Longing for Dad: Resolving Father Loss

This weekend for two days, a young man with whom I have been consulting by phone for the last couple of months is flying to Minneapolis from the East Coast to work with me. He found me when his mother spotted my book Longing for Dad: Father Loss and Its Impact and purchased a copy for both of them.

My client’s father had been ill with cancer for a year, but my client, who was then 15, wasn’t told of his father’s condition until a week before his death. This gave my client no opportunity to say good-bye to his beloved father. And worse still, his mother left him on his own after her husband’s death because, she admits, he was having a hard time and she didn’t know what to do. So there he was, trying to make sense of this traumatic experience all on his own. Yes, his mother brought him to a therapist for 2 or 3 sessions, but the therapist didn’t know what to do with him, either. So all his grief went down inside.

In essence, he lost both of his parents when the father died.

He recalls having tears once. He sobbed on his sister’s shoulder for a few seconds at the graveside until he could regain his composure. He then stuffed all his feelings down inside.

When he initially called to begin work with me, he was extremely depressed and, by his own admission, lost. His being clueless about how he felt translated to his being virtually paralyzed when it came to relating to women or knowing what he truly wanted to be when he grew up.

Although we made much progress in our phone appointments, I was delighted for him when he requested to come to Minneapolis to work face-to-face with me on the extremely arduous task of resolving his father’s death. He had been left alone with it for so long, that I interpreted this request as a giant step forward toward his being willing to trust and to ask for what he needed.

I have spoken with his mother three times. Now, in retrospect, she wishes she had been more assertive in breaking down her son’s protective shield and protecting him herself. Surely, this would have helped him with his skittishness with women. Undoubtedly, she was grieving and adjusting to being a widow herself. However, what a difference it would have made for her son if she had been more effective in protecting him and talking with him at the time.

Parents, please do not leave your children on their own to make sense of life’s traumas. They don’t have the cognitive machinery to do so until they are at least sixteen, according to the great Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. And they need your support and constancy, then more than ever. If you don’t know what to say to them, just sit with them. Ask how they are feeling and how you can help. Above all, don’t abandon them. Just being there for and with them is an elegantly simple balm.

Would You Please Be My Messenger?

Just today I received this comment on my Blog. “I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.” Lucy

Thank you Lucy for posting your comment. I truly appreciate knowing that my message has been received. My goal is to help make every reader’s life happier, more successful, and every relationship better and more fulfilling.

Lucy's comment was posted on a Blog Post from November 2008, so I am sure this lady had scrolled through several postings before leaving me this comment. Whether you are a faithful reader or simply a periodic visitor to this Blog site I sincerely hope you have been enlightened, entertained, educated or simply amused by my postings.

Lucy and every person who reads these posts, I have a special favor to ask of you. I do not know if your own email address book has one address or thousands of addresses but once you have read these posts and have like Lucy “enjoyed reading them” and believe this is a blog worth “visiting often” would you send the link to access my blog http://drbetherickson.blogspot.com/ to your list with an invitation to visit. The recommendation of someone known by each of us carries great weight.

If you believe as I do that my message is important, I ask you be my messenger to help get the word out about my blog. I will be forever grateful.

Dedicated to your Health and Happiness.

Dr. Beth

Finding Love

It took my husband and me decades to find each other. We each had been married, divorced, remarried, and divorced again when we finally found each other. Having been around the block and then around it again by the time we met, we knew what we were looking for.

We both sensed even before we actually met our search was over. Even my 17 year-old great nephew could see. He told his mom after he had met Paul, “Aunt Bethie sure got it right this time, didn’t she?”

Paul and I each had at times despaired of ever finding the love of our lives. But we never gave up. And you shouldn't, either.

Our first date was magical. I walked into the mostly full restaurant where we were to meet and walked directly over to him. Before we said a word, we hugged. And the rest, as they say, is history. We talked about marriage on our first date, but we gave ourselves six months to live together, just to be really confident in our choice.

What made us so confident? All of our experiences with dating and marriage had been the school of hard knocks that taught us about ourselves and what we were seeking. Each time a relationship went south, regardless of who initiated the breakup, we had practiced and learned. And best of all, we loved. All of this was priceless, if disappointing,knowledge.

What is the best favor you can do for yourself if you are single and starting over? Remain open- hearted. Of course, you need to go into a new relationship with your eyes open as well. But don’t be afraid to be loving. You will learn the most about yourself when you do.

The other favor you can do for yourself is to learn as much as you can about yourself and what makes you tick. About your contribution to the relationship disappointments you have experienced. About your defenses and how you protect yourself that gets in the way of giving and receiving love. About your dysfunctional patterns that limit your success in relationships. And about the partners you have chosen, you can see with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that virtually guaranteed the your relationship(s) wouldn't work. In other words, instead of blaming your partner(s), identify your contributions to the demise of each relationship have been in.

And don’t wait. Volunteer. Start a book club or a gourmet club. Be busy with other people and activities that are soul food for you. Take art, cooking or singing lessons. Go on vacations with friends or family. If you think of this period as waiting, you will be impatient and prone to making a mistake just to end the waiting and feel like you have some control.

And most of all, make a decision. Decide that you have no intention of remaining alone for the rest of your life. And then commit to remaining open to new possibilities.

Who knows. You may receive a visit from Cupid this season of love. And if you don’t and in order to salve your loneliness, hire a competent relationship therapist or consultant who can help you make sure you get out of your own way while providing support in this very important interim of incubation.

A Blueprint To Assess the Viability of Your Relationship

Last night’s teleconference on deciding whether to go or to stay in a relationship was an animated conversation indeed. In it, I was asked to create a kind of checklist for assessing the health and viability of relationships. Although I hesitate to reduce this major life dilemma down to a checklist, I acknowledge that people have different learning styles. So I agreed to take up the challenge of attempting to delineate some questions to ask yourself as you struggle to resolve this life-changing question. I don't have to tell people who wrestle with this question that either way they decide, their life will be forever changed.

At the risk of stating the obvious, no relationship is all good or all bad. Rather, successful relationships contain relative strengths and weaknesses. So as you answer these questions about your current relationship or do a postmortem on a prior one, keep in mind that most relationship attributes are neither all or nothing.

Please fill in the blank with numbers ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being not very much and 5 being nearly always.

_____ 1. Is there reciprocity, give and take, in the relationship?
_____ 2. Do you work together to solve problems?
_____ 3. Do you enjoy being with each other?
_____ 4. Do you laugh and have fun together?
_____ 5. Do you each seek to understand your partner’s feelings?
_____ 6. Do you feel understood?
_____ 7.Do you respect each other’s opinions and perspectives, even when you disagree?
_____ 8. Do you want similar things out of life?
_____ 9. Are you both willing to compromise, rather than insisting on having your own way?
_____ 10.Do you feel safe expressing your feelings and needs?
_____ 11.Do you respect each other?
_____ 13.Do you look out for each other?
_____ 14.Do you trust each other?
_____ 15.Do you feel like your partner has your back?
_____ 16.Do you like your partner?
_____ 17.Is there a minimum of blame in your relationship?
_____ 18.Are your feelings and needs respected?
_____ 19.Do you and your partner operate as a functional united front, especially regarding children?
_____ 20. Do you feel treasured by your partner as you treasure him/her?

When you have completed this self-test, study your responses. Were you surprised by any of your answers? If your spouse or partner had completed this self-assessment tool, in what ways might his/her answers be similar? different? What can you infer from this self-assessment tool about the strengths in your relationship? the work areas in your relationship?

If you wish to have my help in working with the results of this survey, please remember that I offer a complimentary consultation. Just call my toll free number (888-546-1580) to arrange it. And please keep in mind that I also offer relationship coaching and consultation.

What Makes People Resilient?

I am blessed to have two friends who have severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Of course, neither of them would go so far as to consider their steadily deteriorating health a blessing. But they each have managed to maintain their optimism, good humor and grace in the face of this horribly daunting illness. Both live the bulk of their lives in wheel chairs. Each is losing his eyesight, with one already having been declared legally blind. Yet they still face each day with a gusto that I wonder if I would have if I were in their situation.

What makes people resilient? Is it innate? Or is it cultivated? That’s the age-old nature vs. nurture question. I think the answer is “Yes. It’s both.”

I consider myself to be very resilient. In part, because of my native intelligence. I’m no genius, but I have devoted my adult life to doing the best I can with the “horsepower” I have been given and to help others do the same. And in part because my mother actively cultivated our resilience by her words and by her role model. After Daddy died, Mama was a widow at 48, left on her own to raise the last four of us kids. I never once doubted she would take care of us. And she managed. Both her counsel and her example advised us to “Make the best of it” regardless of situations we faced, whether it was getting a C on an Algebra test or a boyfriend breaking up with us.

What has made my friends with MS so adaptive and unflappable? First, I need to say that clearly, they both have their bad days, just like the rest of us do. But they have learned how to think of and care for others, not merely dwelling on their own miseries. I am humbled to say that I regularly am the beneficiary of their kindness and good humor. They both consciously avoid having a “poor me” attitude. Although each confides in me, it is to get my help and perspective, rather than out of a “pity party.” They are good, helpful, pleasant friends whom I am blessed to have in my life.

How can adults instill resilience in children? Perhaps the most important way is to put their children in situations that are mildly taxing. For example, it is challenging enough to learn to play the piano. I started taking lessons at age seven and continued for ten years even into college. Having to play the piano at a recital was taxing. But it was do-able. I just had to get a grip and do it. Another way is not accepting slap dash efforts children make. When I taught English in high school, I had a student who had just completed a year’s inpatient hospitalization for depression. On the first day of school, I assigned a short paper to be handed in the next day. This student approached me after class to tell me she had not completed her assignment because she had been psychiatrically hospitalized the year before. My response was one she said later she’ll never forget. “So? What does that have to do with your not handing in your assignment?” You can be sure she was not late with an assignment for the rest of the year.

What adults should not do if their intention is to build resilience in children is to not praise each and every little thing a child does with the ubiquitous, “Good job!” For example, my husband and I went to a conservatory last spring so he could engage in his favorite hobby of photographing flowers. On a trip to the rest room, I noticed a mother supervising her 4 or 5 year-old daughter’s hand washing. When the child on tiptoes turned off the water, the mother pronounced, “Good job!” I wondered to myself a) What was such a good job about doing a routine activity like washing her hands after using the bathroom? and B) What would the mother have left to say when the child brought home an A on a report for Social Studies or English? “Good job” by that time would surely seem to the child to be lame.

If everything children do yields a gratuitous “Good job!” they learn two things: 1) to be praise junkies dependent on gratuitous words of others in order to function; and 2) to expect praise from others, rather than establishing their own internal gauge for a job well done.

How Do Coaching and Therapy Compare?

It seems like there are getting to be relationship coaches everywhere you turn. With little or no training, many entrepreneurs decide to call themselves coaches. They hang out their proverbial shingle and begin trolling for clients. Many say they specialize in coaching people in marriage improvement, having no more expertise than being divorced themselves.

What is coaching, anyway? How is that different from psychotherapy? How do you know when you need therapy?

Generally speaking, coaching tends to focus on the present and future. A coach’s main action will be to help you identify action steps you need to take and see to it that you carry them out. For example, if you intend to start a business, a coach will ask you to figure out your top five goals and the strategies you need to employ to carry them out. Your coach’s main function then will be to hold you accountable for carrying them out.

On the other hand, sometimes you need the training and expertise of a therapist. The primary way in which coaching and therapy differ is in depth. For example, if you have anger or depression issues that haunt your everyday life, a therapist would help you explore and unpack the roots of those issues. Freedom comes in understanding those roots and how they are still affecting you. This knowledge gives you options, rather than simply knee-jerk reacting to situations that trigger your obsolete ways of responding.

For example, I am working by phone with a young man from Massachusetts whose father died of cancer when my client was fifteen years old. To make matters worse, neither of his parents told him about his dad’s illness and impending death. So he was in total shock when his father died. And he was angry, too. In an attempt to cope on his own, he withdrew from his friends, sports, the rest of his family, and the world. And that is where he had stayed, until he began working with me. Needless to say, his isolating himself severely compromised his social development, which was my secondary concern, once we had emotionally buried his dad. His work included a trip to Minneapolis so he could literally put an end to his isolation.

It is easy to see, then, that psychotherapy goes way beyond the scope of coaching. Clearly, there is a place for both modalities in helping people to make changes in their lives. However, if you find yourself repeating the same mistakes or unhelpful responses to life, you would be wise to seek the services of a competent, well-trained psychotherapist with whom you have good chemistry. Whom you choose for your therapist is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life. So choose carefully and wisely.

If you wish to have further clarification about the similarities and differences, feel free to contact me at my toll-free number, which is 888-546-1580.

I’d Love Your Input

Most people this time of year intend to start the new year right. For some people, that means examining the validity of their intimate relationship. Knowing whether to stay or go takes on even greater urgency as they contemplate their life and the new year.

What do they want and need to do in the new year and decade? I suspect, at least partially in response to folks already pondering this question, something interesting has come up.

Over the last several weeks, I have received a series of questions from people in my online caring community, requesting my feedback on how and when to know that it’s time to leave a relationship.

I have blogged my answers to that question. People have commented on my blog. And still the questions come in.

Here’s how I need your input.

I am considering doing a special private, exclusive conference call to give people my insights as they struggle with this life-changing question. Whichever fork in the road they decide to take, their life will be different.

Of course, I can’t – nor would I – advise people about whether to go or to stay.

And having been divorced myself, I place no judgment whatsoever on people who choose to divorce. Or to stay, for that matter.

And I know from both my personal and professional experience, life’s questions don’t come any
bigger than this! The weight of this conundrum only increases when there are children whose lives will be impacted for the rest of their lives, for better and for worse, by their parent's decision.

Is hearing my thoughts on this vital topic something you would be interested in?

If I offer such a call, you would attend?

If yes, please send an e-mail to me at drbetherickson@aol.com indicating your interest in participating. If there is sufficient interest in such a call, I will schedule it and send you information about it very soon.

Don’t forget. I offer a complimentary consultation on any relationship or personal issue you are struggling with. Just call my toll free number (888-546-1580)to schedule your consultation.