Phoenix Men’s Counseling – some of the benefits!

- Learn better communication with your wife/ girlfriend
- Feel more appreciated
- Get “in sync” again with her
- Break the “suffer in stoic silence” mode
- Generate energy, fun and laughter
- Lower stress and reduce tension
- Less “thinking too much” about your problems – get out of  your head
- Get help for your depression & start feeling better
- Stop avoiding!
- Be more productive on the job
- Cool your angry feelings
- Get the respect you deserve from others

I specialize in working with men who are struggling in all aspects of their lives: in relationships, in work, with money and with self-image and self-esteem issues. I am a therapist that understands the unique and complicated issues that men might not feel comfortable talking about with a general counselor. I work with guys in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler and surrounding areas. Give me a call, or e-mail directly through my website to find out more information about my services.

Looking for a gay-friendly counselor who you can work well with? Are you struggling with your partner and need to feel more at ease about your relationship?

My counseling practice offers same-sex couples and individuals help in dealing with the day-to-day issues, including:

Individual Counseling To:

• Deal with emotions related to coming out issues, including with friends, family and peers
• Feel good about yourself, and develop stronger self-esteem
• Cool anger and tension
• Feel less depressed and anxious
• Work through difficulties related to HIV/AIDS issues
• Combat issues of feeling stigmatized
• Take pride in yourself again

For Same-Sex Partnerships, You Can:

• Create better, stronger and more supportive partnerships
• Stop giving to others to the point of feeling depleted
• Start to really trust again
• Enjoy better sex with your partner
• Learn how to finally identify what you need
• Learn how to communicate to get what you want
• Work through tough premarital or pre-commitment issues
• Bring back the intimacy with your partner
• Identify if your current relationship is healthy (or not) for you

I invite you to visit my website at www.phoenixmenscounseling.com, Or call me directly at 602.309.0568. I’m happy to talk with you about how I can help you deal with your unique problem or concern.

Making up stories and assumptions about people and about situations often times get us into trouble. When  our minds go to devising stories — as colorful and intriguing as they are — they’re often times wrong. This presents a major problem when dealing with other people, because through these assumptions and stories we engage with the world.

What ends up happening is we create the reality that we didn’t really want in the first place. Like the books when I was growing up, it’s a grown-up version of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series. You know, the books where you can pick from a different variety of endings. Unlike the books though, sometimes it’s hard to retrace our steps and select a different ending. This is especially true when we keep picking the same ending over and over and over again.

Learning to live in the present moment counteracts the tendency to live within our heads, where those stories and assumptions often come to life. When were in relationship, it’s easy to grasp onto those stories about our partner, and we work to convince ourselves that it’s true. Although our partner probably triggers our own process, we cling onto history and use historical reference points as a way to ensure that our partner will act that way again in the future. This is limiting, and ends up creating a future that’s no different from the past. Those stories and assumptions are created in our minds and reside in the past or the future, whereas ideally, we should be living in the present moment (where our minds cannot).

What helps is checking out those stories and assumptions that you have about someone else with that person. Investigating through communication is always better for grounding in reality then is living through the filters that we create for our life. Understanding the fears, worries, and pain that lie within us emotionally is important, because it’s those feelings that drive and create those are rational stories and assumptions that we then place on to the people that we love. It’s the emotions that drive us to create those realities that we think are true, and yet are not.

(This is an excerpt from my upcoming e-book tentatively titled “The Nice Guy’s Textbook:
On Love, Life, and Getting a Spine.” Coming soon and will be available at my site – www.phoenixmenscounseling.com.)

Anger and nice guys don’t mix. Because nice guys and stuff their emotions, it makes sense that both of their anger, too. nice guys get angry because their needs aren’t being met, but they’re not in the community that the people who make them angry. That’s the whole thing for nice guys: they’re not going to express their anger because it will lead to devastating to actually express the anger to the recipient. Instead, nice guys will swallow their anger, where it ends up mutating into much worse problems for the host nice guy.

So what happens to the anger when nice guy swallow it? A lot of things. Because the anger is not being communicated directly to the people that need here at, it stays put within a nice guy. But anger needs to come out in some way, and it often comes out through the forms of sarcasm, criticism, self-criticism, superiority, judgmentality, and on the other end of spectrum, rage and acting out physically.

A lot of nice guys are also smart guys. Smart guys being who they are often reside in their heads most of the time. The very skills and abilities that smart guys have used to create success in their lives, such as in their professional lives, are the worst skills to deal with anger. Smart guys also have the unique ability to intellectualize their anger, and this is another form of fermenting that anger loves. When I talk to guys who come in because they can’t deal with their anger, we always end up talking about how they try to “think their way out of their anger”, but it never works. I was asked them “so how is it worked for you up until this point?” These guys usually say, “well, not to good. on here and counseling now aren’t I?”

This tendency to intellectualize our anger is a real problem. We become hamsters in our own mental wheels, spinning ourselves into a mental oblivion. We also try to apply those same election will skills to solving our marriage and relationship problems, and those skills and tools are about not very successful to fixing those problems.

When nice guys get mad after having said “yes”, they tend to stuff that voice within them that really doesn’t want to say “yes”. By not saying ‘no’, these guys swallow what they really want because they’re too afraid that and they’ll be rejected by saying ‘no’. And this phenomenon plays out in all sorts of areas of the guy’s life: work, friendships, intimate relationships, within family relationships and on and on.

Stuffing anger is a real problem, because anger slowly builds up over time when it gets stuffed. Each incident of stuffing one’s anger and not saying no creates a compounding effect, where people to comes more difficult to say no and anger festers even more. Others may even notice that we where anger on our faces or in our behavior, and not know why. We may not even know why we’re angry, and not connect the dots to know that by not saying no to others when we don’t mean it, creates this cause-and-effect relationship.

All too often, I talk with guys and couples who are having issues with one or more of the three of these issues. It’s like guys have one foot in their relationship or marriage, and one foot out. Many problems stem from the use of porn, infidelity or emotional cheating, and yet there are causes to these things as well.

Most of these types of problems, I believe, come from the failure for guys to connect to their emotional selves.  When we as men can’t connect to our emotions or know what they are, there is a higher chance that they will seek gratification in some form or another from an outside source.

It’s known now that the number one reason men cheat is not about the sex: it’s about emotional disconnection, or lack of intimacy. When guys are disconnected from themselves emotionally, it makes sense that I’ll be disconnected from their partners, wives or girlfriends. That’s when the cracks start to appear within a relationship. It may be subtle, but those cracks widen over time.

As the emotional canyon widens, many distractions then have an opportunity to seize hold of a guys’ wandering mind. The guy may not know it, but he is probably emotionally disconnected and is seeking that emotional gratification from one of those outside sources. So what we see are things like hitting use of pornography, extramarital affairs, improper interpersonal interactions (like flirting or the like), or creating emotional affairs with members of the opposite sex outside of the primary relationship.

The problems usually come to a head when the marriage or relationship is about to end, and often this happens when one partner stumbles upon the well guarded truth of the other, which makes it so much worse. It’s like adding fuel to the fire, and the chances of rebuilding that trust become excruciatingly hard.

One of the things that I feel so committed to in my work as a counselor and therapist for men is to help guys become more emotionally connected with themselves, so that they can be able to connect emotionally with the women they love. It’s through this lack of emotional intelligence, or emotional blindness, that we disconnect and the problems between us start to take hold.

One thing that guys have a very hard time doing is expressing affection to the women in my life. Small acts of kindness go a long way. For a lot of men, showing their wives and girlfriends how they are feeling about them, or communicating to them positivity through verbal validation and affirmation is the hardest thing under the sun to do.

When an end up feeling neglected, angry that they are working too hard in their relationship or marriage, and often don’t know exactly how to communicate what they’re wanting from the men in their lives. This frustration or anger often gets mutated, and expressed back to their men in unhealthy ways.  The needs that women have from men should be met, and men should know how to meet them, but when those two things don’t happen, a lot of unnecessary conflict ensues.

What guys need to know about The Affection Factor is that affection — whether it’s physical, sexual, emotional, or through validating statements — is an essential nutrient to the growth of your marriage or relationship. Without it, it’s like you’re failing to feed the relationship, or her, and neglect the very thing that you may feel most proud of.

To help, try creating the time that you and your wife or girlfriend need to spend together. Regularly creating the time, and prioritizing your marriage, is essential. How you spend that time together is even more  important. As a guy, you can begin to listen with more intention, and ask your partner if indeed she needs affection from you and how she needs from you. A lot of women respond very positively to you being assertive physically, and not waiting to take her lead. Whether that means putting her arm around her, holding her hand, kissing her, or generally communicating interest and energy in her are all good things. Doing the same things sexually towards her is also showing affection. She likes when you take the lead and display your assertiveness.

The hardest way for guys to communicate affection towards their women is by verbally validating them, or making them steal special through words. Women love this. And if you’re not doing enough of it, you and your relationship are really missing out. Telling her how good she looks, how special she is to you, praising her efforts or the work that she does, or  generally validating her are all examples of verbal validation. This is where guys fail to mine the potential in their relationship or marriage. They’re missing out on a whole lot of undiscovered happiness, if their wives and girlfriends do indeed thrive on hearing these things from you.

Try some of these tips to deepen  the strong bonds you’re looking to create with your wife or girlfriend. Be aware that simple things can make a lot of difference, and employing just a few of the strategies could change a whole lot.

When I saw this title, which came from a search for my counseling services, I thought it was brilliant. I couldn’t have said it better. I’ve never thought to Google things that specifically, but I liked it, and I decided to convert it into a blog post today.

So, how do you convince your husband to get counseling? I mean, guys are typically uninterested in counseling, or self-growth, or any of that gobbledy-gook.

Obviously, the best answer (and biggest plug) I could say is to bring them into a counselor for me, ahem, yours truly. As a counselor for guys, I know how guys tick, and I know that a lot of men do say that they feel intimidated by female couples counselors. They think that these therapists will malign against them, and their fears of a man-hating fest will come true. No so, but I understand the fear. Bring them into someone that gets them, and understands both the psychology of your guy, and how he operates within a relationship.

When communicating with your guy about seeking counseling, don’t try these things, ladies: shaming him, analyzing him, controlling him, crying, threatening to leave him or the relationship/marriage, parenting him, making him feel bad, prodding him over and over to go to counseling (parenting), the same way you might to get him to help with the chores or picking up the kids from day care.

Here’s what I think would work: taking special time to sit down with him, and speak from your heart. Say, “You know, I’m really concerned about some things that have come up for me in our marriage, and I don’t think that I/we can do them on their own. I’m feeling frustrated and helpless, and our marriage – and you – mean so much to me, that I’d like to talk with you about your thoughts about going in together to talk with a counselor about how to help fix our relationship.”

Guys respond well to the concept of “the fix”, because that’s how our minds work anyways, and by taking ownership for your feelings (and that you contribute to the conflict in your relationship), he will know that you’re serious and open to taking a look not just at the problems, but your role in shaping those problems. It will make him more likely to do the same, in taking a look at his role in creating those problems.

As long as the guy is the “identified patient”, as we say in the field, as is the “source of all suffering” in the marriage, his scapegoat status will affect his ability to come in for counseling and be on the same page as you. I see this dynamic all the time, and if this is true for you and your partner, watch the tendency to scapegoat the other while not taking personal responsibility for what you help to create that’s problematic.

For women, trust and hurt are intertwined. I speak with a lot of women who hold tightly onto their hurt towards their husbands and boyfriends. This creates a “freezing out” effect, where guys become pretty confused, reactive and angry, and often do things to aggravate the situation. Our reactive patterns get us into more trouble, and for women, their hurt grows and gets compounded. Many guys don’t really know what the hell to do.

Simply put, women need their feelings heard and acknowledged. They often need to feel understood by their guy, that he “gets” it and that he understands my hurting and how it is related to something that you – my guy – might have done. Women don’t want or need the following: reactivity, problem solving, fixing, sarcasm, belittling, superiority, avoidance, laughter at their expense, or any combination of those things.

The problem is that guys do exactly those things, often in some combination, and unknowingly create more of what they don’t want in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle that doesn’t really stop, and manifests itself in the “little things” that trigger fighting and conflicts, the everyday types of issues that come up between couples.

Trust is very much related to all of this. Trust is earned, as she starts to feel comfortable, safe and received. Women need reception, and need to feel that you will respect her words, feelings and the trust that she is giving to you. She needs to know that that trust – while earned – will be safe kept, and won’t be compromised by the things you say and do in your relationship with her.

Obviously, great communication is a vehicle for real change here, but personal awareness is more important. Becoming aware of how you – as the guy – interact with her, how what you do triggers that hurt (which often comes out as anger) and how you can change your behavior and the way you listen to her will help you in the long run. Understanding that you may not be the original cause, or that you are not responsible for her hurt, is helpful. What’s different is, although you may not be responsible for it, you may be triggering it with those words, actions and behaviors that you’re not in the know about.

I was watching a video of Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina yesterday, stumble through his atonement from his bewildering escapades to South America. He explained his extramarital affair, and all the people he hurt, and uses a lot of “believer”-type vocabulary – basically his “fall from grace”. This type of thing happens so frequently with men, and it is embodied in our fallen politicians, such as Govs. Sanford, fmr. Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York and others.

Repentance is, well, kind of obligatory these days, and even promotional and accepted, to ensure a continued politcal career. But, what I am concerned about is ensuring that guys stop this self-destructive behavior, and start to embrace their “shadow sides”. Shadow sides, you may ask?

Carl Jung talked about the concept of the “shadow” to mean those repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts in us. “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

As men, the fact that we act on our repressed and unsatisfied sexual drives and urges, and hurt those we love, is testimony to the “blackened and dense” qualities of extramarital affairs.

Embracing one’s shadow side is not easy. It takes guts. It takes courage. And it takes someone trained in exploration of these matter, such as a counselor or psychotherapist. So long as your shadow side lurks in your unconscious mind, creating unconscious thoughts, words and behaviors, you’re as good as on autopilot. It’s really hard to seize control back from those impulses when your shadow runs the show.

Shadow Man

Where is your shadow lurking?

Upon assimilation of one’s shadow, the behaviors diminish and stop. The impulses drop, and the behaviors quit. With extramarital sex, which is often unmet needs in a marriage or relationship (not so much the actual sex), we lose the sense of personal responsibility, both for our actions and for communicating to our partner what we are failing to get within the relationship.

Most of the time, when guys are asked, the reasons for cheating on their women is not about the sex: again, it’s what needs are not being met in the marriage, which could include sex, but not limited to. Maybe a guy doesn’t feel seen or heard. Maybe they’re angry, and wanting to unconsciously “get back” at their wife. There are reasons that motivate men more than just the sex.

I’m not going to start out by saying that depression is merely a function of not getting what you want. Depression has roots deeper than that explanation. It can be caused, or related to, nutritional imbalances, individual and varying biochemistry, neurochemical reasons (such as serotonin imbalances, or other neurotransmitters), and so on.

Many men I work with, however, experience depression as a reaction to deeply unmet needs. Many times, these men don’t know how to go about getting those needs met, so they will resort to employing the ineffective skills that they have learned growing up, which cause them to sink into depression. For men, being afraid of their anger, or speaking up for themselves, is threatening, so depression becomes “more comfortable” (relatively speaking) than activating their energy and going out into the world to get what they need.

Through poor interpersonal communication skills, a lot of guys can’t simply language what they need, either from a friend, a lover or an employer. The verbal skills aren’t there, and then these depressed men end up creating false assumptions about themselves that they link to that person or event. “Well, if I was worthy enough for their attention, then so-and-so would give me the time of day,” or “Well,if she really loved me, she wouldn’t be acting this way towards me. I must be flawed, or unlovable, and therefore unacceptable to her.” These are examples of the kind of self-talk that puts us in the depressed state.

We end up fabricating evidence based on assumptions we make up about other people’s intentions, that reinforce the negative and critical beliefs we have about ourselves. This perpetuates the cycle of depression, and we continue to look for that “evidence” out in the world, to continually reinforce those beliefs over and over again, getting us more and more depressed. We are creating our own reality, because our beliefs about ourselves are negative, all-consuming, and powerful.

Fortunately, we can change those beliefs, burn out what is not working in our lives, and start to look for “affirming evidence.” The negative messages are not us – as many guys falsely believe – but when we take those messages on as our identity, we end up creating a lot of problems for ourselves, such as depression.