Calling it Quits Too Soon

Couples today experience a multitude of stressors that compound existing marital conflict that often makes the idea of calling it quits seem appealing. Of course most couples are not quick to dissolve a marriage without at least entertaining some solutions even if they seem to repetitively miss the mark. Yet many others have little tolerance for the inevitable conflict that has the potential to create a deeper connection between couples.

Bryon Remo, M.Ed.,notes that couples who exhaust their options prior to choosing to part are often better positioned emotionally to accept their decision moving forward. When a couple decides to separate or divorce with little attempt at intervention they typically report feeling a sense of guilt or seller's remorse at not having done everything they can to save their marriage.

Many couples wait to seek counseling once their relationship is already beyond repair. Seeing a therapist when one has already checked out is sometimes a way to clear one's conscience when it could be an opportunity to hit a marital reset button and start anew. Not all relationships should be presevered, especially those in which chronic abuse or neglect may exist. However, Remo suggests that calling it quits too soon disallows couples the ability to learn what could not only be saved, but also something wonderful disquised within the mask of frustration.


Bryon Remo, LMFT, M.Ed, practices in Southbury, CT and specializes in working with couples and challenging adolescent issues.

The Importance of Treating Depression

Depression is like a dark hole that threatens to swallow a person. Plagued by overwhelming sadness, wearied from responsibilities and unable to find pleasure in normal activities, a depression sufferer often feels paralyzed. Professional help is needed to prevent the sufferer from losing his job, turning away from family or quitting life.

People of all ages suffer from depression. Men, women and children can feel the effects of sadness and fatigue in their daily lives.According to Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT, who practices in Southbury, Connecticut, depression can be quite manageable, but if left untreated can overwhelm a person's entire life. Depression primarily manifests itself through withdrawal, lethargy, disinterest, sadness or anger. The specific symptoms and depth of feelings differ between patients.

While depression may debilitate a person, it can be treated with therapy. After recognizing the symptoms of depression, a patient who agrees to undergo counseling can discover the sources of the dark feelings. He or she can move toward healing with helpful techniques suggested during counseling.

Remo notes that because everyone’s depression symptoms are different, a therapist creates a customized plan for each patient. In addition to medication, social support, nutrition, exercise and stress reduction help a patient manage depression symptoms.

In some cases, depression may be caused by an underlying medical condition. Underactive thyroid or medication interaction mimics depression. A professional therapist can diagnose the source of depression, prescribe a successful plan of action, and bring healing and hope to each patient.

Identifying an effective therapist makes the difference between finding healing and staying stuck. When choosing a professional therapist, look for a caring and supportive listener who connects personally with the patient. Clients are not looking for a book smart psychologist void of any emotional connectedness. They want to feel understood and cared for.

Depression affects thousands of patients each year. Instead of suffering with the sadness and fatigue, seek help. Find answers and healing with professional therapy assistance, and move forward with life.

Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT, specializes in working with couples and challenging adolescent issues.

He serves the communities of Southbury, West Hartford, Oxford, Watertown, Monroe, Seymour, Roxbury, Naugatuck, Woodbury, Bridgewater,Thomaston and Danbury.

Bryon Remo Primer on Creating a New Experience for Teens in Therapy

Not surprisingly, teens are often the most difficult population to try and get into the counseling office.

It is not so much that they have little to say, it is that they have an erroneous perspective as to what effective therapy can look like. According to Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT, who specializes in working with teenagers in Connecticut, teens are looking for a different experience than what predominately exists. Sure therapists all offer a safe, confidential and supportive environment; that is par for the course. But today's teenagers are looking for a therapy experience that is much more honest and "real" than previously occurred. This means that they desperately want to know that a therapist "gets it."

Teens do not want to attend therapy in many ways because they do not believe a therapist will truly remain unbiased. According to Remo, teens are also worrried that they are going to be grilled with endless questions prompting them to open up in ways they are not ready for. It is important that teens feel that their view of the world is understood before they can be challenged to consider an alternative perspective.

Too often today parents want to see change quickly in their adolescents and assume the therapist will wave the magic wand that brings about such dramatic change. And although therapists have many tools at their disposal it is the relationship that always trumps the interventions in order of importancy. Teens need to know that they are fully accepted.

According to Bryon Remo, teenagers today want to know that they are not going to have to be so appropriate in therapy. They do not want to have to monitor each word that comes off their lips for fear of being judged as being inappropriate. When a therapist is able to speak the language of a teenager it does not suggest an endorsement of behavior unbecoming, but rather an acknowledgement that their style of communicating is recognizable and workable to the therapist. A therapist needn't be "cool" to connect well with kids, he/she just needs to know what's really on their radar.

Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT is a licensed marital and family therapist practicing in Southbury, CT. He specializes in couples closeness and challenging adolescent issues. He serves Southbury,Watertown, Oxford, Monroe, Seymour, West Hartford, Naugatuck, Farmington,Thomaston and Southington, CT.

Creating the Right Energy for a Healthy Divorce

Bryon Remo Primer on a Healthy Divorce

For long couples have stayed married for fear of harming their children, being alone, having their financial efforts crumble or avoiding ugly litigation that does further damage. Many parents do not realize that there are alternative ways to proceed during a divorce that has an outcome that is healing and helpful in moving forward.

Bryon Remo, a licensed marital and family therapist, notes that couples who long for a healthy divorce recognize that divorce should not be reduced to the pursuit of meeting one’s own needs and avoiding getting “screwed” as much as possible. Instead, it can be a collaborative and soul-searching process in which both parties realize that they needn’t be defined by their divorce. It can be shaped by the positive energy they put into creating a peaceful and empowering outcome. According to Remo, when couples recognize that their kindness and unselfishness empowers them, they often begin to feel a sense of confidence that divorce needn’t feel so ugly. Couples who use their divorce as an instrument for their own personal change often emerge on the other side a better person, parent and partner to their once spouse.To get to that end require a willingness to change old thought habits.

Bryon Remo suggests that couples who reinvent their relationship are able to do so because they use their painful past to assist their desired present. They come to understand hurtful words not merely as weapons but as information informing them of what’s still unfinished in their mindset. Creating a healthy divorce means caring about the process more that perhaps having ever cared about the marriage. Although this may sound odd, there is a need to use the process of divorce as a vehicle toward growth, not something that needs to be done as quickly as painlessly as possible. Remo further suggests that emotions serve as a source of illuminating what is needed in the process. Couples therapy can often help those pursuing divorce recognize that they can each truly find their best self through the process, not after its completion.

Bryon Remo is licensed marital and family therapist specializes in couples and adolescent issues. He practices in the Southbury, Connecticut area.When Bryon is not supporting families he is typically enjoying his own family, hiking, playing tennis, and performing stand-up comedy.

To learn more about Bryon Remo’s work go to the following links:

http://www.ctfamilycounseling.com/bryon_remo_index.html
http://www.bryonremo.blogspot.com/
http://bryonremo.wordpress.com/
http://bryonremo.weebly.com/
http://workface.com/e/bryonremo
http://bigsight.org/bryon_remo

Couples That Understand the Benefit of Silence

After a stressful day at work including endless traffic jams to endure before arriving home, talking is sometimes the last thing of interest to a mentally beaten down spouse. The couch, pillow, wine and a soft shoulder is what the doctor orders for these days.

These are the days that don't always seem to make sense and may seem to lack purpose. Is it really possible that your 20 minute grinder was the only reprieve from a day filled with annoying requests, annoying people and annoying everything else?

The return home on these days is a reminder of how home is the great escape, the sanctuary, the place of tranquility; where sanity can be restored. There is not always a need to process the day with one's spouse, especially if the day...well, sucked. A better intervention may simply be a state of quiet nothingness- no words, no thoughts, just being. A little pinot noir could be useful, but going backwards in dialogue does not always bring relief to the anguished partner. Spouses who have a keen pulse on their partner's needs can often sniff out the day's tension without having to prod. This 6th sense brings much relief to the spouse who merely wants to pretend he/she is not employed, if only for a moment.

Relationships often ebb and flow according to the ability of a coupleship to gauge what's needed at a given point in time. Whether a couple is married, dating or courting, there is a mental plugging in that allows these couples to stay conscious of each other's needs without having to say much at all; sometimes even nothing.

Bryon Remo is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in Southbury, CT.

Slow the Earth Down!

When I wake up each day and check my email, twitter, linkedin and facebook accounts,I'm often confused as to what level any of it matters. And although I know it has some business and personal relevance, I sometimes find myself questioning at the expense of what else?

 I decided long ago that I was not going to plant my children in front of the television simply so that I can get tasks done. I have, however, at times found myself cheating on that goal as I justify some shows as educationally based. Yet each time I measure my little children on the pencil-marked wallpaper that gauges their height, I realize how quickly time truly passes.

  Most people would agree that balancing one’s time is an essential ingredient to personal happiness. As a daytime dad, and evening therapist,though, I often find myself immersed in "playland "or enthralled in "problemville," with little in between. It is the online connections that often feel like a nice retreat from both. This isn’t to suggest that I don’t find pleasure in both my children and work, as my kids are so much joy and my work is satisfying. It’s that some adult social time is needed to feel a sense of connectedness to big people, with mature minds, who understand the challenges of being a parent and professional in today’s world.

This generation feels like it is moving at the actual speed of the earth (1,040 miles per hour). In stories I’ve had with my parents and others from past generations they did not experience this crazy pace. Yet as the world turns and time passes it is remembering to stay truly connected to those that matter most. There is no need to feel guilt by stealing some me-time periodically. But this assumes that when we are with the ones we love we are truly WITH with the one’s we love; and not thinking about the next tweet, text, connection, friend, like or group that surrounds our real lives. Our real lives may someday include our virtual lives….for real! But until then and always,”Be wherever you are!”

Maintaining Closeness With Little Free Time

If you live outside of Fairfield County, CT or Orange County, NY, and happen to commute to NYC each day, there is a great chance that you and the person you love do not spend the kind of time together you had imagined when daydreaming on the beach. Spending nearly 4 hours in some mode of transportation each day challenges couples to come up with creative ways to stay connected. And, to be sure, there are numerous ways to communicate (i.e. cellphones & social media); but none have the same feel as when you are in the presence and embrace of your lover.

Couples, therefore, have to invent ways to maintain closeness where little free time exists. It is not, however, as if time does not exist. It is how time is delegated despite its limited amount. Although there are some professions that are more demanding than others, those with limited time must maximize that which they have access to. For example, each morning there is an opportunity to set the alarm clock 15 minutes earlier for brief, but loving intimacy, chatter or coffee with your spouse. Not much, I know, but in creating sustaining relationships, it is often the small experiences that represents the glue which keeps love alive despite the race against the clock. When entering the door, there is often a need to decompress. This can be done through taking a hottub, watching t.v., checking emails, surfing the net, eating, etc. Or........connecting with your partner. And perhaps doing any of the above with them. Again, little time, but it is a choice how that time will look and feel.

It would seem essential for couples where one dwells in a vehicle for 1/10 of his or her existence  to take care of one's health, to allow for the energy needed to stay truly present when arriving home after dinner hours. If life is reduced to work, whereby post-work becomes the "tired hours," then little closeness is likely to take place. Research shows that adults who exercise on a regular basis and maintain quality nutrition typically require less sleep than their counterparts. This adds up to free time with one's partner where others may already be snoring.

I am always interested in hearing people's thoughts on how they find ways to stay close to one another. I would love to hear your feedback that I would be happy to spread.

Cheers to love! :)

Bryon
http://www.remocounseling.com/

How to Determine the Length of Therapy

Many times clients want a sense of how long they will need to be in therapy. Of course they have the freedom to leave at any moment or session that they choose to never return again- thus, it depends predominately on them. However, for those that entrust the wisdom of therapists there should be a distinction made between those clients that are highly motivated to change and those that are simply appeasing others. For the latter I would suggest less than one session and for the former, an agreed upon time frame can be useful when trying to target goals. This can hold people accountable for trying to genuinely create change outside the therapy walls. However, for those that appreciate the ebb and flow of therapy and the uncertainties in life that keep structured work from always making sense, a time frame may not be a useful concept. In the age of Quick Fixes, it is good practice for therapists to suggest the possibilities that can exist in short and long term treatment. This can then be paired with a client's desire for a timetable or not. I do think their is a place for establishing a time frame- however, this can put an unnecessary pressure on both client and therapist alike. What makes more sense is to have a timetable to take stock of the process of change as oppossed to the achievement of specific goals. The nature of goal setting can be quite productive, so long as it allows for the flexibility to shift gears if the therapy calls for such.

Cheers,

Bryon Remo
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Southbury, CT

Specializing in Couples and Adolescent Issues.