Are you and your partner getting into high conflict fights where you both feel hopeless, lonely, and confused about how to move forward? Do you and your partner re-trigger each other leading to anger, the silent treatment, door slamming, shouting, and more distance? Are you both dealing with memories of childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect that resurface and get re-triggered in your high conflict fights? Do you and your partner feel like you need professional help to break this vicious, negative cycle of communication and learn how to shift into closeness, emotional vulnerability and openness? Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in helping couples rebuild emotional connection and intimacy.
Marriage is a journey of shared joys, challenges, and growth.
When you are fighting, angry, and distressed, this can harm your sex life.
You might experience sexual rejection and sexual avoidance due to explosive angry fights you are having. There may be a cycle re-trigger each other’s past trauma wounds and you need help! Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping you express your needs.
Marriage counseling is a safe place to explore and express your core emotions like rejection, hurt, sadness, and grief, which are underneath anger.
In high conflict couples therapy, you can learn how to step aside from reactive, explosive emotions, and talk about how much you desire reassurance and comfort from your partner.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, helps you talk about the deep emotions such as rejection, hurt, inadequacy, sadness, which are often masked by anger and explosive fights.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional connection and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you understand how past trauma experiences in your childhood influence your current cycle of anger.
There are high’s and low’s in all long term relationships. And, we are shaped by our primary caregivers and parents. If you experienced emotional neglect, emotional abuse, or trauma growing up, you may have watched your parents exploding, yelling, or avoiding emotions. Likewise, learning how to cope in healthy ways and ask your partner for comfort are new skills Katie Ziskind can teach you both. Couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching can help you change your generational patterns for the better. Though your marriage may have really good times. When you argue, it is a very low time.
So, when you feel ignored, alone, hopeless, angry, betrayed, and hurt, high conflict fights and an avoidant cycle of conflict break out.
And, for some disconnected couples, your marriage becomes a battleground marked by cycles of anger, defensiveness, criticism, and the silent treatment.
Maybe, you want your partner to know how much you value your bond and relationship. But, when you talk, just comes out all his anger, shouting, and disconnection. Sexual intimacy issues and lack of sex are often a result when your relationship doesn’t have emotional bonding, comfort, and closeness.
Deep down, you want to know that your partner sees you as special, significant, and makes you a priority. But, you feel like you are on different planets.
Feeling trapped in your high-conflict marriage is a distressing experience that often stems from unhealed childhood wounds and the re-triggering of unresolved emotional pain.
It is very easy to think your partner is a narcissist and get suck in the blame game. When you are emotionally flooded or emotionally triggered, your heartbeat skyrockets.
Your blood pressure escalates in relationship distress and your marital conflicts. It feels like your blood is boiling due to what your partner is saying in a fight. And, you just don’t know what to say or do to help your partner understand your needs. Deep down, you want to feel loved and close, and a team once again. But, you don’t know how to repair the distance.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you verbalize that you value your partnership and marriage to your spouse. In marriage counseling, you can talk about what you love about your partner, and verbalize appreciation. And, marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind can help you ask for comfort and security. For instance, you can let your partner know how much holding hands together means to you.
These little bits of physical affection, like holding hands and long hugs, may have disappeared entirely due to the conflicts and distance. As well, not holding hands and avoiding affection only perpetuates the cycle of emotional distress and distress more and more.
What does the vicious cycle of conflict look like?
The more that you and your partner talk, the more you find yourselves shouting and yelling. It feels like you are trying as hard as you can to build a close relationship. But, just don’t have the tools to create emotional bonding.
More than anything, you want help to remedy the hopelessness, hurt, and anger that you are struggling with right now. You want to feel close, appreciated, special, significant, and on the same team. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in helping you and your partner build security, closeness, and love each other more deeply.
You can gain awareness for how past childhood trauma experiences play a role in your current relationship fights.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in emotional intimacy and emotional vulnerability.
More so, both of you are behaving in ways that, you may not realize, but contribute to a negative, emotionally painful cycle on distance, disconnection, and high conflict fights.
As well, in reality, you both are be stuck in a negative, vicious cycle, that you both are perpetuating, as you re-trigger each other’s childhood wounds.
You watched your parents either get into domestic violence fights. Or, you watched your parents avoid comforting each other, and isolate themselves away. Maybe, your parents have been married for 50 years. However, you never watched them kiss, you never watched them hold hands, and you never watched them show affection.
No matter what you saw growing up, you have been shaped by your childhood. And, so has your partner. Talking about childhood experiences can help you address and assess your needs for comfort in your marriage better. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping you improve both emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy.
In high conflict marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, we explore the dynamics of your high-conflict marriages. And, Katie Ziskind encourages you both to gain awareness for the role of childhood wounds, abuse, and neglect.
When your arguments are getting out of control and turning vicious, there is likely a flight, fight, and freeze trauma response that is occurring.
You and your partner get stuck in disconnection because you both are triggering each other’s unmet childhood needs due to your current negative interactions. At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, our team of high conflict couples therapists specialize Emotionally Focused couples therapy (EFT) and Gottman couples counseling.
In high conflict couples therapy with Katie Ziskind and the team at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, you receive specific methodologies to break your destructive conflict cycles. New skills help you build a secure, emotionally attuned bond in your marriage.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional connection and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Understanding The Vicious Cycle In Your High-Conflict Marriage with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching
To note, anger, defensiveness, criticism, and the silent treatment will damage your marriage. And, these negative communication styles don’t mean that you or your partner are narcissists. It is very easy to label your partner as a narcissist when you feel like your emotional needs are not being met. It hurts to feel ignored, hurt, and insignificant when kicked in the stomach by your spouse’s cruel words.
Right when you want your partner to support you, they withdraw or they avoid you. This reminds you of how you felt ignored and unimportant growing up as a child. Furthermore, when you are looking at strengthening your marriage, understanding your emotional needs is important. But, labeling your partner as a narcissist only pushes you both further apart.
Important to note, all triggered people resort to using these negative communication mechanisms when emotionally flooded and triggered.
Have you ever heard the saying that, “hurt people hurt people.” Well, when both of you are feeling hurt and angry, you will both try to continue to hurt the other. You may be repeating a dysfunctional cycle of communication that you saw growing up in childhood. We often don’t have positive role models that teach us healthy emotional attunement skills.
Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, can help you grow together. You can understand positive and constructive ways to let your partner know when you have emotional needs.
And, couples counseling can help your partner learn how to emotionally in tune to your emotional needs to help you feel loved.
Though you both use unhealthy communication mechanisms right now in fights, using them doesn’t mean you or your partner are narcissists.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
When you are using anger, defensiveness, criticism, and the silent treatment, high conflict marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind can help you shift into being emotionally vulnerable, receptive, emotionally attentive, and closer.
Anger, when unbridled and expressed in a destructive manner, acts as a corrosive force within your high conflict marriage. Yelling, shouting, screaming, door slamming, name calling and cruel communication erodes the foundation of trust, leaving emotional scars that can persist long after the initial conflict.
Frequent outbursts of anger create an atmosphere of tension and fear, hindering open communication and mutual understanding. When your partner yells, this might make you feel small, inferior, helpless, and scared, just like you did in childhood. Then, the memory of your emotionally unstable parent or narcissistic caregiver comes back, flooding your mind with traumatic memories. Over time, this sustained hostility damages the emotional connection between you and your spouse.
As well, explosive anger issues and the silent treatment undermining the emotional intimacy that is essential for a healthy marriage.
Let’s talk about defensivness in high conflict marital fights.
Defensiveness, a natural response to perceived threats, becomes a barrier to genuine connection in your high conflict marriage. When one partner feels constantly attacked or criticized, the instinct to defend oneself intensifies.
This defensive stance prevents the acknowledgment of each other’s perspectives, fostering a cycle where both partners feel misunderstood and unheard. As this pattern persists, the emotional distance between spouses widens. Distance making it increasingly challenging to bridge the gap and repair your romantic relationship.
Criticism is often characterized by blaming and attacking the person rather than addressing specific behaviors. It has a massive negative impact on negative marital dynamics.
Continuous criticism chips away at self-esteem and generates resentment, creating a hostile, tense marital environment.
Instead of fostering growth and understanding, persistent criticism engenders a sense of hopelessness and frustration. To add, this negative communication style not only damages your well-being.
But, it also erodes the foundation of your marital bond. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in breaking the high conflict cycle. You can learn to express your emotional needs in a calm manner. Then, your partner can learn how to be accessible, responsive, and more understanding of your emotional needs. You can also learn how to be more emotionally in tune with your partner’s needs from couples therapy.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional bond and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping you connect emotionally and be emotionally vulnerable, which improves your physical intimacy and sexual connection.
Doing so can reshape this negative cycle and disrupt the high conflict pattern that you are stuck in. Instead of seeing your partner as your enemy, you can fall in love again, handle distressing emotions as a team, and create a high-quality, meaningful marriage.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you improve your emotional expression skills. By talking about emotions and being emotionally vulnerable, you can improve your sex life, rebuild sexual desire, and improve the physical intimacy in your relationship.
Why learn positive skills besides the silent treatment?
The silent treatment, while seemingly a passive response, is a potent weapon in the arsenal of destructive communication. As well, the silent treatment is a tactic creates an emotional void. It leaves your partner on the receiving end feeling isolated and abandoned.
The absence of communication amplifies feelings of rejection and fuels a cycle of withdrawal and avoidance. The silent treatment can endure for extended periods.
To add, the silent treatment intensifies the emotional toll and sowing seeds of resentment that poison your marital connection.
It is crucial to recognize that resorting to anger, defensiveness, criticism, or the silent treatment does not automatically label an individual or their partner as a narcissist.
Instead, these negative communication styles often stem from emotional flooding. Emotional flooding and being triggered emotionally is from past trauma and PTSD responses.
As well, emotional flooding and being triggered emotionally is from past trauma are states of overwhelming emotional arousal. Your rational thought is compromised.
When experiencing emotional flooding and being triggered emotionally, destructive communication becomes common. These states often stem from past trauma. You both may instinctively employ these negative communication mechanisms as a way to cope with the flood of intense emotions. They aren’t a deliberate act of manipulation or control.
Research in neuroscience underscores the impact of emotional flooding on communication. When emotionally flooded, the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, takes over, leading to a fight, flight, or freeze response.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional security and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Being triggered emotionally from past trauma and PTSD hinders the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rational thinking and problem-solving.
In this state, resorting to negative communication styles becomes a default, impulsive reaction to overwhelming emotional experiences.
To mitigate the damage caused by these negative communication styles, couples must cultivate awareness of their triggers and responses. Recognizing the signs of emotional flooding allows for intentional pauses and the creation of a space for reflection. Additionally, developing empathy for your own and your partner’s emotional experiences fosters a compassionate environment where understanding and healing can take place.
Ultimately, breaking the cycle of damaging communication in your high conflict marriage requires commitment and often professional intervention.
Couples therapy, especially approaches like emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT) or Gottman couples therapy, can provide a structured framework for understanding and transforming negative communication patterns. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in helping you eliminate verbal abuse in your fights.
These specialized therapeutic methods at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching guide you and your partner toward healthier interaction styles. After childhood trauma, our couples therapists facilitate you and your partner developing of a secure, emotionally attuned bond.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
High-conflict marriages where you feel distant are characterized by repetitive patterns of negative interactions.
Anger, defensiveness, criticism, and the silent treatment become the default modes of negative communication, creating a toxic atmosphere within your romantic relationship.
To add, the cyclical nature of these dysfunctional behaviors perpetuate a destructive cycle. It leaves both of you feeling trapped, sad, hopeless, alone, and emotionally exhausted.
Often times, you are stuck in a cycle of disconnection, feeling sad and hopeless. One of you yells and the other emotionally avoids and withdraws. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping you connect through your core motions to break this negative cycle.
Deep down, when you feel rejected, you pull away or criticize. Or, when you feel inadequacy or a sense of shame, you withdraw and avoid. Being able to talk about your deeper needs for reassurance is an important in couples therapy. In Gottman marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind, you can let your partner know how much you need reassurance. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching guides you in a structured way, to rebuild emotional intimacy and sexual connection.
What are examples of core needs that Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, can help you discuss?
You might feel insignificant, unimportant, or ignored, under anger issues. For one, you might need to know that you matter to your partner on a deep level. You might feel like you don’t matter, or like your partner prioritizes work over you. Or, you might need to know that your partner also values your marriage and wants to work on growing together.
You can learn to talk about your deeper needs in Gottman therapy and couples counseling with Katie Ziskind. Under anger are deep, core needs, and often needs that linger from childhood trauma wounds. As well, you might need to know that you are special, a priority, and important to your partner. Maybe, you partner is very critical, and bites your head off if you don’t do it right. So, you might need to know that even if you don’t get it right or get it perfect, that your partner can be flexible and playful with you. These are just a few examples.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Are You Both Re-Triggering Unhealed Childhood Wounds In Your Current High Conflict Fights?
Yelling, shouting, negative conflicts, emotional avoidance, and defensiveness escalate marital fights.
The intensity of your high-conflict marriage often arises from the re-triggering of unhealed childhood wounds. Both of you may act in dysfunctional ways when emotionally triggered and flooded.
Yelling and negative conflicts act as barriers to emotional closeness and security. As well, communicating in hurtful ways evokes deep-seated emotional pain from past experiences. You both may unconsciously project your unresolved unmet needs and childhood issues onto each other.
Acting from a state of flight, fight, and freeze in your marital fights actually escalates your conflict. You keep yelling, shouting, and avoiding each other when deep down, you both want comfort and closeness.
Doing so and communicating in dysfunctional ways perpetuates a cycle that mirrors the emotional struggles of your formative years.
When you get stuck in a cycle of criticism kind of a defensiveness, withdrawing, yelling, and the silent treatment, it can be very painful.
You might wonder how you move forward. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, offers hope and playfulness. In marriage therapy, you get a structured method for building connection, bonding, and having more meaningful moments. Improving your emotional bonding will improve your sexual intimacy. Speaking from a place of criticism and struggling with rejection, anger, and avoidance damages your sex life. In order to feel sexually open, you need to feel sexually safe and emotionally connected to your partner. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you rebuild your sex life, talk about sexual fantasies, and celebrate your sexuality.
To have a better sex life and improve your libido, Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, helps you develop positive skills for emotional attunement.
Love making and having sex is so much more than just a physical release. In your marriage, you have a deep longing to be physically intimate and sexually intimate together, and feel closer. But, when you talk about sex or sexual desires with your partner, you feel rejected, sad, and unseen.
Emotional reassurance and emotional expression skills are an important part of repairing intimacy and rebuilding your physical sex life. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you rebuild sexual desire and sexual intimacy, and improve your sexual connection.
Flight, Fight, or Freeze: The Escalation of Conflicts with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching
You and your partner re-trigger each other’s childhood wounds. The instinctual responses of flight, fight, or freeze come to the forefront. Furthermore, flight manifests as avoidance or withdrawal. Fight results in heightened conflict and aggression. And, freeze is marked by emotional shutdown and detachment.
These trauma responses further escalate the intensity of your conflicts, deepening the sense of entrapment, loss, sadness within your marriage.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
In Addition To Gottman Marriage Therapy, How Can Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) Help?
Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you in creating a positive interaction cycle through emotionally focused Couples therapy (EFT), developed by Dr. Sue Johnson. Emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT) focuses on helping you both in breaking dysfunctional, destructive interaction patterns and fostering a calm, close, and secure emotional bond.
Through a structured approach, you both can explore and understand your attachment needs, helping you both express vulnerable emotions and reshape negative cycles.
Emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT) provides a roadmap for creating an emotionally safe, positive interaction cycle. You can both feel emotionally connected, validated, and supported.
Katie Ziskind is a trained Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist. At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in intertwining both of these methods to support you building emotional connection.
Stop the blame game and cycle of vicious, hurtful conflict in marriage therapy specialists at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching
Labeling a partner as a narcissist is often a manifestation of the blame game within a troubled marriage. Such accusations can be damaging and counterproductive, leading to a cycle of defensiveness and resentment. It’s essential to recognize that using diagnostic labels in the context of a relationship oversimplifies complex dynamics and inhibits the potential for growth.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, helps you acknowledges the pitfalls of blame.
You can focus on developing a collaborative approach to improve your romantic relationship.
Gottman’s approach emphasizes the importance of understanding each partner’s perspective. Perceptions of narcissism or other negative traits often arise from unresolved conflicts, unmet needs, or miscommunications.
By exploring these underlying issues, couples can gain insights into the motivations behind certain behaviors, moving away from blame towards a more empathetic understanding of each other’s experiences.
Understand your personal trauma story and triggers with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching
Gottman therapy with Katie Ziskind encourages you both to take ownership of their emotions and triggers.
Accusations of narcissism may stem from triggered emotional wounds or sensitivities. Through guided conversations, Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, helps couples learn to identify their emotional hotspots and take responsibility for their reactions.
This shift from blaming to self-awareness is a crucial step in breaking the blame game cycle.
Central to Katie Ziskind’s approach to couples therapy is the concept of emotional responsiveness.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Partners are encouraged to be attuned to each other’s emotions and respond in a supportive manner. Rather than labeling behavior as narcissistic, the focus shifts to understanding the emotional needs underlying certain actions. This promotes a culture of empathy and responsiveness, creating an environment where both partners feel heard and validated.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in teaching you open communication and vulnerability.
Accusing a partner of narcissism often shuts down dialogue and intensifies defensiveness. In contrast, fostering an environment where both partners feel safe expressing their needs and fears allows for more constructive conversations.
Through guided communication exercises, couples can learn to share their vulnerabilities without resorting to blame or accusations.
Taking turns in expressing concerns and actively listening to each other is a cornerstone of Gottman marriage therapy.
Accusations of narcissism can disrupt this delicate balance, creating an adversarial dynamic. The therapy provides structured exercises that promote active listening. As well, Katie Ziskind ensures that both of you have an opportunity to share your perspectives without judgment. This process encourages mutual understanding and paves the way for collaborative problem-solving.
Gottman’s research has identified the importance of maintaining a positive-to-negative interaction ratio for a healthy relationship. Labeling a partner as a narcissist contributes to a negative atmosphere. The therapy guides couples in cultivating positive interactions, celebrating each other’s strengths, and expressing appreciation.
Gottman marriage counseling helps you develop relationship positivity, which creates a more resilient foundation for addressing your marital conflicts and challenges.
As well, Gottman marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching encourages couples to explore and build shared dreams and meaning in their relationship. Accusations of narcissism often fracture your sense of shared purpose. By reconnecting with shared values, goals, and aspirations, couples in counseling can rekindle their sense of unity and purpose. This process helps transcend blame and contributes to a collaborative mindset focused on joint growth.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Ultimately, Gottman marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching guides couples towards mutual accountability and responsibility. Accusations of narcissism can be reframed as an opportunity for both partners to explore their contributions to the relationship dynamics. You learn to take joint responsibility for your marriage’s well-being.
Katie Ziskind helps couples can work together to create lasting positive change. This means moving beyond blame towards a future of shared growth and understanding.
Gottman Couples Therapy: Building a Secure, Safe, Emotionally Attuned Bond
Drs. John and Julie Gottman’s research-based approach offers practical tools to enhance relationship satisfaction and resolve conflicts. The “Four Horsemen” (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling) are identified as toxic behaviors. At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, our team of therapists help you both replace these dysfunctional communication mechanisms with constructive communication skills.
The Gottman Method at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching emphasizes building a secure bond through trust, commitment, and attunement, enabling couples to navigate conflicts with empathy and understanding.
Breaking free from the chains of your high-conflict marriage cycle is a challenging, but worthwhile, transformative journey.
Also, acknowledging the impact of unhealed childhood wounds on you high conflict fight cycle is key. Understanding your vicious cycle of negative interactions is the first step towards healing.
Gottman Couples Therapy is renowned for its emphasis on identifying and addressing the “Four Horsemen” – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
To note, these negative communication patterns, when left unchecked, contribute significantly to high-conflict relationships. Through thorough assessment and intervention, couples learn to recognize these destructive behaviors and replace them with healthier communication strategies.
What is emotional awareness?
One key aspect of Gottman Therapy involves building emotional awareness and regulation. Couples at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching are guided through exercises that help them identify their emotional states and triggers. By developing a heightened awareness of their emotions, individuals can learn to regulate their reactions in moments of conflict. This is particularly crucial for reducing the intensity of emotional flooding, allowing for more thoughtful and constructive communication.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
How to get better at repair attempts?
Gottman couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching places great emphasis on “repair attempts.” These are gestures or statements aimed at de-escalating tension and reconnecting with your partner. By recognizing and responding positively to repair attempts, couples create a buffer against the destructive impact of conflict. This process helps interrupt negative cycles. And, it encourages the development of positive communication mechanisms. You can learn to do so even in the midst of emotional flooding.
Couples at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching are provided with specific tools and techniques to enhance their communication skills. This includes active listening, expressing needs and concerns assertively, and avoiding criticism or contemptuous language. By practicing these skills, Katie Ziskind helps you both create an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding. Couples counseling is about fostering a foundation for positive interactions even during challenging moments. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping you build mutual understanding and respect for each other.
Why improve fondness and your verbal expression of admiration and appreciation?
Gottman’s approach emphasizes the importance of nurturing fondness and admiration within the relationship. Couples therapy with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching gives you guidance around building emotional connection through appreciation. You learn how to reflect on positive aspects of your partner and express appreciation.
This intentional focus on positive attributes counteracts the detrimental effects of criticism and contempt. Expressing gratitude for your partner is about fostering a more constructive and affirming marital environment.
High conflict couples therapy with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you create shared meaning
Another hallmark of meeting with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, learning how to create shared meaning in your romantic relationship.
You and your partner work together to identify and strengthen shared values. This means talking about goals and rituals that are meaningful to you both. This shared sense of purpose helps build a stronger connection. Creating shared purpose reduces the likelihood of falling into patterns of defensiveness and withdrawal during conflicts.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Do you know your partner’s love map?
Gottman marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind introduces the concept of Love Maps.
Love Maps are a detailed understanding of each partner’s inner world, including dreams, fears, and significant life events. Do you know your partner’s favorite tv show, favorite hobby, relaxation activity, favorite late night snack, or how they like to feel loved?
By enhancing your Love Maps, you both develop a deeper empathy for each other. Developing your Love Maps at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching in Gottman marriage therapy creates a foundation for emotional attunement. This process mitigates the impact of the silent treatment and fosters a secure bond built on trust and understanding. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, support you both and getting to know each other on a deep level.
Though you may be wonderful parents or be very good at running your household, you don’t know each other on an emotionally or sexually intimate level.
How can Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, help you improve your sex life, sexual desire, libido, and physical intimacy?
And, you want to repair your sex life, have regular physical intimacy, and talk about your sexual desires together. You wonder how and why your sex life isn’t good anymore. It makes you sad to think about how sexually rejected you feel. Rebuilding your sex life and sexual intimacy is a positive part of working with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
We all wear a different hats. Your might be really good at your career. And, you may be awesome at paying the bills. But, when it comes to talking about sexual desires, sexual intimacy, and sexual fantasies, this is an area where you need help. You feel upset, rejected, and hurt because your partner doesn’t want to have sex. There has been avoidance, and there has been the cycle of ongoing disconnection. Perhaps, you might be seeking sexual connection as a form of closeness and bonding. But, sadly, your partner has no interest in sex. When you want sex and your spouse is feeling avoidant of sex, it hurts. It also creates an endless cycle, without professional help. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in emotional intimacy skills, and helping you increase sexual intimacy and physical touch in your marriage.
Gottman marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching integrates cognitive-behavioral techniques to challenge and reframe negative thought patterns.
By addressing distorted perceptions and negative attributions, high conflict couples can change their cognitive responses to triggers, reducing the likelihood of resorting to defensiveness, criticism, or stonewalling.
This cognitive restructuring complements the emotional regulation strategies taught in the therapy, creating a comprehensive approach to transforming communication dynamics.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
In conclusion, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, Gottman couples therapy provides a structured and evidence-based framework to help high-conflict couples reduce destructive communication patterns.
Through a combination of awareness-building, emotional regulation, and positive communication skills, you both can break free from the damaging cycles of anger, defensiveness, criticism, and the silent treatment.
Our ultimate goal at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching is to help you foster a secure and emotionally attuned bond. And, a strong, close marriage that helps you navigate challenges and conflicts with calm communication and emotional attunement.
Let’s talk about emotional attunement and how it can help in Gottman marriage counseling.
Gottman couples counseling places a significant emphasis on the concept of emotional attunement. What is this exactly? Well, it is the ability to be tuned in and responsive to one another’s emotional needs. For distant couples navigating the aftermath of childhood abuse, triggering emotions, anger, and arguments struggle with emotional attunement.
Essentially, emotional attunement skills, learned through Gottman marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, becomes a powerful tool for remedying emotional distance.
Katie Ziskind and our marriage therapists help you foster a deeper connection based on mutual understanding, emotional validation tools, and empathy.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Childhood abuse and trauma leave lasting emotional scars that manifest in triggering situations and high conflict fights within your marriage.
As a child, you didn’t have a parent or caregiver that paid attention to your emotional needs. Your a parent or caregiver was not emotionally attuned or emotionally engaged. If anything, your a parent or caregiver it was a narcissistic, avoidant, abusive, challenged your emotions, guilt tripped you, and was distant.
You may have experienced physical abuse, emotional abuse, and high conflict arguments growing up, and you want to break this negative generational pattern. You don’t want to become emotionally and verbally abusive like your parents.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist and emotionally focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in helping you create a safe, calm home environment after childhood trauma.
As well, your caregivers never helps you understand that your feelings mattered. Now, as an adult, childhood trauma history makes it hard to connect with your spouse. Wether your parents were silent and avoided talking about emotions or were high conflict, you didn’t learn healthy emotional attunement skills.
Gottman couples therapy with Katie Ziskind provides a structured environment and safe space where emotional vulnerability is welcomed. Katie Ziskind encourages you to share your deeper emotions, fears, insecurities, losses, and dreams.
By cultivating emotional attunement, you both learn to recognize and respond to each other’s emotional cues. Doing so fosters an atmosphere where you both feel secure enough to share your deepest fears and insecurities.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Break the vicious, hurtful cycle of distance and conflict at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching
To add, triggered emotions, often stemming from past abuse, can spiral into arguments and distance within your romantic relationship and marriage. Emotional attunement skills help break this cycle by promoting awareness of emotional triggers and providing tools to manage them constructively. Couples at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching learn to navigate these triggers with sensitivity.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, Katie Ziskind, your Gottman marriage therapist, creates a pathway towards healing, replacing your current cycle and perpetually destructive communication patterns.
Anger, a common response to triggering situations, will strain your marriage when not addressed constructively.
Gottman therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching equips you and your spouse with emotional intelligence tools to navigate anger.
You can manage anger in a way that promotes understanding rather than escalating conflicts, yelling, or using the silent treatment. By attuning to each other’s emotional states, you can both learn to express and receive anger in a manner that fosters resolution and connection.
As well, empathy is a cornerstone of emotional attunement, and it plays a crucial role in remedying marital distance.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, you both are guided through exercises that enhance your ability to empathize with each other’s experiences.
And, this is especially helpful when your current emotional experiences are rooted in childhood abuse. This empathetic understanding becomes a catalyst for healing, bridging the emotional distance and hurt that has developed over time.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Your current high intensity arguments, are fueled by triggered emotions, often rooted in unmet childhood needs.
Gottman marriage therapy introduces tools to transform arguments into constructive conversations.
Emotional attunement skills allow you and your partner to listen actively, validate each other’s perspectives, and find common ground.
Katie Ziskind help you shift from adversarial interactions to collaborative problem-solving skills. Over time, from marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind, you can work together to create a more emotionally close, connected, and harmonious relationship.
Childhood abuse can erode trust, creating a barrier to closeness in your marriage.
Emotional attunement skills from Gottman marriage counseling help you both rebuild trust by fostering transparent communication and consistent responsiveness to each other’s needs.
As you both become attuned to the nuances of each other’s emotions, a foundation of trust is reestablished.
Increasing trust in Gottman marriage counseling allows for a more intimate connection to blossom, both emotionally and sexually.
Gottman’s research underscores the importance of maintaining a positive-to-negative interaction ratio for a thriving marriage. Emotional attunement skills encourage couples to engage in positive interactions that strengthen their bond.
Whether through shared activities, expressions of affection, or simple acts of kindness, these positive moments contribute to a sense of closeness and intimacy.
Gottman couples counseling with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching not only addresses current challenges but equips couples with emotional resilience for future ones. Emotional attunement becomes a lifelong skill that you both can rely on during times of stress or triggering events.
By developing this resilience, you both become equipped to navigate the complexities of your emotional triggers. Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, helps you foster a lasting closeness that withstands the tests of time.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Let’s Talk About The Link Between Emotional Intimacy and Sexual Desire
Emotional intimacy is something we never learn growing up or in school As well, emotional intimacy serves as a foundation for a thriving sexual relationship. Couples counseling, particularly with the guidance of approaches like Gottman marriage therapy, facilitates the development of emotional intimacy skills.
Anger is a surface emotions. Instead, engaging in open conversations about fears, deeper emotions, and insecurities creates a deeper emotional bond, positively impacting sexual desire, libido, and connection.
Couples often hesitate to express their desires and fears, especially in the realm of sexual intimacy. You might feel embarrassed, shameful, guilty, anxious, or more to talk about sex and intimacy. Through marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind, you are encouraged to communicate openly about your desires and fears.
Talking about sex creating an atmosphere of trust and understanding. To add, this emotional transparency promotes emotional intimacy. And, it allows you both to address concerns and nurture a more fulfilling, pleasurable, and satisfying sexual connection.
Emotional vulnerability is a key component of libido, sexual desire, and physical intimacy.
Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind offers a safe space for you and your partner to be emotionally vulnerable with each other. This vulnerability helps break down inhibitions, fostering a more authentic connection that extends into the realm of sexual intimacy.
To add, the ability to express your true self contributes to a more satisfying, pleasurable, safe, and harmonious sexual relationship.
Insecurities can significantly impact sexual desire and satisfaction. Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind provides a platform for partners to address and work through insecurities collaboratively.
By acknowledging and validating each other’s concerns, couples can enhance self-esteem and create an environment that supports a healthier sexual connection.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Learn To Build Emotional Trust for Sexual Intimacy and Sexual Pleasure
Emotional intimacy builds a foundation of trust, a crucial element for sexual intimacy. Couples learn to trust and be trusted with their deepest emotions and vulnerabilities during counseling.
This trust extends into the bedroom, creating an environment where both partners feel safe to explore and express their desires, leading to improved sexual intimacy.
Emotional intimacy builds a foundation of trust, a crucial element for sexual intimacy. Couples learn to trust and be trusted with their deepest emotions and vulnerabilities during counseling.
Couples therapy with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching encourages both of you to explore your emotional depths, which directly improve sexual libido and sexual intimacy.
This trust extends into the bedroom, creating an environment where both partners feel safe to explore and express their desires, leading to improved sexual intimacy.
This means delving into emotional areas that may have been previously untouched.
Understanding each other’s emotional landscapes creates a deeper connection that naturally extends to sexual intimacy. Exploring these emotional depths enhances the overall richness and satisfaction of the sexual relationship.
Improving Libido and Sexual Intimacy Through Emotional Connection
Libido, often influenced by emotional and psychological factors, can be positively impacted by developing emotional intimacy skills. As you both become more attuned to each other’s emotional needs, a sense of closeness and connection grows, positively influencing libido.
To note, your emotional connection becomes a powerful motivator for physical intimacy and sexual connection.
Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind guides you both through exercises and discussions aimed at enhancing emotional intimacy. From practicing active listening to sharing fantasies and desires, these activities contribute to a more fulfilling, pleasurable, and erotic sex life.
Essentially, emotional intimacy becomes a catalyst for greater satisfaction, passion, pleasure, and connection in the bedroom.
Emotional intimacy is not a one-time achievement but a continuous process of exploration and connection.
Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind instills the importance of ongoing emotional exploration, ensuring that you both remain attuned to each other’s evolving emotional and sexual needs as well as sexual desires.
This sustained emotional connection in couples therapy lays the groundwork for your lasting and fulfilling sexual relationship.
To begin, click below to book your phone consult to improve your emotional and sexual intimacy and work with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Emotionally Focused couples counseling and Gottman couples therapy are specialities at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching.
Our team of emotionally focused couples therapists and Gottman marriage counselors offer tailored methodologies to guide you and your partner through rebuilding trust, connection, and emotional safety.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, supports you in becoming emotionally vulnerable. During this process, you can shift into learning positive interaction cycles, helping you both in building secure, emotionally attuned bond.
By understanding the childhood trauma roots of your high conflict fights, you both can learn to expressing vulnerable emotions.
Under anger and frustration are feelings of sadness, grief, betrayal, loneliness, hurt, and inferiority.
Talking about core, deeper emotions is what Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching helps you do openly.
Marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind helps you cultivate empathy for each other as well as express fondness, appreciation, love, and admiration.
Identifying core emotions, underneath reactive emotions are key in centering, grounding, and speaking respectfully to each another. Respect is essential in building a secure connection and positive cycle. “Hurt people, hurt people.”
For example, feeling hurt, ignored, jealous, insecurity, inadequate, rejected, insignificant, sad, fear, shame, regret, or betrayed may come out as hostility and anger through a condescending tone and harsh criticism.
Then, when you feel “talked down to,” you may shut down and feel resentful, triggering your spouse. Instead of reacting in an emotionally hurtful and potentially emotionally hurtful way in your romantic relationship when upset, sharing and verbalizing your core emotions supports better communication skills. And, you can team up to create a more secure, emotionally safe connection, improving sexual intimacy.
Until starting with Katie Ziskind, Gottman couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, try these journal prompts:
When I feel upset, out of emotional pain, I yell, interrupt, name call, or:
My softer, core emotions deep down during my anger are (ie, rejected, inadequate, jealous, sad, ect):
Instead of yelling and saying something hurtful back to my loved one, or ____________________ I can be vulnerable and share my core feeling by saying, I feel:
Deep down, I can express my desire for comfort, emotional closeness, and reassurance from my loved one rather than displays of anger by:
Some positive coping strategies I can use to shift away from self-protection and into emotional regulation and vulnerability with my loved one are:
Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching specializes in helping high conflict couples can work to break their destructive cycles.
Without professional help, your vicious cycle will trap you and and prevent you from bonding. From Gottman therapy and emotionally focused couples counseling with Katie Ziskind, you can embark on a path towards a more fulfilling, connected, meaningful, and resilient relationship.
