Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - Wishes and Fears - in Couples Therapy: Dan Wile and Dorothy Kaufmann

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Dorothy Kaufman, a marriage and family therapist who was married to the late Daniel Wile. We discuss the book that they both co-authored together called, Solving the Moment: A Collaborative Couple Therapy Manual. Dan is a well-known marriage and family therapist, the creator of Collaborative Couple Therapy, and spoken very highly of by Dr. Gottman. By listening to this episode, you can earn 1 Psychiatry CME Credits. Link to blog. Link to YouTube video.

Hello and welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast. I'm here to talk about getting rid of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and feeling like an expert in what you do. One thing that created a lot of burnout and angst for me was trying to get continued medical education right at the last minute. So why not join the CME membership and do CMEE while listening to this podcast? Go to Psychiatrypodcast.com, sign up, sign in, take the test, and the certification is email to you in seconds.

All right, welcome to the podcast. Before I begin, I would like to introduce. I would say the people that are coming on. Dorothy Kaufman is a marriage and family therapist who is married to Dan Weil. Dan Weil is deceased. He died a couple years ago. And Dorothy Kaufman was his partner. And they co-authored a book together that she kind of like put together after he passed called Solving the Moment.

Dan Weil has multiple other books and is one of the most famous marriage and family therapists that, have lived. He is someone who Dr. Gottman has spoken very, very highly of. He has a really amazing method that I have found incredibly helpful, which is detailed in the book and this article I'm going to put in the show notes, talking about doubling or like restating statements as I wish or I fear statements for the couple. So a member will say something and then you as the therapist, you transform what they said into an I-wish or I-fear statement. And we're going to talk about that in this episode. She's going to talk about a little bit of her marriage with Dan Weil and how they met.

And I hope that you enjoy this. I just want to say that I think of myself as the editor of that book. But this is really Dan's book. Yeah, that he developed out of 45 years of thinking about therapy and practicing it. Yeah. Marriage therapy. I published it after he died. He's someone that Dr. Gottman has commented on positively in multiple ways,

and Dr. Gottman actually wrote the forward to the book, giving credit for Dan Wilde and his some of his techniques that he's adopted. And he commented that Dan Weil predicted some of the things that he found experimentally later on. And tell me a little bit about the book. Well, the book is called Solving the Moment. And solving the moment was Dan's way of solving the problem. In other words, a problem has always two parts. There's the problem itself and the way that couples talk or don't talk about the problem.

And the book distills really his theory and gives a number of very engaging interventions for therapists that they can use in their sessions. Yeah. I think the first article I read of Dan Weil was his article called recasting complaints as wishes and fears. And I think I want to start with that because I feel like I use that in my every therapy interaction when I'm working with couples. It's like so pivotal. And it's this idea of doubling. Do you want to kind of break that down and summarize kind of your thoughts on this? your marriage therapist as well to introduce you. And how many years have you been practicing? I've been practicing about 10 years. Okay.

And this is very much a second profession for me. And it was after I met Dan, actually. Okay. So, which was later in my life. Yeah, that's wonderful. And then we actually saw couples together for some time. Oh, wow. Okay.

And so just for our audience who may not be aware of him, he passed away a couple years ago. March 2020, March 18. Okay. Yeah, I was watching a YouTube of him discussing psychotherapy as well. And I felt like he's one of the greats of, so I imagine it must have been wonderful to spend time with him and join him in those sessions. Okay, so let's jump into this, this. this idea of recasting negative emotions, statements as wishes or fears. And the idea is to create like an empathy experience between the couples or like an ally

inducing one. Yeah, talk to me a little bit about the basics of this idea. Okay. I think I need to start with the idea that you mentioned of doubling. which was really Dan's signature method for giving partners a way to talk intimately with each other. And the idea is the therapist speaks for a partner using the first person and reframes what that partner wants to say. by accessing vulnerable feelings. And the vulnerable feeling could be all kinds of things,

hurt or disappointment or shame, but wishes and fears are very often fundamental. And so Dan will express what the partner has said, often in an angry way or a withdrawn way. in a way that says instead of, really it bugs me that you're never home at night for dinner, will say, I wish you could be home more often at dinner. I miss being together as a family. And the thing that feels extremely important and fundamental in Dan's work and in Dan's sensibility,

is that after he says what he has to say, he will always turn to the partner and say, that's a speculation. Where is it right and where is it wrong? In other words, the partner will have the last word. And Dan will model that equality between therapist and and the couple that he feels is important. There's something about wishes and fears that seem more vulnerable than other ways of sort of interacting.

Any thoughts on that? Yes, I think so often there is a wish or a fear behind an angry statement. I mean, it is a vulnerable feeling that you can really get at. And so often the partner just doesn't have access to that and will be moved by having that expressed. Yeah. Not always. And I'm willing to talk about that.

Okay. Let's, let's, um, I really want to just give some scenarios. I came up with one. Okay. So let's say the, Amber says, patient Amber says, you never listen to me and just play on your phone. So obviously as a therapist, we're listening to that. It sounds accusatory. It sounds maybe like an attack, right? And so the therapist then translates that into an eye statement and says, so maybe they say to the couple, okay, I'm going to try to say that statement a little bit

differently. And then Amber, you tell me if I'm right or if I'm wrong about this. Okay. So the therapist would say, I have the wish for you to listen to what happened in my day. And it helps me to be, it helps me to feel heard when you're not on your phone. What do you think? Yes. And I think expressing that as an eye, rather than saying what you feel also, just creates a mysterious intimacy that, that is there much more powerfully when it's the first person. And I wish, I miss, I long for.

Or I'm, I've worried that we're losing touch with each other. And that, of course, is a fear. Those vulnerable feelings that sometimes partners don't have access to really. Yeah, I think that it also can help us in our own interpersonal relationships. One thing that I was hearing Dan while talk about in this YouTube discussion was he was having this discussion with his girlfriend, maybe wife, and maybe it was you even. And at one point you said... I think it was before my time. Okay, it was before your time.

And then the female asked him, Dan, like, if you were a therapist, how would... would you double yourself or how would you how would you say that differently and um dan kind of says like oh man i was kind of jarred into this thought of like wow i wouldn't have thought of that if that question hadn't been asked right like so it's very normal for us in an argument to forget how to do this right and and and so he made it into an i have i fear or an i wish statement and it was more connecting and vulnerable and created connection? Yes, and I think one of the things that really appealed to other therapists listening to Dan was the extraordinary humility that went along with his confidence.

So he was very, very able to say, oh, yeah, I wouldn't have thought of that. Oh, yeah, that's really. a good idea. And she, I worry about this, so I worry about that. And in some paradoxical way, I think it increased his authority that the kind of self-doubts that therapists don't usually talk about, but every therapist has. So when somebody, when another therapist makes a suggestion, oh, I never thought about that. I'm thanks for bringing it. up. Yeah. It was very special. There's something, it increases psychological safety as well and increases our ability to give feedback to speak our, you know, to not just imagine and say what this

leader, right, is what you want him to, to, what he, what you perceive maybe he wants to hear, right? Exactly. Yeah. And so it kind of like gives the audience or gives the, the couple, the, the, the, a little bit of the authority back to be arbiters of their own sort of internal experience, which is kind of one thing that came through with me with him, was it sounded like he wasn't completely against a good argument. Right. It's like, no, well, couples really need to say what they're really feeling.

Yes, yes. I think I would say paying attention to how it lands. And of course, when you start accusing or blaming, it rarely lands well, right? So how can I express honestly my heartfelt feeling in a way that my partner can hear and trying to model that? Yeah. Yeah, I think he talks about tone in this as well quite a bit, like this idea that like, You know, you could say, I love you with tone that would be placating or pushing the person away, or, you know, it could be wonderful and connecting, right?

So it's like, it's not always, like, implicit in just the words that we use what we're trying to communicate. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, the body language, the physical expression, I love you, can be, feel yeah, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to say. It's like it's scripted and that's not going to be heard as I love you as opposed to the real heartfelt expression of I love you. And the words in themselves don't guarantee anything. The tone is so important.

And of course, in doubling, changing the tone from harsh to gentle, I remember at one couple group. The one partner said to the other, you're such an asshole, but this was at the end and said it with real love and affection. So instead of it landing as the other laughed and her partner laughed

and they hugged each other. And it was really quite a startling moment. So tone is again, extremely important. Totally so important, yeah. And he added a few other things over the years that wishes and fears, the vulnerable feelings was one, changing the tone was another.

What he added over the years was the importance of acknowledgment. And acknowledgement where the partner takes owns some part of the responsibility for the argument, or at least says something that affirms an understanding of where the partner is coming from. That's really an important one. Yeah. Okay. So acknowledgement.

So it's like I'm acknowledging my role or my sort of, I'm owning my part in the dysfunction that we're having or the discommunication. or the miscommunication. So that's one aspect, or also acknowledging the other person's experience? Yes, exactly. In other words, well, sometimes we can't do that. We can't say, well, I really do think it is your fault. What we can do, hopefully, is at least listen, hear what the other person has said.

In other words, it can be a form of active listening. I heard what you said, which is, yeah. And even that, just for the partner to hear some voicing of what he or she has tried to say can be very positive. Yeah, one thing he said, which was helpful to me, was he said, intimacy comes from one partner voicing their truest inner experience and then the other person, partner hearing them. So that would be like the acknowledging their experience. And feeling heard. Finding your voice, feeling heard is so important in Dan's collaborative couple theory. Yeah. Yeah. So your marriage must have been just absolutely perfect because of his years

of marriage therapy, I'm guessing. Well, you know, I always did feel we were not together as long as I would like. We met very late in life. And Dan, let me put it this way. I felt that he brought out the best me that I could imagine. And he felt the same. I mean, there was, he was very, really, very exceptional as a human being and as a husband, as a mensch. I mean, it was, It was a big loss when he died. A real blessing to meet him. Yeah. We met our match.com.

Oh. I just had a patient say, no one ever meets on online dating. And I'm like, well, I think a lot of people meet online dating nowadays. I don't know, but we did. And, yeah, I just come out to California. And we, yeah. So what was your prior career?

What was your career before? I was a professor of humanities in Massachusetts. Oh, wow. What type of literature was your focus? Well, actually, it was mostly French literature, but it was also cultural studies. And so 20th century literature. And people say, oh, what a change.

But, of course, in that profession, too, I'm thinking about people's struggles and how they connect and how they don't connect. So it feels like another way of pursuing the same vocation of understanding people's struggles and here actively helping them with them. Yeah, I always tell young students who want to become a therapist. I say read broadly and read the classics and Dostoevsky.

and I'm a big fan of him and, you know, Russian literature in particular. But I think all literature has like this ability to catapult us into the life and lives of other people very different than our own lives. Exactly. Exactly. And it helps with that spirit of curiosity and openness and just trying to understand and not judging. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of going a little bit backwards now, there's this idea that Dan had that Gottman later found to be true, that something like 69% of problems that couples will have will become like perpetual problems.

Tell me a little bit about that or what that means. Does he mean that it won't be solvable even through marriage therapy or what does that mean? What he called unsolvable problems, I would say that my sense of the biggest unsolvable problem is that you are you and I am me and we are different. And when we're in conflict, the shadow side of what originally attracted us becomes dominant. In other words, say you're attracted to somebody's extraordinary energy and initiative in taking things on. The shadow side of that and the unsolvable problem is it means that you can also become dominant or vehement. And somebody who is very calm, the partner is attracted to the, the calm and the quiet, the shadow side of that is that they can be passive and frustrating

to the partner for that. And I think, I mean, here I'm mixing some of my own ideas that we shared, but that very often it's a matter of learning through therapy to accept an identity. adapt to a person's sensibility and temperament, and that can't be changed, and learning what you can change and what you can't change. But the unsolvable problem is very often just who we are. Now, there are other unsolvable problems,

if one wants children, for instance, and the other doesn't, or if one really needs to live in the country and the other really needs to live in the city. And their therapy, Dan will say, offers can offer clarity. And that is important. What we want to offer is intimacy. In some couples, that may not be possible. And then that clarity is important too. Yeah.

I think what you said about how our personalities are different, things that attracted you to this person, there may be like a shadow side of it. I think it could be really good to help couples see that what attracted them, like, oh, I love that my husband was driven and motivated. And of course, the shadow side is now I experience his anger sometimes and just his passion, right? He can be very forceful and, you know, maybe not abusive, maybe not hitting me, maybe not yelling at me, but he's just like got this like anger energy, you know.

And so it can be helpful to kind of help the couples see that the thing that drew them towards this person is still there. And it's like, okay, how do I understand them more? Or how do I, I don't know, how would you say it? Like understand them more. acknowledge their frustrations or how do I like connect with them in the midst of their passions, maybe not see the anger directed at me as much. I like to help couples shift the directionality of the anger from at each other to maybe towards common goals or accomplishing goals or overcoming obstacles together. Any thoughts on all of that? Yes, I think that's true. And obviously

some for anger, for instance, you want to be able to transform that anger into something gentler so that what you really want is can be achieved, that there can be a real intimacy. And that's again where the doubling comes in. And I think Dan will always model

will always model something gentler and more vulnerable than that anger. Now, if a partner says, well, yeah, this happens sometimes. No, no, you're soft peddling it. I'm really furious. Then Dan will say in a very gentle voice, as you can see, I'm very angry. and the partner will need to understand. This is something I can deal with or, well, this is just too toxic. There are some therapists who won't work with couples who aren't fully committed to each other.

Dan was not in that camp. Okay. But, of course, what you want is for the angry blaming. Right. sometimes bullying, aren't you? To be able to step back, which is another one of Dan's principles, step back and see the couple and calm down. And really, Dan modeling that that kind of stepping back on a platform is one of his principles too.

Okay. Yeah, that's some good, that's some good additions there. Because I always, I always wonder, like, well, what if it is anger? And that's the primary thing. Like, you're looking for the wish, you're looking for the fear. Maybe there is a fear. Maybe there is a wish as well. But what if it is the anger? That is the primary sort of thing going on there. And I think you're right to say that it's not helpful to blame the other person to shift, you know, like you are to put the responsibility on the other person. Like, you're responsible for my issues. So you're the problem. for my issues. It's, um, that's, that's a different directionality of the anger. That's the anger pointing at the other person and like blaming, which is not helpful. And I think that's where it's helpful to do that doubling where it's like, I make I statements like I fear or I wish with anger, there could be like an I wish statement. Like I wish, you know, we were able to overcome this struggle that we're having or I wish you could hear me how important this is to me. Or with fear, There could be fear underneath anger, of course, like a concern. Like, I fear our kids' safety, and that's why I'm wanting to be careful with this thing,

you know, or something like that. Absolutely. There are a number of vulnerable feelings and the wish and the wish and the fear, I think, are two major ones. There's also hurt. There's shame. There's disappointment. All of those things are.

very often the vulnerable feelings that because they're more difficult to feel, perhaps more, especially for men who are trained in a certain way to be tough and not to be, not to feel those vulnerable things. So the anger, the anger is what comes out. Right. They might not have a conscious representation of more nuanced emotions beyond Exactly. Beyond anger. Or recently what I'm seeing a lot of is people say I'm anxious, but there's really a lot of other emotions going on there as well.

Like it could be anger, but they're saying they're anxious. It could be shame. They could say I'm anxious. So it's like we get these like sort of unnuanced words that are sometimes less helpful to describe a whole constellation of feelings. And very, very, often it's interesting when Dan

doubled for people and of course we saw couples together so it was wonderful to watch how he did things and when he would say how much is right

and how much is wrong or this is just a speculation if somebody if the partner said well no that's not it he saw that as just as helpful as when the partner said, that's absolutely right. Because then the partner was able to find words that he hadn't found or she hadn't found before for what they were

really feeling. And it was just, it was just fascinating to see how that worked. Any examples come to mind of um i miss um well let me think i think i'd have to think about that for for okay maybe you maybe you miss seeing the examples and that's a that's okay as well i imagine it was a lot of fun to sit there and to do therapy together as a couple you know as it's connecting for you guys absolutely absolutely it certainly was and i oh i think what what is what is really interesting is in our couple, when I disagreed or was irritated,

which didn't happen that often with Dan, his first impulse was not to argue, but first to verbalize to try to understand where I was coming from. And there was something so disarming about that. that it just really was a very positive quality in our relationship. Okay, so you would come at him with like an issue and he would meet you with curiosity and asking questions, trying to understand it more fully before reacting or like trying to fix it or jump into conclusions.

Exactly. Or another thing, he could be very funny. And we got to a point where in any couple, there are obviously certain habits that we have over the years that don't change. And we could tease each other, play with that. Okay. And that was a lot of fun. He hated shopping, for instance. And so he would buy, he would buy 10 times what we need.

needed so he wouldn't have to shop again. That's funny. And I was, yeah. But we could laugh about that and play with it. So that helped a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

One of the, I think in a recent study, they found that, you know, one of the most attractive things people are looking for is a good sense of humor in their partner. Absolutely. And well, when we're attracted to someone, we laugh more at their jokes. So there may be that. but then also humor is also a sign of intelligence. So more, you know, like the ability to be witty and funny and kind of like find plays on words or plays on things is actually a sign of intelligence. So, you know, it's fun to hear that you guys had that ability to kind of like find some humor and not.

And it's playful too, right? So it moves you out of that kind of fight and flight mode, shut down. you know, disengagement into more of a playful stance. And it creates a complicity, a sense of we really are on the same team. And we get each other. Yeah. And, of course, trying to create that within the couple, to model that was a big part of what Dan was doing. Were you guys friends with the Gottman's?

Did you ever have meals with them? Or was there a relationship there? Was it mostly just like correspondence by email and stuff like that? that. There was a relationship. They invited us. When they were, we actually went to their workshops, to a few of their workshops. We went to a workshop, which was a big couple workshop.

And we were, Dan and I were figuring out about do we want, are we ready to live together? And then a few years later, they invited us to their island. They lived in an island off Seattle. So, yes, it was definitely a very close friendship that they had. That's meaningful. Yeah. And a lot of neutral respect and admiration. Yeah, it's so nice to have that sort of like, you know, we can appreciate each other's.

commonalities and differences and I saw that in the forward and the way that in the book you guys talk about Gottman and their ideas and how there's similarities and you know how we call we call things slightly different at times right but there's we're kind of seeing the same thing that was helpful and I think um I think is as John saw it and that's correct um the Gottman's discovered by research what Dan discovered intuitively, really. It's, he did not do the kinds of experiments that the Gottman's did, but he then arrived independently at very similar conclusions and different, and methods. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of commonality in the threads. Even with emotionally focused therapy, there's some commonality. between what you guys are doing in an emotionally focused therapy that I've seen. What are the commonalities that you see between your style, Dan Weil's style and emotionally focused therapy? Well, I think the attachment wound, the idea of attachment wounds is really very fundamental to emotionally focused therapy and to Dan's work. It is precisely without vulnerable feelings.

There was emotional wounds that he's trying to bring out. And, yeah, I think expressing those emotional feelings for the partner in these eye statements is a different way of getting at the same thing. Dan tends to focus on the present and will go to the past as the client leads him there. But that past is, of course, the attachment wound that that's who Johnson talks about. Yeah, it seems like attachment is so central. And the dance of attachment, how one, Dan will talk about how one, one partner is often kind of more attacking and the other partner is more like avoidant, whereas Sue Johnson will talk about, you know, the same kind of dynamics.

Yes. And Gottman as well. Yeah. Dan uses the phrase pursuer, distancer, and it very often takes that form. The pursuer pursues, and when they get frustrated, because the distance, the more the pursuer pursues, the more the distance or distances. And then it can take the form of, indeed,

the pursuer will get into ambivalent attachment mode. And the distancer will express that kind of avoidance that is talked about in emotionally focused therapy. and trying to bridge that. Yeah, I think also about like how the avoidant attachment style, there's often some like dissociation in that avoidance or shut down, right? Exactly. Which can be like a stone walling of sorts, as Gottman would say,

or just kind of like I'm putting up walls and it's hard to get through to me. And what you're saying is that the person who's the pursuer will actually maybe even pursue. more in that moment. Right. And I think again with the doubling, sometimes the hope is that the couple will get, be able to step back and see the pattern, what attachment theory calls the dance that they're in.

That's what you hope for. Right. And I think the I statements, the I fear or I wish can sometimes pierce through both sides of the pursuer, the avoider. You know, it could pierce through both of those types of statements. Like I was just with a couple the other day, and it was like, you know, the I statement was, I fear when you disengage for me that you don't love me.

Absolutely. And then I saw on the partner's face when I said that, it like resonated as what that would feel like from the partner and the part so this this person as i said that it was like they had some like sadness and just like oh that's what it's that's what's going on right and um and then i was like oh help me understand like as you hear that like what what do you feel like do you what do you feel loss or sadness and they're like well i would never want them to to not know that i love them you you know, and then that was like this moment of like they turn towards each other and there's this like connection you can feel, you know?

Absolutely. Yeah. When you say something like that, that fear, and then very often the client will say, really, is that what you're feeling? And there is this, when it resonates like that, it can be very emotionally powerful. And that happens a lot. Were there ever couples that maybe behind closed doors with you, Dan was like, you know, I don't think this couple's going to work out.

Or like, I just think that this relationship is too toxic to go on. Or like, how did you handle those types of relationships? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that was one of the gifts, the many gifts of working with him. that I think every therapist has to face that. And there are a number of well-known, a very large number of well-known therapists

who have been divorced and are in a second marriage. And sometimes the differences between people are just too toxic. And there, and when one is, well, when there's a certain kind of bullying behavior that that is just there and can't be changed. Or if one is both harsh and fragile and can never acknowledge, yes, I think there we get back to that question of clarity. And Dan will say, I don't know if he, I don't think he wrote. about that so much, that it can be helpful for the partner that is being abused in certain ways,

emotionally abused, to be able to see that and take it from there. Now, the problem, go ahead. How would you guys talk to a partner when you saw that? like would you explicitly say to a couple ever like this is just too toxic or the bullying is just too much for us to be able to help you no uh that was not something um that dan would would do um he would um the questions he asked the doubling he would try just to present things in such a way that the partner could figure it out. Now, occasionally, since they were two of us, we did have some sessions where we agreed that maybe it's time for an individual session that would be helpful.

So when that happened, one of us would speak with the partner and give her or him the emotional space to express things that were more difficult to express in a couple. And Dan would never initiate that. And I don't tend to initiate that. I think there are ways of making, there are ways of leaving emotional space so that that can be felt. There's access to the feeling and can be expressed. So I was at a conference in Gottman and his wife were speaking, and they were talking about domestic violence and how they specifically in their studies have learned to exclude brittle borderlines and psychopathic people as like an incurable type of domestic violence, whereas they think some domestic violence is actually treatable. I'm sorry, they make the distinction between domestic violence that is characterological and domestic violence that's situational and the situational can be treated and the other cannot.

And they're very, very clear on that. Yeah, I think most therapists and Dan and I and I as well, If there is a feeling that domestic violence is a problem, we don't take them on as clients. It's just too dangerous. Okay. So any domestic violence, like if there was any domestic violence, you wouldn't take that couple? Or if it was more than situational, or like, how would you sort of figure that out or what conversations would you have around that decision-making? I would have to say that I can only think of one occasion where that came up.

And there it was a sense that the partner was so bullying and abusive that it was dangerous for the bullied partner to speak. And there, we just did not take them on and told the bullying partner that he needs help. And it's not help that we can provide. Okay. Any like couples that come to your mind when you think about like huge success stories where you like, we're going into it thinking maybe, I don't know that this is going to have a resolution or this is skill. to connection and despite that it like led to connection or oh there are a lot of those there are a lot of those and and i think um i think it is couples who it could be anger anger or withdrawal where there was

still a flame, but the flame had almost gone out. And just being able to get past a certain resentment and realizing how much in a partner they loved. And I think a lot of the doubling and the modeling and the modeling that then did. There were a number of those. And I mean, a few people

who would say to Dan occasionally I wish we could take, you know, wish we could be on my shoulder and be there with us. And that was really, really it. Just that, that voice

that Dan had, reminding them viscerally of what they loved about each other. and had lost touch with. And this is often true, too, for couples who have taken each other for granted. And it's just being able to get in touch with the way they used to feel about each other and the spark was still there. It was just in danger of going out.

That must have been wonderful to watch. Did you see over time couples in terms? internalize the ability to speak in I fear or I wish statements to each other in the actual sessions. Like did did did you guys see that sort of get modeled to the point that people started to do that in your sessions themselves? It was very exciting when it happened. Yes. The answer I can definitely say yes. Okay. Yeah. Anything more you want to say on that? Because I think that's really important for people to understand.

It's like, yeah, as a therapist, you're doing this and it may be something that you do over and over again. And the couple is hearing you do it. But then it's like eventually they can internalize it, which is really powerful. It's like being in therapy myself for years. It's like I've internalized the empathy internally of one of my therapists in particular that I've had. That is the wish, right? and often, often it happens. That couples feel lost, and then they feel found,

and they find their voice. And it's very exciting when that happens, and we do have that experience. So you met on Match.com, how did it progress from there? I have you on with me. I think we have to, like, hear the story, you know? Well, I would have to say I took the initiative on that one.

Dan had a write-up that just so appealed to me. It was minimalist and showed the wry humor that characterizes him. And we met. And it, it's, there was a spark there really from the beginning. So you read, you read something of his, a write-up of his? And that sort of attracted you towards me.

Just his profile. His profile. Okay. Two paragraphs. Yeah. And as a literature professor in my former life, I'm very sensitive to language. And I love the way he used words. and he obviously found things in my profile that he liked.

So we met and there was just an ease of conversation. And Dan defines himself as I do in that profile as I think of myself as an introvert with extroverted moments. Okay. And that was very true of Dan and I think myself that way. So that was really nice. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's really important as you, if you're listening to this and you're single

and you're building your dating profile, it's like, don't be afraid of putting out some nuance of like what you're looking for, who you are. I've read, I've had a couple patients who show me their profile. And I'm like, this isn't, this doesn't tell me anything about you, you know? Right, right. Exactly.

And so that's interesting how that kind of a, inspired some. He puts, there were some positive things. He said something like my friends say about me and then he put various things. And then he says, they're my friends after all. Yeah. So there's always a kind of gentle undercutting of himself. And just in an openness that that was very appealing.

A little refreshing. humility, right? Absolutely. Like an awareness of like, of course my friends think highly of me. They're my friends. Exactly. Exactly. And refreshing humility, I like that first because that's so right on.

That's good. So you guys dated for some years and? No, well, one year. One year, okay. And then since I was trying out living in California, I'd come from Massachusetts, and then we moved in together. Okay. Nice.

And yeah, anything else, any other memorable experiences or things you'd like to share since, you know, like this is going to be on YouTube, and I'm sure people who are looking him up and trying to understand a bit about him and his thoughts. Well, I do want to say. I didn't realize this would be a video conversation. I thought it would be just audio. I think I would have done a few things differently. But anyway, maybe then I can show the book. And I do think it's a wonderful book, engaging and readable

and give so many specific, can that be seen? Yep, yep. And I will do a nice introduction at the beginning, talking about this as well and introduce you guys and yeah solving the moment if you're listening to this audit auditory and it is I would say very readable it's short and concise which I appreciate it's not hyper verbose it's to the point and it gives good examples illustrating the points and so it's it's a nice psychotherapy text it's readable it's like some text I pick up and I'm like two chapters in and I'm just like suffering.

I'm just like, I'm just suffering. I'm just like, oh gosh. I can say it's actually fun to read. And Dan gives wonderful engaging examples and of interventions that I think are immediately useful for any therapists, whether they're a beginner or very experienced. So I can really strongly recommend it. Yeah, and I think the article he wrote as well, I'll link that in the show notes, and I'll link the book.

And yeah, thank you so much for coming on. Are there any other things that you would like to just put out there before we close up? No, I think that's fine. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.