The Relationship Maze

Send us Fan Mail What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz. You can find a link on our website: https://therelationshipmaze.com. Welcome to the Relationship Maze podcast, where we explore the complexities of human relationships.  In today's episode, we'll be diving into the topic of jealousy and how it affects relationships.  Jealousy is a common emotion that can arise in a...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode we talk about shame. Shame can be one of the most difficult feelings we can experience as it goes to the core of our notion of self. Talking about something that we experience as shameful makes us feel intensely vulnerable and exposed. We can experience shame as an attack on our core self.  We distinguish between healthy feelings of shame and unhealthy, chr...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode we talk about feelings and emotions. As therapists we always encourage our clients to express their feelings and emotions. We discuss why it matters to get in touch with your feelings and emotions.  Our emotions represent our lived experience and they are personal to us. Getting in touch with our feelings and emotional reactions will provide us with informa...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode we are in conversation with dating and relationship expert Dr Kathrine Bejanyan. According to research, nearly half of US adults say dating has gotten harder for most people in the last 10 years. This has caused more than half of young people in America not to have a romantic partner, and the majority of those dating to express dissatisfaction with their ro...

Send us Fan Mail If you have ever experienced bullying, at school, in your workplace or in your relationship(s), you know how devastating it can be. Bulling is often defined as one person intentionally and consistently causing emotional or physical harm to another person. We would like to expand this definition by also including behaviour that causes serious harm whether it is intended or not.  We...

Send us Fan Mail Do you generally tend to put things off in your life? We are all familiar with undertaking some tasks that we are not too keen on. Procrastinating doesn't mean that you are lazy, in fact often the opposite is true. Many people's houses are the tidiest when an uncomfortable task has to be avoided at all costs, e.g. having to study for exams or having to have a conversatio...

Send us Fan Mail How open are you to finding out more about others or about the world in general? In today's episode we discuss the importance of being curious. Curiosity is a drive to want to find out more, to learn and to understand. Curiosity keeps us open rather than to get stuck in our assumptions that we know already everything there is to know. In relationships curiosity keeps you open...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss your inner critic, a negative voice that tells you for example that you are not doing well enough, are not likable enough or you will never be able to do this. This voice usually questions your actions or your sense of self  in a way that is not helpful.  Your inner critic tends to usually have been around for quite a long time. Much like taking in food,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk about patterns in your relationships which tend to keep you firmly entrenched in roles which can be very disempowering.  You might often find yourself coming to the rescue of others, always making sure that you look out for others.  Or you may find that you frequently end up in a victim role where you feel put upon or disregarded by others. We discuss the d...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode we talk about the experience of feeling disappointed.  Disappointment is the roll call of feelings that you have when something did not happen or wasn't as good as hoped for. We all had experiences in life where our hopes were dashed and expectation that we had were not met. These expectations might relate to other people, situations or an idea about o...

Send us Fan Mail What might a relationship with two partners who are avoidant-dismissive look like? Or two people who are anxious-preoccupied?  In today's episode we look at the combinations of (insecure) attachment styles in relationships. We discuss the dynamics of relationships where one partner is secure and the other isn't and look in more detail at the impact of having the same or...

Send us Fan Mail Following on from our podcast last week where we discussed the anxious-preoccupied attachment style, we are now focusing on the the avoidant-dismissive attachment style and how people with this attachment style adapt to relationships. According to estimates circa 50% of the population is secure and 50 % is insecure: 20 percent is anxious-preoccupied, 25 percent is avoidant-dismiss...

Send us Fan Mail Today we will be looking at some of the common presentations of an anxious-preoccupied/ambivalent attachment style. A person with this insecure attachment style is generally very concerned with wanting to be completely emotionally intimate with others and finding that others are never quite as willing to get as close as desired.  There is a very strong expectation as well as a fea...

Send us Fan Mail Do you sometimes feel that your partner oversteps boundaries in your relationship or that you struggle to set boundaries yourself? Do you have a healthy sense of boundaries or are your boundaries either too rigid or too porous? Boundaries are the invisible lines that demarcate your personal (physical) space, your limits, your values and rules that guide your life.  We know when so...

Send us Fan Mail In episode 118 we are delighted to be in conversation with Dr Julia Carter about current dating trends in society. Are we all as free, unrestrained and equal as we would like to think? Do you know what factors contribute to your choice of partner? Find out more dating patterns and what dating tells us about wider society in general.  Julia is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships , https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2. In today's episode we talk about the low feelings that many people get in the winter period. The lack of light can affect your mood to the extent that you might struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships , https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2. Today we are talking about generalised anxiety - how you might experience it, how it impacts on you and your relationships and what to do about this unpleasant sensation. Anxiety is a normal response. It is...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships , https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2. In today's episode we talk about gaslighting, a term that has become increasingly popular in current discourse.  Gaslighting is a term that derives from a 1938 play and subsequent film where a devious h...

Send us Fan Mail In episode 111 we have the pleasure of talking to Marc Sholes, who shares his wisdom with us when it comes to making the best partner choice for you. Marc explains attachment styles and why you should 'privilege character over chemistry'. Marc is a highly experienced New York City psychotherapist and psychoanalyst with 35+ years of experience helping people get healthy,...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships , https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2. In today's episode Tom and Angela discuss some of their top indicators that your relationship might be in trouble. We talk about lack of time together, poor communication, constant arguments, restraints...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships , https://therelationshipmaze.com/relationshipconflictvsl2. Everyone experiences emotional ups and downs, but how we respond to our emotions is what matters most.  Emotional regulation skills are key to managing our emotions and leading a healthy life. Developing emo...

Send us Fan Mail Would you like to discover your conflict style in relationships? Discover how it can help you in your relationships. Erik Erikson was a renowned psychoanalyst and psychosocial theorist who proposed eight stages of life as a way to understand the development of the human personality. His theory of life stages, which takes into account the different developmental tasks that must be...

Send us Fan Mail Is there a particular behaviour by your partner that you find intensely and frequently  irritating, frustrating, dismissive or irksome? Do you know how to effectively let your partner how you feel and what change you want to see?  In today's episode we talk about an effective way of  communicating that can enable a behaviour change in your partner.  We discuss the  4 step Fee...

Send us Fan Mail When you get very caught up in your emotions you may struggle to express your needs appropriately. You might feel very angry or highly anxious for example your reasoning may go out of the window. When agitated, we often react automatically without any reflections. When we cannot regulate our emotions, we get overwhelmed - we are controlled by the emotion rather than the other way...

Send us Fan Mail Do you often complain to others about your partner? Or do you constantly tell your partner that their behaviours are dissatisfying to you? Do these complaints help your relationship and get you what you want? Complaining can be satisfying but is not likely to achieve anything, in particular if you talk to a person who is not the source of the complaint and cannot do anything about...