101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

My male client of age 36 said that he argued a lot with his wife. He said, “I argue with my wife which leads to a rupture in our relationship”. After such arguments, his wife withdraws from him and as time passes he feels abandoned and also ashamed. Being unable to face it, he rushes to apologize and gain back her trust.  This whole cycle is painful but keeps repeating over and over again. 

The contract for our session was to figure out how to break this loop.

I asked the client to narrate what exactly happens during their arguments and how they end up in this cycle. 

The client said it starts when his wife says or implies that he doesn’t care about her. This statement triggers the client and he starts justifying to prove that there have been instances when he has shown care. This justifying leads to awful arguments between the client and his wife.

I asked the client to be curious about why he felt the need to justify so strongly?

Before the client could justify that to me, I decided to go one step ahead and asked him to reflect on what happens to him when his wife says, “You don’t care.” The client said, “I feel like she is blaming me.” I asked him to stay with the feeling of being blamed and requested him to notice how his body is reacting. He said, “I am biting my teeth, my  neck is tight, my heart is pounding and palpitating and my shoulders are tight.” It was very clear that his body was getting ready to fight. The client said, “No matter how much I care, it does not seem to be enough.” The client said he felt helpless and wondered aloud, “Why is my wife always doing this to me?”

I asked him to imagine that his wife was in front of him and ask her, “why are you always doing this to me?” I added, “Now notice what is happening in the body again.” He said he felt a sense of hollowness in the stomach area.

I asked him if he could remember when was the earliest time he felt this way?

The client said that he remembers feeling this hollowness even when he was a child.

It was now clear that there were some unresolved issues from his childhood that were resurfacing now for him as an adult. I asked him to keep his hand on his abdomen and feel this hollowness. With the caring contact of his hand over the hollowness, his breath started to change, his shoulders relaxed and face calmed down and there was a slight smile playing along his lips. 

I asked him to continue with his hand on his abdomen and asked him to visualize the argument between him and his wife. The client said that now, while imagining his wife saying, “You don’t care”, his need to justify was not there anymore. The client reflected and said that  if he did not get into justifying, then possibly the loop of escalation would never take off.

The client said that next time there was an argument he would try this different approach and he would gently stroke his tummy to calm himself down. We laughed at how funny that sounds and rejoiced at this situation of the client being at ease.In this session the client shared about his arguments with his wife and then we found that he justifies his actions, which leads to him feeling blamed. Then the client acknowledged his helplessness and the hollowness he felt. We journeyed through 6 layers and when the client embraced the 6^th layer which was the hollowness all the above layers rearranged themselves and put the client at ease.