emotional disengagement Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

OOPS! Did I Push Your Buttons?

Do you and your spouse get into those “cycles?” Those patterns that seem to go round and round to where it feels like you just keep pushing each other’s buttons? Take heart, you are not alone! Almost all couples create cycles over time that can keep them on the proverbial roller coaster of relationships. The Fear Dance The “destructive dance” most couples get into generally stems from some source of fear. Men and women alike have basic core fears. The two most basic fears are: • Loss of power, or feeling controlled. This is usually a man’s greatest fear. Men want to feel they are good at what they do, [...]

All Emotions are Appropriate, but not All Behaviors.

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:52+00:00Emotion|

“You’re just being emotional” “You’re so emotional,you’re out of control” “People just use their emotions to get what they want” “Just be rational and think about it” Sound familiar? Years ago it was commonly accepted that our brain had a reasonable side and an emotional side; and some still believe that today. The idea was that we can control our emotions using reason. It’s the emotion vs. reason idea. Not True. We know today that the brain is integrated with emotion and reason, even in the Cerebral Cortex. Without emotion, higher-level problem solving does not happen very well. John Gottman says the “sense of the matter” is essential in problem [...]