Are you experiencing problems in your relationshps? Mr. Alessandri, president of Relational Harmony has some tips to offer. This interview represents four in a series devoted to experts interested in helping change the lives of others. His firm offers educational consulting services for the improvement of relations in the workplace, home and in the community. Relational Harmony serves the DC, MD and VA metropolitan area. Please see excerpts of the interview below.
Mead: Can you tell us a little bit about your work?
Alessandri: I work with people who are experiencing a relationship breakdown with someone they care about. The same things I teach to couples on the verge of divorce apply to parents who are having a challenging non-verbal relationship with their teens (where so very many things are going unexpressed because each side thinks the other will never understand them). And what I do also benefits companies where staff members and productivity get hampered by tension, conflict and high turnover.
I believe that compared to the whole population, very few people actually need “therapy” or medications for problems in life that can resemble depression and a host of other emotion-related ills. Most joy and hope in life comes from our relationships, and when relationships break down we can spiral into great suffering, which becomes unbearable because we are suffering it alone. We may have friends that support us, but it’s still some crucial relationship (like with a spouse) that needs to get “fixed” before we can really rest. The work I do rebuilds relationships; eliminates the feelings of isolation, frustration and hopelessness; and restores/creates a sense of teamwork, mutual support, personal humility, great respect for each other and more. It also puts wounded/victimized/betrayed people on a path to rebuilding lost trust.
Mead: Why is relational counseling important?
Alessandri: First off, what I do is simply education rather than counseling; the latter implies state licensing and a wider array of education into abnormal psychologies that I have not completed yet. The material I cover with ordinary folks turns out to be completely new and surprising to them, even though they are familiar with terms like communication and relationship that are used in common everyday speech. But most people’s understanding of such terms are so vague and underdeveloped that it’s like having only a few pieces of a puzzle and wondering why there are such big gaps in their lives. As a matter of course, I end up doing a lot of undoing of bad habits and misunderstandings. There’s definitely a “before” and “after” with these sessions.
I like that you ask why the “relational” component is important. I generally don’t work with individuals because I’ve seen the frustration of one person trying to change and improve themselves, and suffering a lot, while the most important people in their lives continue along as if everything were fine or just unfixable (simply to be borne with patiently and with forgiveness but no hope of change). I’ve also seen religious couples trying to each be better but I’m alarmed by the ignorance they have about what they really need from each other. When I say “need” I mean “need” and not “want.” We don’t get to choose our needs and it’s not an act of virtue to ignore unmet needs (whereas it can be virtuous to deny ourselves of our wants). We all need to feel valued, respected and recognized—and not just in intimate relationships, even by a clerk in a store. I don’t want to teach people to be stoics or time-bombs (which we can all be), I want them to get what they need, and to educate people on how easy it is to provide that for each other. That requires working with both people who are in that relationship, not just one side.
Mead: Can you give us some information on your background and why you ventured into this field?
Alessandri: I got into this field by two paths. The first was a 22-year experience with a faith-based group in which I was working with teens for all 22 years and then in addition with married men and their children for the last 10 years. My role involved individual mentoring in their spiritual and home life. It was all on a volunteer basis (for many hours each week, I didn’t have other commitments like a family), and my day-jobs were first in advertising (5 years) and then film and television (10 years). It was only a year ago that I heard about the specialist in this that would go on to become my teacher, friend and mentor, Stanley Posthumus of BeyondWinWin.com. I heard about him at a family conference and got in touch. My company then flew him to Los Angeles where we videotaped him working with two separated couples, 5 hours each. I was mesmerized at his effectiveness right there and then, and for the next few months I spent a lot of time with the editing and continued to be amazed at his way of working. He developed and refined his techniques over 20 years, and here they were available to me at however quickly I could learn them. Soon afterwards I started training with him and decided to transition out of entertainment and into this. I had wanted to “change the world” by working in mass communication and now I’m thrilled at every chance I get to help one couple or relationship at a time.
Mead: What are three major issues affecting the healthy functioning of intimate relationships?
Alessandri: Goodness, how to choose only three? Maybe first comes routine. When people fall in love, they have no trouble focusing on the other person and being excited to see them. After some time that level of attention dies down and life becomes all about the business of running a home (ie, the tasks to be done). When life becomes all about chores, a person starts to feel overwhelmed and can inadvertently start shutting the other person out. Soon they are no longer listening, and they give minimal answers hoping the other person will leave them alone. The person trying to communicate then feels dismissed, isolated, boxed out and that is very painful, and they never meant to cause that. It begins with a lessening appreciation for the other person’s existence and of their efforts to juggle everything on their plate. You already expect the other to get their things done (take them for granted) and you focus more on the failures. Another issue is that good desires don’t cut it. Many couples are baffled at how they offend each other, and they say it’s never intended. Yet their behaviors are, in fact, offensive. Perhaps they frequently attack the other person (verbally, with no clue they’re doing it) or else they are suspicious, envious, jealous, or many other unsettling things. The offender always claims innocence—and I’ve come to believe them. They are usually quite clueless about what they are doing, and once they learn they do in fact want to change. But without that knowledge they try to please the other person in a way that backfires because it shows how little they understand what the person really feels and wants from them. A third obstacle is the tendency to cut conversations short, jumping to half-baked conclusions and ending up with results and plans that neither side wanted. I teach a lot of skills that help get all the information out, leads to solving problems together, and avoids situations where each side blames the other for how they got to a solution that neither one wanted. It could be as small as where a couple pulls over and eats. A simple problem ends up feeling like a tense argument whereas a few easy tips produce a tension-free way of discussing things.
Mead: Why is your approach different from that of counselors, therapists or coaches?
Alessandri: One major difference is that I meet with them for 4-6 hours and not in 45-minute blocks, nor on an on-going basis. I think a lot of couples leave a 45-minute counseling session in an angry state, because things have been stirred up but then they get cut off till next time and they argue or bite their tongues all the way home. My sessions are open-ended, giving people the time they really need to get all this burdensome material on the table and dealt with. It requires some stamina, we all get exhausted, but no one is left with an unmet yearning to be better heard or understood. It’s more like winding down from an incredible workout, with a happy buzz that was not anticipated. Also, when I work with couples, at first each person is trying to convince me of something, as if my opinion (judgment) matters. Throughout the session I try to disappear as much as possible, because what really matters is how they understand each other. I avoid saying things like “tell me” and “I see” and instead ask if the other person sees it the same way. Another example is that I don’t say, “what I hear you saying” because it should never be about me. Instead I frequently ask if they are saying x, so they can feel that I heard them but also giving them a chance to clarify if they want to try to express it better. It teaches them to do the same with each other and avoids assumptions and misunderstandings.
Mead: What is your success rate? Or how long does it take for partners operating in dysfunctional patterns, change their behaviors?
Alessandri: The changes happen in the room. The session is 4-6 hours long. There are numerous “aha” moments where I see the lights go on. Many tears are shed. What I leave them with are not a bunch of theories, as if they now have to figure out how to apply them in real life. No, they end up with tools they’ve already been using for a few hours, and then it’s a matter of them going through other topics they need to talk about. I can come back and lead them through those discussions but if I’ve done it well I generally make myself obsolete.
Mead: Can you give us a case history?
Alessandri: I will give you an anecdote from a recent session. A husband had no idea why it bothered his wife so much when he would talk to women at places like convenience stores. He couldn’t understand why she interpreted that as flirting. To him it was just joking around, he enjoys pulling people’s legs, and to him he doesn’t do it more with women than with men, he’s just very social. Without the session she was unable to tell him how much it hurt her, or to explain the wide range of emotions it caused in her, because he was always very quick to roll his eyes and apologize and say he’d try harder to be dull. So there was no real conversation about it. I insisted that we explore it and for the first time in his life he came to understand how it was affecting her, and with words that he could understand.
(1) First was the humiliation she felt to be standing there with her man while he was making another woman laugh. The wife felt like an idiot, imagining that every other person in the room pitied her for having a man who flirts with other women right in her face. So the idea that it was humiliating was new to him, and now he could understand that and never want to cause it again.
(2) Next was the sadness of the wife, that he rarely ever tried to make her laugh that way. He was only putting that energy into dealing with total strangers. She felt marginalized, unvalued, ignored, taken for granted. He had no idea all those feelings could be wrapped up in there, and he certainly never intended any of that. Next was her fear that being in her upper-30s, her husband was getting alarmingly good reactions from 23-year-olds. (He’s a really good-looking, funny guy. What woman heading towards 40 doesn’t fear being replaced by a cuter, younger, sexier woman?) The husband had no idea she was anxious about her age and appearance.
(3) Plus he had been unfaithful in the recent past and she still wasn’t “over it.” There’s a lot more to what we covered in that session, including the trust that had been broken, but the main story I’m telling is about how his apologies beforehand had meant nothing whereas now that he understood how she suffered his apologies were intelligent, sincere and going to lead to real change in his behavior, all of which she desperately needed to hear and see. She can move on now because he finally understood. And he no longer thinks she’s exaggerating or paranoid because he realizes how his behavior made her feel, and he had no desire to cause all that. He’d much rather be making her laugh and feel loved than giving that attention to strangers.
Mead: Do you have any tools to help someone determine if they need the kind of help you offer?
Alessandri: I recently developed a short quiz or questionnaire that pinpoints the exact sort of issues we deal with, and people can receive a score of where there relationship is at compared to where it could be. Your readers can find it here: http://www.relationalharmony.org/page8/page8.php
Mead: How might we contact you for further information?
Alessandri: I have a website, www.relationalharmony.org, but you can also e-mail me at fernando@relationalharmony.org or else call 443-370-2606.
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