home | relationships | about ellen | library | contact & directions
ELLEN’S COUCH
Relationships / Marriage
In helping couples discover how to find satisfaction in their relationships, I’ve learned that each couple comes needing different kinds of help.
Some couples need to learn how to fight and make up after a fight. Some may need to learn how to be more vulnerable and open when there is conflict. Others need practice listening to and empathizing with each other. Many times, issues from childhood interfere with the ability to connect in healthy and satisfying ways with one’s partner.
I believe strongly that in many relationships, learning to accept differences, rather than trying to resolve them or change the other person, is the key to happiness. Couples often need help differentiating issues that can be resolved and those that can’t, things that can be changed and things that can’t. Developing friendship and respect are also important ingredients in a satisfying and healthy relationship.
I have a great interest in how male and female sex role expectations and training and biology affect relationships and enjoy working with straight couples as well as lesbian and gay couples.
Adoption
In my practice, I’ve listened to the life stories, the struggles and the pain of all three segments of the adoption triad: the adoptee, the birth family, and the adoptive family. Speaking truths, acknowledging the losses in their lives, sharing the joy and healing, they have given me great insight and empathy into the complexity and depth of their unique experiences.
In her booklet “What is Written on the Heart: Primal Issues in Adoption,” Marcy Wineman Axness writes,
“Babies who have lost their original mothers, permanently, or have suffered other painful or traumatic experiences, need to express their grief and their anger.” She goes on to say that in learning to understand and empathize with the infant and child, adoptive parents can create a deep and lasting bond with their child.
Each developmental stage has its challenges for the adopted child. There are many excellent books and resources for the adoptive parent to help them help their child navigate the rough times.
Birth parents are often the invisible part of the triad. What kinds of choices were open to them at the time? How has the relinquishment affected their life since? Did they get stuck in their lives, did they go on to have a family and does their family know? Have they ever had the opportunity to deal with their grief and loss?
I participated in an intense, year-long training with experts in the field of adoption, Sharon Kaplan Roszia, M.S., and Deborah Silverstein, LCSW, at the Kinship Center in Tustin, California. This background has strengthened the guidance I’m able to offer adoptees, adoptive families and birth families in moving through the underlying roots of their pain and struggles.
Visit The Kinship Center website for more information.
For more information about the work of Marcy Wineman Axness, visit Quantum Parenting.com
Stepfamilies
Although parents usually go into a new marriage and stepfamily wanting one big happy family, that’s not generally how things begin. There are challenges and difficulties unique to stepfamilies.
Many children feel torn between loyalty to their biological parent and stepparent. They often feel that if they love or accept the stepparent, they are being disloyal to their biological parent.
Children struggle with belonging to two different households with different values, rules and lifestyle. Relationships between stepsiblings may be difficult.
Parents may want a stepchild to love, trust and respect them right away, when in reality, these feelings often take years to develop. It’s not helpful for the child to feel pressured into expressing affection before it’s authentic. For example, demanding that children call the stepparent “mom” or “dad” is counterproductive and possibly damaging to the child.
Stepparents often try to discipline their stepchildren, which most children resent. It takes time to develop that kind of relationship. The stepparent needs to focus on developing relationships with the children so that when love and trust do evolve, the children will accept discipline from them.
Parents are caught in the middle between their new spouse and their children. When a parent sticks up for her children, her partner may get upset. But when she allows her partner to set new rules, the children may feel betrayed.
Divorce expert Dr. Patricia Papernow found that most stepfamilies go through a series of seven stages as they learn to live together.
-
• Fantasy: adults sometimes fantasize that they’re rescuing children from a single parent family. Children may hope the stepparent will disappear or that their parents will get back together.
-
• Back to reality: the fantasy starts to crumble. The stepparent experiences a lack of belonging. The biological parent may be angry with the stepparent for a seeming lack of desire to be in the family.
-
• Awareness: stepfamily members gradually begin to understand what is happening and can name their painful feelings. It’s helpful for parents to talk to other adults in stepfamilies.
-
• Airing differences: adults express more needs, feelings and perceptions. The stepparent is able to talk about issues and the biological parents feel distress.
-
• Working together: once differences are aired, committed spouses can work together to build a solid relationship and cooperate on discipline. Family members can acknowledge the differences between this family and their original families.
-
• Intimacy: spouses can relate both honestly and intimately with one another. Children and stepparents can talk openly about issues.
-
• Resolution: relationships feel solid and reliable.
Relationships in stepfamilies take time to build. Papernow found that the average stepfamily requires about seven years to complete the cycle. Knowing this helps normalize the family’s struggles.
Visit The Stepfamily Association of America website and divorcepartner.com for more information.
Browse my LIBRARY for books on these topics!
stepfamilies
adoption
gay/lesbian lives
Gay & Lesbian Lives and Families
For gay and lesbian people, therapy can be treacherous. The fear of finding themselves sitting with someone who judges them as sick, mentally ill or unhealthy or sees them only in terms of their sexuality can be intimidating and prevent honest expression.
Understanding the experience of gays and lesbians and the special challenges of being gay in the world is important for a therapist working with them. Issues of coming out or not, relationships with families of origin, religious upbringing, dating relationships, marriage, children and divorce all need to be seen through the lens of the gay and lesbian experience.
Understanding homophobia and how it is internalized is crucial in working with gay and lesbian clients.
I’ve found counseling parents of gay children to be a deeply moving experience as well, as they work through their own fears, stereotypes and conditioning.
Along with seeing lesbians and gay men in my private practice, I have years of experience leading groups and workshops on gay issues. I currently facilitate a group for lesbian and gay parents who have become parents through fostering and then adopting their children.
My interest in relationships has led me to develop expertise in marital counseling, pre-marital counseling, interfaith and multi-cultural relationships, step parent guidance, parenting difficult children, adult children and their elderly parents, adoption issues, and working with lesbian and gay individuals and their families, and helping parents of gays and lesbians.
Visit Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
© ellen ledley, lcsw 2008
site by bread and butter
