Communication; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics; Coping with Anger; Coping with an Angry Partner. Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Clean Communication; Listening; Reciprocal Reinforcement; Coping with Your Defenses. Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Reciprocal Reinforcement; Negotiation; Problem Solving; Identifying Your Couple System; Intervening in Your System. Negotiation; Clean Communication; Problem Solving; Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics; Old Tapes: Separating Your Partner From Your Parents; Identifying Your Couple System; Intervening in Your System; Expectations, Rules, and Acceptance. Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Clean Communication; Negotiation; Problem Solving. Expectations, Rules & Acceptance; Listening; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Negotiation; Problem Solving. Coping with Anger; Clean Communication; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Negotiation; Problem Solving; Expectations, Rules, and Acceptance. Reciprocal Reinforcement; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Problem Solving.. Reciprocal Reinforcement; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Problem Solving. Listening; Clean Communication; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Negotiation; Old Tapes: Separating Your Partner From Your Parents. Expectations, Rules & Acceptance; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Reciprocal Reinforcement; Negotiation; Problem Solving; Coping with Anger. Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Clean Communication; Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics. Assessing & Changing Unfavorable Tactics; Reciprocal Reinforcement; Problem Solving; Coping with an Angry Partner; Expectations, Rules & Acceptance. Identifying & Changing Cognitive Distortions; Identifying Patterns About Your Partner; Old Tapes: Separating Your Partner From Your Parents; Identifying Your Couple System; Intervening in Your System. Identifying Your Couple System; Coping with Your Defenses; Intervening in Your System. Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Coping with an Angry Partner; Expectations, Rules & Acceptance. Reciprocal Reinforcement; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Identifying & Changing Cognitive Distortions; Negotiation; Problem Solving. Identifying & Changing Cognitive Distortions; Reciprocal Reinforcement; Identifying Patterns About Your Partner. Reciprocal Reinforcement; Expressing Feelings; Stating Needs; Negotiation; Problem Solving.
Couple Skill # 1 LISTENING Listening is the most important of all the communication skills that can create and preserve intimacy but it s usually the hardest skill to master when it counts the most. When you listen well, you understand your partner better, you stay closely in tune, you enjoy the relationship more, and you know without mind reading why your partner says and does things. Learn the five unbreakable rules for effective listening and which of the 10 blocksto-listening you employ with your partner. Couple Skill # 2 EXPRESSING FEELINGS AND STATING NEEDS Some people fail to get important needs met by being too passive, while others fail by being too aggressive. You can learn to express your emotions and ask for what you want assertively and appropriately. If you are weak in one of these skills, your relationship will be impaired. If you lack both, it may be doomed. However, attending this workshop will quickly reverse your situation and teach you these essential couple skills. Couples Skill # 3 RECIPROCAL REINFORCEMENT Reciprocal reinforcement simply means that each person does more of the things that the other person likes. This may sound too simple for a workshop but there are lots of techniques you will learn and master that will make a huge difference in improving your relationship. If your relationship has become boring, irritating, and unsatisfying, reciprocal reinforcement is the ideal starting place. Couple Skill # 4 CLEAN COMMUNICATION Pejorative communication between a couple erodes each partner s self-esteem and makes mutual problem solving almost impossible. Clean communication, on the other hand, protects self-esteem and creates a safe place for working on problems. Stop harming your relationship and attend this workshop. Learn the 10 commandments of speaking and other foundations so you can eradicate pejorative speech and really be heard by your partner. Couple Skills # 5 IDENTIFYING AND CHANGING COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Because cognitive distortions can be so damaging to your relationship, it s important to learn to recognize them when they occur. There are eight common cognitive distortions: tunnel vision, assumed intent, magnifying, global labeling, good-bad dichotomizing, fractured logic, control fallacies and letting it out fallacy. Your job is to learn more about your patterns of thinking; then do the exercises that will help you make the adjustments you need to bring more peace to your relationship. Couple Skills # 6 NEGOTIATION Conflict is inevitable. All couples fight from time to time. Negotiation is a distinct and valuable communication skill that needs to be learned. If you follow the guidelines you can become a fair and effective negotiator in your relationship. You will be able to get what you want more often, without manipulating or alienating your partner. The best time to attend this workshop and learn to negotiate is before your relationship is on the rocks. Couple Skills # 7 PROBLEM SOLVING You and your partner can learn the steps of problem solving in a single session together. However, problem solving as a couple requires a collaborative set. If either of you is harboring old resentments, private agendas, or looking more for someone to blame than for solutions, the process is doomed. Each partner must be open, cooperative, and reasonably objective for mutual problem solving to work. I ll be happy to teach you the skills you will need in this basic workshop. For more advanced skills inquire about the sequel to this workshop. Couple Skills # 8 ASSESSING AND CHANGING AVERSIVE STRATEGIES Aversive strategies often yield very good short-term results: a partner is hurt or intimidated into giving you what you want. But over time, aversive strategies cease to work. People become numb and unaffected, or rebellious, or deeply alienated. Intimacy and trust are replaced with anger, detachment, or resistance. It s a high price. In this workshop you will learn to identify and change the eight aversive strategies most frequently used to control others in relationships. You can assess which strategies you tend to use and become more aware of
their impact on you and your partner. Finally, you ll have the opportunity to explore and practice the two foundational skills in healthy conflict resolution. Couple Skills # 9 COPING WITH ANGER Anger does much damage to your relationship. Divorce statistics provide evidence of the role of anger in marriage breakups. Repeated anger episodes have the same effect on a relationship that cuts have on the skin. The anger creates emotional scar tissue that grows thicker with each new wound. Chronic anger makes people rigid and highly defensive, and the long-term effect is a loss of empathy and intimacy. If you want to know how to appropriately deal with your anger issues then learning this couple skill will be extremely beneficial to you. When you ve absorbed and integrated this material and mastered the exercises you will feel empowered. Your relationship will improve considerably. Couple Skills # 10 COPING WITH AN ANGRY PARTNER Assertive behavior allows you to stand up for your rights, express personal likes and dislikes, accept compliments comfortably, disagree with someone openly, and say no. Here you will learn from mastering the exercises in this workshop all the effective ways to assertively respond to and diffuse an angry partner and deescalate a potential angry exchange. Couple Skills # 11 TIME OUT Time out is a vital skill for keeping fights from escalating into verbal or physical abuse. It s perhaps the single most useful strategy for stopping violence and the battering syndrome. Couple Skills # 12 IDENTIFYING SCHEMAS ABOUT YOUR PARTNER Negative schemas about your partner s motivations, intentions, feelings, and judgments about you can be enormously destructive. It begins with some ambiguous behavior that you interpret negatively. Once you ve made the interpretation, all future related behavior tends to get labeled in the same way. Over time a schema develops. And it becomes every bit as real and believable as your knowledge that the sky is blue. The schema grows into a painful thorn; more and more of your partner s behavior is explained by it. And more and more of your behavior is determined by it. Attend this workshop for enormous benefit to your marriage. Couple Skills # 13 OLD TAPES: SEPARATING YOUR PARTNER FROM YOUR PARENTS You can treat your partner as if he or she were your parent or someone else from your past. This parataxic distortion can occur in intimate relationships when high-stress interactions that provoke anxiety increase its likelihood. It s as if all the hurts you experienced as a child are ready to be triggered at the slightest provocation. Any behavior, even slightly reminiscent of the person responsible for these hurts in the past, can reawaken a whole set of accompanying reactions. However, recognizing this harmful association between your partner and your parent is not enough to break the influence of that link. Only when the two people can be separated in your mind will you stop reacting to your partner as if he or she were your parent. This couple s skill will help you to recognize and break that association. Couple Skills # 14 COPING WITH YOUR DEFENSES The defenses most typically used in intimate relationships are avoidance, denial, and acting out. Defenses do two things: 1. They help you avoid, or cope with, pain and 2. They undermine your relationship. Defenses are addicting! Because they temporarily reduce pain each time you use them, you use them more and more. They become so automatic that they appear with hardly any conscious choice at all. But be aware that each defense has a cost. Each time you defend yourself from pain you further damage your relationship. This workshop is the effective solution to the defenses you employ in your relationship. Couple Skills # 15 IDENTIFYING YOUR COUPLE SYSTEM Once a system develops, it can feel as if the more you try to change the more things stay the same. Couple systems are seen as a circular chain of stimulus and response in which each person s behavior is a response to the other s and every action is also a reaction. Each partner has characteristic behaviors that support and enact
his or her particular role in the repetitive interactional patterns between spouses in a marriage. The only way to prevent deadly spirals like this is to learn to identify your particular system, recognize the patterns of behavior that aren t working, and develop strategies for intervening. Couple Skills # 16 INTERVENING IN YOUR SYSTEM Identifying your system doesn t necessarily help you change that system. There is nothing automatic about the step from identification to intervention. It will take a committed effort at doing the exercises in this workshop for real systemic change to occur. Couple Skills # 17 EXPECTATIONS, RULES, AND ACCEPTANCE Couples tend to enter into relationships with differing expectations. Your dream of the ideal relationship creates expectations that you bring to your relationship. These expectations become codified in unspoken rules. This workshop will show you what happens when the dream becomes a nightmare when you and your partner have conflicting expectations and therefore conflicting rules about such things as the division of labor, how to raise children, how to spend money, and so on. In this workshop you ll do exercises designed to help you identify the dysfunctional dream, examine the implications of your unspoken rules, and learn to make your expectations and needs known more directly and effectively. Couple Skills # 18 ENHANCE YOUR LOVE MAPS Couples who have detailed love maps of each other s world are far better prepared to cope with stressful events and conflict. A successful marriage depends on continually increasing your understanding of each other on a deeper level. You do this by enhancing your love maps. In this workshop you will find out how. Couple Skills # 19 NURTURE YOUR FONDNESS AND ADMIRATION Fondness and admiration, two of the most crucial elements in a rewarding and long-lasting romance, can be fragile unless you remain aware of how crucial they are to the friendship that is at the core of any good marriage. Learn what prevents a couple from nurturing and admiring each other in this workshop and the things to look out for. Don t allow your marriage to be trounced by the four horsemen. Couple Skills # 20 TURN TOWARD EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF AWAY In marriage people periodically make "bids" for their partner s attention, affection, humor, or support. People either turn toward one another after these bids or they turn away. Turning toward is the basis of emotional connection, romance, passion, and a good sex life. Learn how to turn towards each other instead of away with this workshop. Couple Skills # 21 LET YOUR PARTNER INFLUENCE YOU The more open to influence you both are, the smoother your marriage will be. Those marriages where spouses resist sharing power are four times more likely to end or drone on unhappily than marriages where spouses do not resist. If you want to be in the latter category attend this workshop. Couple Skills # 22A THE TWO KINDS OF MARITAL CONFLICT: CORE & SITUATIONAL In all arguments, both situational and core, no one is ever right. There is no absolute reality in marital conflict, only two subjective realities. The basis for coping effectively with either kind of problem is the same: communicating basic acceptance of your partner s personality. There is a lot to master in this three-part workshop series: Couple Skills # 22 A C. You will have a better marriage when learn these skills. Couple Skills # 22B SOLVE YOUR SITUATIONAL PROBLEMS With this workshop you will become aware of the nature of how people attempt to negotiate in conversations. You will learn what to focus on and how to enhance your relationship styles. Softening your startup, knowing how to complain without criticizing, make and receive repair attempts, sooth yourself and each other, compromise and learn how to be tolerant of each other's faults are all crucial to resolving your solvable conflicts.
Couple Skills # 22C COPING WITH TYPICAL SOLVABLE PROBLEMS Work stress, in-laws, money, sex, housework, a new baby: These are the most typical areas of marital conflict. Every marriage is faced with certain emotional tasks that husband and wife need to accomplish together for the marriage to grow and deepen. These tasks come down to attaining a rich understanding between husband and wife. A marriage needs this understanding in order for both people to feel safe and secure in it. Couple Skills # 23 OVERCOMING GRIDLOCK When either spouse doesn t fully appreciate the importance of supporting his or her partner s dreams, gridlock is almost inevitable. The challenge is to respect and understand each other s dreams and needs. Learn the inevitable pitfalls to a marriage when dreams are hidden. Become a dream-detective so you can understand what s at the core of your partner s feelings and your marriage will start to thrive and flourish. Couple Skills # 24 CREATE SHARED MEANING The spiritual dimension of marriage has to do with creating an inner life together a culture rich with symbols and rituals, and an appreciation for your roles and goals that link you together and that lead you to understand what it means to be a part of the family you create. This rich and rewarding workshop will significantly deepen your marriage.