GAMES FOR ANGRY COUPLES – BATTERED AND BATTERING

posted by admin in Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

Like so many battered and battering couples, these two were dependent on their nightly ritual of violence and expiation, caught up in the battle over who was wrong or right. Just as nations in battle cannot be dissuaded from their war aims by objective outside forces (e.g., the United Nations), so such couples typically cannot be steered away from their battle plans. Hence, they are difficult to treat in therapy.

One possible entry point is to go with the couple’s anger and use it to put them in touch with their deeper feelings. (Anger is a secondary emotion.) I had this couple engage in a foam-bat fight in my office. (I had no trouble getting them to take this exercise seriously.) At first I let them just hit one another until they tired. Then I added sentences for them to say as they were hitting. Eventually, after a few weeks, they began to come out of their rage state, and to discuss and unravel their various characterological attitudes toward one another. It was extremely difficult for both to give up their outrage as well as their notion that each was the victim of the other. Many couples would rather be miserable and feel morally right than to feel the relief and happiness of taking responsibility for their end of a dysfunctional relationship.

After several of the office fights had ventilated their anger some, I assigned the Nude Foam-Bat Fight series to be held at home. In toto, the period in which they used this sexual game was brief. It was the first “swing” in the direction of their recovery as a couple.

*180/196/1*

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