Conflict is a natural part of any relationship, but how you handle it makes all the difference. In this blog, you'll discover five proven techniques to defuse tension and foster healthier communication with your partner. Whether you're in Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr, or anywhere in Pennsylvania through virtual therapy, these tips can help you transform conflict into opportunities for growth and connection.
Struggling to connect with your partner? Healthy communication is essential for a strong relationship, but even the best couples face challenges. Discover the top five communication mistakes couples make—and practical strategies to overcome them. Whether you're in Philadelphia or Bryn Mawr, PA, this guide offers actionable tips to improve connection and foster deeper understanding. Don’t let miscommunication hold you back—click now to learn how to strengthen your bond!
Reaching out for trauma therapy takes incredible courage, and I want you to know that your pain is valid. Whether your trauma stems from a single event or years of painful experiences, healing is possible. In therapy, we’ll work together to rebuild safety, manage emotions, and help you feel whole again. Every step forward, no matter how small, is progress.
You don’t have to go through this alone—click to learn more about what to expect in therapy and how we can start this journey together.
Struggling to communicate effectively with your partner? Couples counseling in Philadelphia offers transformative tools to bridge gaps, foster understanding, and strengthen your relationship. Discover how expert guidance can help you build a stronger, more connected partnership.
The holidays can be a whirlwind of family gatherings, packed schedules, and unmet expectations, leaving couples feeling disconnected. Post-holiday therapy offers a chance to reflect, rebuild, and renew your relationship. Discover practical strategies to improve communication, deepen intimacy, and navigate challenges together in our latest blog. Reclaim your connection and start the new year on a stronger footing—read more to find out how!
Effective communication is based more on how you say things rather than on what you actually say. A conversation can go very well or wind up in a lot of anger and upset, depending on the communication style used. Our means of communication impacts all facets of life.
Your breath is both a complicated and conveniently simple process that weaves together the communication between your body and mind. Linked to your nervous system, your breath has the capabilities of keeping you alive, soothing your body and mind and increasing energy. Your breath holds a wealth of resources for you. All you have to do is attend to it. Here’s some ways to access its usefulness.
Before searching for a trauma specialist in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, you may want to consider what, exactly you are looking for. Do you want to learn skills to help you tolerate the trauma memories? Or would you prefer to engage in deeper therapeutic work to get underneath the trauma so that it can heal at the core?
DBT has 4 tenants: distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation and mindfulness. These skills are essential when doing trauma work for PTSD and for many other difficulties such as anxiety, depression, anger management, eating disorders, self-harm and addiction.
These skills are the building blocks that will allow you to be able to function and tolerate uncomfortable memories and emotions as you dive deeper into the healing work.
When looking for a trauma specialist in Bryn Mawr, you’ll also want to take the time to find out the model or theory that the therapist uses to help navigate your therapy. If you’re looking for a safe space to process and talk things out make sure you find a counselor who is great at talk therapy. If you are looking for evidence based interventions to help you DO something with the traumatic material, you may want to investigate something like EMDR. If you want to work more from the body or a creative place, you may want to look for an art therapist, a yoga therapist or an experiential or psycho-dramatic therapist. Ideally, you’ll find a therapist who is able to choose a therapeutic tool from a large tool belt with many choices.
Successful therapy is mostly about your commitment to healing. Your counselor may ask you to consider abstaining from addictive substances, behaviors or eating disordered behaviors, especially while you’re engaged in trauma work. If you’re doing drugs, engaging in self harm or throwing up your food while you’re trying to heal from PTSD, it can side-track the process. Instead of taking the time in between sessions to allow your psyche to continue to process and digest the trauma, engaging in behaviors can numb the emotions and make it less likely that you will process and be ready for your next session. When you commit to your own healing process, it means you are willing to look at all aspects of your life and work towards shifting the things that no longer serve you.
If you engage in therapy every week, it creates synergistic momentum as opposed to dropping in only when you’re experiencing anxiety or depressive symptoms. Committing to consistent therapy will help you heal faster and more completely. What is your level of commitment to healing from a traumatic past?
If you’re looking for a trauma specialist near Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and need some helping finding the right person for you, please feel free to give us a call at 484-784-6244 for a free 15 minute initial consultation. We are happy to help you find the right trauma therapist for you.
Anger is a tricky emotion, especially in our society. We get messages that anger is “bad” and that we should never show it. While we certainly don’t want to take our anger out sideways on innocent bystanders and we don’t want to rage at people we have anger towards, anger isn’t a “bad” emotion to be pushed away and shamed for. It is healthy to acknowledge, honor and express our anger as long as we’re not hurting anyone in the process. Here are three ways to channel your anger:
Mindfully check in with your body and notice where the anger lives. You may notice that when you’re angry, you clench your jaw. Many of us store anger in our jaws. Perhaps when you get heated, you feel your face flush. Do you notice that you make a fist? Or are you more someone who feels ashamed for having anger, so it’s stuffed down and manifests itself in an upset stomach or feelings of self-loathing? However your anger manifests itself, the first step towards freedom is to acknowledge that you are, in fact, angry, even if you’re not quite sure why.
Trying to put the judgment aside, see if you can think back to when you first started noticing the anger. Sometimes people believe that the key to anger management is to push the anger away and try to ignore it. But, I’m of the belief system that what we resist, persists. So if you want to get free of your rage and really learn anger management, try allowing yourself to be angry without doing anything about it, just noticing it in your body.
For more help with anger management, contact us here.
What else do you find helpful for anger management? Write your responses here:
The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (or DBT) tenant called Interpersonal Effectiveness teaches us how to be a more effective communicator through learned to be a better listener. We have always known that progress depends on the ability to communicate effectively. The most effective communication does not begin with what a person says, but how well they hear the person they are communicating with. Only by listening effectively can you respond appropriately inany situation.
Throughout all forms of communication (reading, seeing, speaking, listening), we spend 40% of that time listening. And yet, we get less training in listening than in any other kind of communication. All throughout childhood, we are taught how to speak, how to read, but very little time is spent on learning how to listen. Learning to listen is difficult, but worth it.
For instance:
You can not NOT communicate. We're communicating verbally or nonverbally all the time.
Whenever contact is made, some form of communication does occur.
The true meaning of something is not in the words we use, it's in how people interpret the words.
Yet the meanings cannot be transferred. We can't just put a computer file directly in someone's head. We can only send the words. So listening becomes a critical skill if we are going to fully understand the meaning someone is trying to send us.
We have the ability to listen in many different ways - it is important to be able to distinguish how we are approaching our communication so that we are prepared to handle it effectively.
People are more likely to listen if you feel inspired by what you are hearing or if you are enjoying yourself. You’re not necessarily interested in the details when you are using Appreciative Listening, rather you are more focused on the impression of the experience.
This style is often a sounding-board to others. A person would offer support to the person they are listening to. They focus specifically on the feelings revealed by the person they are listening to. If you are often approached by people who need to confide or vent about something, you will know that's your typical approach to listening! This style is much more focused on offering compassion.
A comprehensive listener can recognize key details between one message and another even when the speaker is less than organized. They can also recognize when someone doesn't understand what is being said and can re-explain clearly in their own words.
This approach of listening wants to get all the information and may take detailed notes. Distractions can be very disturbing when using this listening approach. An example would be when other people are talking in class and you are trying to get all the notes.
When listening with an evaluative approach, the listener will not automatically accept what is being said as true just because an expert says it. If they disagree, they will simply stop listening. They will also be more doubtful if the speaker is too passionate about their topic. This approach can be helpful when evaluating something and making a decision about it.
It can be highly useful to adapt your listening approach to the needs of the situation. For example, if a close friend is sharing their difficulties with you, you would want to be empathic and not evaluative. You have probably had the experience of someone giving you unsolicited advice when you really just wanted them to empathize with you! The opposite can also be true. When you recognize the correct listening approach in any situation, and use the appropriate listening approach, you can build better relationships, make the correct decisions and use your interpersonal effectiveness skills. It all starts with learning how to listen!
Megan Delp, MFTI
Megan is a pre-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in couples counseling and individual therapy for those struggling with depression, anxiety and relationship issues. Megan practices with Spilove Psychotherapy in West Chester, Pennsylvania and on the Main Line of Philadelphia in Bryn Mawr. For more information or to schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation, contact us here.
So, you’ve decided to start counseling and you’re ready to go. Perhaps you’ve never done therapy before or maybe you’re looking to take a new approach. Here are some things you need to know before you start counseling.
You can line up a bunch of great therapists, but if they’re not the best fit for you, you’re not going to do the intense, deep work you’re looking to do. The role of a therapist is to be a guide through your journey, reflect back to you what we see and help you to overcome obstacles towards meeting your goals. If you don’t click with your therapist or don’t feel safe enough to trust them, reaching your goals with them is unlikely. Your therapist should be someone you can relax around and speak freely without fear of being judged. Trust and safety are of paramount importance when you’re looking to do deep work on things like eating disorders, trauma, PTSD, couples’ work or issues specific to the LGBTQIA community.
Our training in graduate school and doctoral programs very rarely provides training for specific diagnoses like PTSD, eating disorders or addictions. So when a therapist decides to have a particular specialty, we need to seek out training geared specifically towards these issues. If you notice that a therapist you’re interested in has indicated that we specialize in a particular area, you might want to ask us what sorts of training we’ve done to qualify us as an expert. This will give you a better idea of how equipped we are to help you with your specific struggle.
I’ve heard people say that therapy is like paying someone to be your friend. This is actually not true. When you hire a therapist and you pay money, what you are paying for is a safe, neutral, objective space and time where you can do your work. It is an energy exchange. You are not paying your therapist to care about you, you are paying for an hour in a room that is completely and totally about you and no one else. In friendships, there’s a give and take, there’s a social obligation to ask how they are and be a support to them. In a relationship with your therapist, you are taking time for yourself only and receiving support that is not reciprocated emotionally, only financially. This dynamic can be extremely healing and empowering and for many, it is the only time and space where healing can truly take place.
Sometimes, in an attempt to save money or save time, people want to schedule therapy sessions every other week or once per month. While there’s nothing particularly wrong with scheduling like this, you may want to rethink the frequency and consistency of your therapy schedule. You don’t have to be in therapy forever. You can establish and work towards specific measurable goals with your therapist and see regular progress. However, progress is more difficult to measure when you attend therapy inconsistently. You may be having symptoms of PTSD, for example, and when several weeks go by without working on those particular symptoms, it is more difficult to get traction. If you’re struggling with binging and purging and you go every week, you can check in with your therapist about the particular triggers and behaviors that may have lead to your binge and purge. Don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself. Set a goal with your counselor and try going weekly, write down your progress and notice the differences between your weekly sessions over a period of at least 3 months versus bi-weekly or monthly progress over a 3-month period. You may be surprised with the results.
Sometimes we think that as soon as we set foot in the door of a therapy office, we will be “cured” immediately or within a few sessions. The reality is that there’s a therapeutic process which happens in stages. The first stage is joining with your therapist or learning to trust them. When we meet a new friend, we don’t usually tell them our deepest darkest right off the bat, it takes time and trust building to get to a place where we know they are a good friend. A similar concept is applied in therapy. Depending on the client, the level and amount of trauma and defenses, this stage can take anywhere from about a month to sometimes a year or even more. Safety, trust and a therapeutic bond, known as a therapeutic alliance, is formed in order for the therapist to really know and understand the client and for the client to feel safe enough to open up and do their work.
The second stage is where the work is done. Since there’s now an underlying foundation established between therapist and client, the second stage is about vulnerability. There is an unpacking, uncovering, examining and exploring the process that happens with the client and their trauma or their history. This stage is where people see their patterns and make shifts and changes in their thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. The second stage of the therapeutic process is where clients reach their goals.
The third stage may or may not be part of the therapeutic process, dependent upon the client’s preference. This stage is for maintenance. The client continues therapy but perhaps doesn’t come every week any longer. They use their therapist to check in with, get help with issues as they arise and review the goals and behaviors they established during the second stage. Some people choose to forego this step and skip to the fourth stage.
The fourth stage of counseling is a closure process. After attaining goals in the second stage, and maintaining new behaviors and thought processes in the fourth stage, this last and final stage is a review of accomplishments, work together and closure of the therapeutic relationship. If the client chooses to end counseling, this practice of review and closure can be especially healing for those who have experienced traumatic grief or loss. Saying goodbye in a healthy way, honoring the relationship without suddenly cutting it off is a beneficial process to learn about emotional maturity and sophistication.
I hope these tips have been helpful. Please feel free to comment below with any other tips or feedback you have on this topic. If you’d like to speak further about starting counseling or have any other questions about some of the things I’ve mentioned, please contact me at TiffanySpilove@yahoo.com or call 610-314-8402. I wish you luck in your endeavors and look forward to hearing from you soon!!
"We cannot love others until we love ourselves"
by Mikala Morrow, Villanova Graduate Counseling Intern
This saying has been a cliché statement that has been thrown around as a way to encourage self-care or even used as a convincing statement to those who find it hard to love themselves. What does this statement truly mean?
It means that someway, somehow we must find, within us, love. This must mean that love is an innate ability and we all possess the ability to love ourselves without the assistance of others.
Personally, I do not believe this to be true. Can we truly have an innate ability to love ourselves without any help from others? If we truly cannot love others until we love ourselves, we have to be able to love ourselves without help, right? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Which comes first, our innate ability to love? Or is love taught to us from our caretakers, partners, peers or a higher power?
What if, “We cannot love others until we love ourselves” becomes “We cannot love ourselves and others until we have been loved.” My argument is that in order to learn to love others, we must first be loved. We must learn how to love and what love is.
Imagine a child who is neglected by their caretaker. This child never truly learns love. Instead, to them, love means neglect. Later on in life when meeting new people, how will they love them? If all this older child has known is that love is neglectful, they too will neglect those that they love.
Compare the first child with someone who has a loving caretaker who has shown interest in who they are. This child will grow up with the idea that love is showing interest in others and will love in this way. These examples may not be true for all, but it is something to think about. The child in the first scenario may
learn somewhere how to truly love but this will not come as easily as the child in the second scenario.
We need to learn what love looks like towards us and we also need to learn how we love. We may love by giving others gifts or our time. We may show our love through compliments or by offering a shoulder to cry on. We all have a unique way to show love. In order to practice our ways of loving, we need people around us to accept our love. If our unique way of showing love is rejected, we learn that we are not good at loving, or our way of loving is wrong.
Let’s say you show love with your time but your partner becomes annoyed and tells you they just want space. Your way of loving has been pushed away. We need other people around us to affirm the way we love. While the statement, “We cannot love others until we love ourselves” has a good message at the core, it can be damaging for those who have never learned how to love themselves.
We all need love whether it is from other humans on earth (maybe even from a pet) or a supernatural love. Then we can truly love others’ authentically and comfortably.
Mikala has an intensely compassionate and unique way of connecting with you to help you identify and express your feelings and your deepest sense of self. She is persistent and encouraging in the face of hopelessness and despair. She especially loves working with women to provide tools to alleviate anxiety and depression. Mikala has a wealth of experience and is skilled in the mental health field working with domestic violence, food & body issues and addiction. If you're struggling to tolerate your emotions and you're looking for a guide to help you get to know yourself better, give her a call now at 570-412-4516.
