Gudrun Frerichs, PhD

The Tale of 2 Brains

It is surprising how many couples struggle with their relationship - yet they fail to get professional imput that could help them to improve their happiness and satisfaction a good working partnership could hold. Their family car gets more often a tune-up than their relationship - even though people often have even less understanding of what makes a good relationship than what it takes to have a smooth running car.

In the following video clip, marriage expert Mark Gungor presents a humorous exploration of the difference between how women and men think and behave.

8 Steps To Successful Conflict Resolution

I mentioned before that conflict arises when a person’s needs or expectations are not met. However, conflict does not just rest on a difference in needs but also on the negative meaning that people give an action or behaviour. Thus our perception and interpretation of a situation plays a large part in conflict.
Your partner comes home later than expected without calling you. You feel disappointed and hurt and are getting angry because you consider his actions disrespectful; he obviously doesn’t care about you; he can’t be bothered. You make a scene and accused him of all the things you just thought.

Conflict As An Opportunity Of Growth

Conflict is a normal occurrence. Whether you think of personal intimate relationships, friendships, or workplace relations, you can anticipate that conflict will happen sooner or later. It is unrealistic to expect that people have always the same needs, ideas, intentions, or plans. By finding constructive ways navigating through times in which you have a different position to your ‘partner’, you will be able to

• grow as a person
• arrive at a deeper understanding of any given situation
• learn about the other person and his/her needs
• will gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your important needs.

In a way, conflict can be understood as a result of resistance to one’s planned path of action or expected needs. Yet, rather than seeing it as a negative phenomenon, resistance has a life giving side to it. Life would be impossible without resistance. Indeed, resistance is not an impediment but the driving force for any progress and forward movement. Without resistance people cannot blow-dry their hair, cars don’t move, and people would slide off chairs.

When you experience resistance, you are given the opportunity to grow stronger within yourself as well as strengthen your relationships. Read on in the next post that explores “How to fight fair”.

What is Conflict?

Most people have a clear idea what conflict is. Most people don’t like conflict. In most cases conflict is difficult and hurtful for all parties involved.

Social theorist Axel Honneth explains the significant role conflict plays for a person’s healthy sense of identity and individualisation as follows: Individuals learn about who they are through interactions with others. Thus they derive a sense of self and identity through social processes of approval and recognition. 

Any forms of disrespect, for example rudeness, insult, humiliation, the withholding of care or support, the withholding of rights that are enjoyed by other members of society, discrimination, marginalisation, the lack of appreciation or acceptance for one’s way of life, abuse, rape, or torture cause a threat to a person’s integrity and self-development and could bring the whole identity of a person to a collapse. 

The Brain Loves Gossip

Do you love to gossip and feel a little bit guilty about it? I do. Usually, gossip is connected with some inferior way of communicating with and about others, mother told us "You shouldn't do!" Now, I found this delightful artlicle with a passage from the book "Your Brain at Work".

Your brain is immensely social. If you were a wolf, large parts of your brain would be devoted to getting resources directly from the wild. You would have complex maps for interacting with the physical landscape, like maps for sniffing out a distant meal and others for finding your way home in the dark. As a human, especially when young, you get your resources not from the wild, but from other people. Because of this, large amounts of human cortical "real estate" is devoted to the social world. If you work in an office, you could probably close your eyes and describe ten people around you, how important they are in relation to each other and to you, how they feel today, whether they can be trusted, and how many favors any of them might owe you. Your memories of your social interconnections are vast.

Gossip is something that the brain likes to do. As neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman says, "Four out of five processes operating in the background when your brain is at rest involve thinking about other people and yourself."

David Rock suggests that people love to go on social networking sites because they give them the opportunity to check out what other people are up to and spread a little bit of gossip. Kind of what I am doing right now: gossiping on about a paragraph that put the workings of the brain into words that put a smile on my face.

The Benefit of Groups

"The quality of a person's social life could have an even greater impact than diet and exercise on their health and well-being. There is growing evidence that being a member of a social group can significantly reduce the risk of conditions like stroke, dementia and even the common cold. New research by the Universities of Exeter and Queensland, Australia, shows that membership of social groups has a positive impact on health and well-being". (American Physiological Society (2009, September 13).

Myth About Womens' Low Sexual Desire

Many people are of the opinion that if a woman rarely wants sex there is something physically wrong with her. Maybe her sexual desire, her libido, would improve with the help of medical treatment? What pill can be prescribed that would get her back on the right track?

Like in many other areas, some health professionals (and certainly pharmaceutical companies) quickly reduce interpersonal, social, and cultural problems to a hormonal imbalance, that can be - and should be remedied with something we can buy in the pharmacy.

The biggest misconception of our present time is that problems like low sexual desire or depression are all due to hormonal or chemical imbalance. A misconception that is widely fed and supported research financed by pharmaceutical companies whose huge profits rely on people reaching for 'the pill'.

Facts About Being Gay

There are a lot of myths, facts, semi-facts, and wild stories that circulate around homosexuality. The following video is a 5 minute Tiki-Tour of education about some of the facts regard 'gay-ness' that have such a hard time to combat old theories of:

1. The absent or domineering parent
2. It's un-natural
3. It's a choice

and new theories of:

1. It's in the genes
2. It may be about having older brothers ! <:0

Anger: The Emotion Needed For Survival

Anger is probably one of the most important emotions available to humans. Far back, at the dawn of mankind, anger was absolute necessary for the survival of our species. Whenever a hostile tribe or a Saber-Tooth Tiger would attack, our distant ancestors could rely on the emotion of anger to prepare them to either fight or take flight.

Anger signals to the brain that the survival of the self/ the person is under threat upon which chemicals and hormones were released to prepare the body for the needed action. The problem with anger is, however, that Saber-Tooth Tigers are extinct. Yet, feeling the rush of the chemicals released by anger modern (wo)man reacts with a fight or flight response designed to deal with prehistoric beasts in situations that are not life-threatening.

People get angry when another driver cuts in front of their car, when they have to wait at the supermarket check-out, when their child is not coming immediately when called, when dinner is not ready at the usual time, or when the expected pay-increase is not happening. It’s like shooting mice with cannons. Over the millennia (wo)men have forgotten or un-learnt to respond appropriately to low-grade infringements. Anger and the violent expression of anger has become a serious problem in relationships, in parenting, and in society.

 

Improve Your Sex-Life

Sex is the most profound and intimate way people express their love to each other. Through the ever increasing access to information through traditional media and the internet we are very well informed about the many different ways people enjoy and pursue sex and sexual gratification in their lives. Even though one might think we have been 'immunised' and desensitised by explicit sexual depictions in public, in movies, and in the media, sex or the lack thereof is still a very reliable barometer of the quality of people's relationships with each other.