Managing Toxic Colleagues
Unfortunately, co-workers and colleagues that could be hazardous do not come with a warning label. For example, maybe it would have helped if you knew excessive lunch with William could lead to decreased performance, poor evaluations, and possible termination. In the...
How to Successfully Cope After a Relationship Breakup
It can be extremely difficult to successfully cope after a relationship breakup. A broken heart actually can, physically, hurt. Similar to physical pain, the somatosensory cortex (controlling sensations that may occur anywhere in the body) may be activated when processing emotional pain (Kross, Berman, Mischel, & Wagner 2011). This may explain why the ending of a relationship is often a catalyst for people to seek out psychotherapy. Ironically, instead of feeling more relief after discussing the dissolution of a relationship with a psychotherapist. many people actually feel worse. Why does this occur? How do you successfully cope after a relationship breakup.
Relationship Break-Ups and Negative Relationship Patterns
Relationship breakups often are often part of a negative relationship pattern. Research suggests that a couple days after Valentine’s Day is the most popular time for relationship breakups to occur according to Facebook status changes.
This research feels accurate as I have the most website visits during the month of February (according to my Google analytics) and new client phone calls. Coincidence? Maybe. Nonetheless, during this time (February) many of my clients describe disappointment, sadness and confusion as they try to understand and mend a broken heart from a breakup.
Although it is interesting to speculate on the pattern of when breakups occur, I believe it is more relevant to understand why people keep repeating negative relationship patterns. I have some explanations drawing from clinical anecdotes, psychological theory and research.