Posted by: ellyn
on Nov 22, 2010
So, after several months of us working with a single session with Tom and Vicky, I am now posting the final section of this transcript. Before reading it you might want to review last month’s post and some of the insightful comments by your colleagues.
We begin this section with only about 10 minutes left in the session. Until this point, much of the focus has been on Tom. Now, I want to check in and work with Vicky before the session ends.
I step partially out of the Initiator-Inquirer framework. I don’t know Vicky very well yet and I want to understand her more completely.
• How does she respond to Tom’s attack?
• Is she afraid or angry?
• How rigid are her defenses?
Posted by: ellyn
on Oct 1, 2010
When you are doing Initiator-Inquirer sessions, be sure to watch how partners function in their assigned roles. The combination of the role and each partner's functioning will give you a clear insight into each partner's level of differentiation. You will see where each person breaks down and you will also be able to locate past trauma that is being re-enacted in the current relationship.
Today's blog post is a continuation of the session with Vicki and Tom.
This session originally began with a blaming initiation from Tom. "I am sick of being controlled by you. You want to control my whole life. You leave no area untouched." I started by helping Vicki ask Tom questions to uncover his feelings and perceptions that were unexpressed while he blamed her for being controlling.
She initially had difficulty not personalizing his issues, but she was able to take some of my developmental assists and use them to ask a few effective questions. At the very end of last month's post a lot happened very, very quickly. This is common when you are working simultaneously with core issues in each partner.
Tom began to regress as I commented on how much he disliked feeling helpless and especially how much he disliked it with his wife. Vicki also took a step backwards and again self-referenced. "I don't want you to feel that way. But can't you understand this isn't about what I am doing?"
As you'll see in the next part of the transcript, this resulted in Tom striking back with hostility, "I don't need an intellectualizing lecture from you right now." And now you have multiple choices, which is where the art and science of the Initiator-Inquirer process comes in. You could:
- Support Tom's regression
- Give more developmental assistance to Vicki in her role as Inquirer, so she personalizes less
- Confront the nastiness and hostility in Tom's response to her
- Try to do as much of all three of these as possible
Posted by: ellyn
on Sep 9, 2010
I am thrilled by how many of you took time to think about the transcript I posted last month. I enjoyed reading your perspectives and seeing your comments about my interventions. Before giving you the second section of the transcript, I want to reflect first on some of the questions and comments.
A very good, old friend from Belgium wrote and said that it was hard to understand the true meaning of each role. So, let's start there.
The initiator is the person who takes action and raises an issue first. The initiating partner brings a topic to the attention of both people in the couple. Initiation can be very passive and undifferentiated or it can be very active and well defined. However, either way the initiator is the one who experiences some tension and brings the stress to the attention of both people.
Stress can be positive or negative. It can be tension that shows desire to move towards positive growth or change in the relationship. The stress may also occur because:
- A partner is having old issues or trauma triggered
- A partner feels like a victim, gets angry and remains mostly passive
- A partner is tired, hungry, overloaded or overwhelmed and starts to regress
- A partner recognizes an arena where there is significant disagreement and wants to negotiate a good solution
Posted by: ellyn
on Aug 17, 2010
For this month’s blog/newsletter, I am giving you part of a transcript from an Initiator-Inquirer session. It is about working with control struggles, improving couple’s communication, and what that means on a deeper level. This session was very rich in learning, so I am going to break it down into several posts. I’d like you to comment on what you see me doing and on anything you learn from reading this portion of the session. Then in a few weeks I will give you the next section.
Vicky and Tom have been married for eight years and in business together for two years. He is 36 and she is 37. They came to therapy because they had been fighting, power struggling and getting nowhere on their own. This session began with Tom being very angry. I listened to each of them for a few minutes and then asked them to move into the Initiator-Inquirer process, which I had taught them recently.
Initiator-Inquirer session begins with Tom as an Initiator feeling very angry with Vicky.
