Shame is often transmitted through family lines. Parents use shame-based parenting, the children grow up with shame and use shame-based parenting, and the pattern is repeated. Shame is something that comes up in therapy regularly. One of the most powerful …
Tag: Criticism
How To Be Heard When You Feel Criticised
It can be SO difficult to actually listen to your partner when you are in the middle of an argument. All too often, we block ourselves from seeing their point of view because we feel we will be agreeing with …
3 Tips to Reduce Your Defensiveness
The four communication styles that have a negative impact on your relationships: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. Everyone will have a favoured method. Mine is defensiveness. Defensiveness is a response to criticism and tends to increase conflict because the other …
How to Shift a Criticism into a Complaint for More Effective Communication
If you grew up with a lot of criticism around you, as an adult it is likely that you have a loud critical voice in your head. Usually that critical voice is directed inwards, but in intimate relationships, many people …
How to Escape the Toxic Criticism and Defensiveness Cycle
When someone comes at you with criticism, the natural response is to defend. Criticism is a form of attack, so it is natural to protect instinctively unless you know how criticism and defensiveness play out in a relationship. Those of …
4 Ways of Communicating That Will Destroy Your Relationship
The Gottman’s have spent 40 years studying couple and relationships. They found four communication styles predict the failure of a relationship. The Gottman’s call them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. First, to begin to work with our communication style, …
Self-Awareness Archetypes
These archetypes come from the research of Dr. Tasha Eurich (2019). She has a fabulous TEDx talk called ‘Increase your Self-Awareness with One Simple Fix’. She says that 95% of people believe they are self-aware, but only 10% – 15% …