My Enhanced Main Service has now been discontinued, and it is replaced by my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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Dr Jim’s Distance Learning course

For a New Effective Philosophy of Love/Life

(Part 1 of the healing/re-education process for individuals within troubled couples – which is called my Six Day Course for Happy Couple Relationships)

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This program of learning, based on my eighteen key principles of happy couple relationships, and a few other important principles, is designed to improve your ability to relate to your partner in a constructive, loving manner.

I believe you cannot change your belief system, or philosophy of life, unless you are willing to go over and over and over the key elements of the new philosophy.  This is why there has never been a religion where individuals are asked to attend a temple or church just once, where they are given a set of rules, or a lecture, and told: Live your life from these principles.  This would never work, because humans are creatures of habit, and human memory is extremely fragile. 

When I was trying to learn new relationship skills, in 1984, after attending marriage guidance in Leeds, I used to listen to Werner Erhard’s Relationships Course, on audio tape, every single day for more than a year; and many, many times in years two and three!

I would strongly recommend that you study the following philosophy of life for at least one year; and possibly two or three:

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Day 1:

Please read the following principles, and reflect upon them. 

Principles, insights and techniques for successful relating

1. A marriage (or marriage-like relationship) is a “house” that is built every day. What actions did you consciously take to build the “house” of your marriage today?

When you wake up in the morning, remind yourself that all you have are ‘the foundations’ of a relationship.  You now have to build that relationship all over again; every single day.  The house of your relationship is never complete.  You can never ‘clock off’.

A relationship is not something you HAVE, it is something you DO!  It is a process rather than a thing.

If you go to sleep in your relationship, you will wake up to find it has collapsed from want of repair.  Having destructive arguments with your partner about who is right and who is wrong, and especially who is ‘top dog’ and who is ‘under-dog’, is equivalent to trying to polish the walls of your “house” with sledge hammers!  You will wreck it in no time.  So I ask again:

What actions did you consciously take today to build the “house” of your relationship?

What actions did you take to stop swinging the wrecking ball against the walls of your relationship?

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

Or go to my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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2. If you want your relationship to survive, then you need to maintain a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative moments. If you fail to do this, then your relationship is heading for disintegration. “But what more can I do?”, I hear you ask.  Try this:

Avoid criticizing your partner.  Criticism is corrosive and destroys self-esteem and good feelings in a relationship.  Use reasonable ‘assertive complaints’ about behaviours, not about your partner’s essence, or personhood.

Remember to set up dates and assignations with your partner, for friendly talk, walks, outings and sex-love encounters.  High quality time together counts towards the 5 positives that you need.  Ignoring or abandoning your partner counts towards the negative side of the equation.

Demonstrate respect and care for your partner.  Take responsibility for your side of the relationship.  And develop a deeper and deeper knowledge of ‘who’ your partner is.  Try to find out more and more about their values, ideas, dreams, childhood, friendships, goals, etc.

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

Or go to my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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3. The best way to get love is to sincerely offer it to your partner. In what ways could you offer love to your partner which you are not currently doing? “But”, I hear you protest, “what love do I get from them?”  That’s a really crazy way to do the sums.  It’s just like the person sitting in front of a cold and black stove, with a huge wooden log in their hands, and saying to the stove: “If you give me some heat, I’ll give you this log!”  Crazy!  All they have to do is put the log on the fire, and fan the resulting flames a little; and – whoosh – up comes the warming heat. 

Do not wait for your partner to start loving you before you will love them.  That’s crazy.  Become the source of love in your relationship, and watch the magical results!

Take responsibility for the state of your relationship.  “If there’s a problem here, then I am responsible”.  Nobody’s coming on a cuffing white charger to rescue your relationship.  Get stuck in and sort it out.

Successful lovers are ‘givers’.  Unsuccessful lovers are like vampires.  They are looking to suck some kind of benefit out of their partner.  This is the wrong way around.  Your partner will flee from vampire behaviour. 

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

Or go to my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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Reframing your problems

The Nine Windows Model of E-CENT^[i] counselling is a way of helping individuals to rethink and re-frame their upsetting or distressing problems, without engaging in confrontation and/or conflictual argumentation with them.

It consists of an experiment, in which the person needing help is asked to imagine how their problem would look and feel, when viewed through nine different window frames – each of which provides a slightly different ‘context’ for the problem.

The context is provided by a philosophical statement (or belief), such as ‘life is difficult’; or ‘some things are beyond my control’.  And the person is asked to look at a specific problem – which is disturbing or distressing them – through those nine different windows, or contexts; frames; or philosophical lenses – as if they are true beliefs.

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

Or go to my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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Here’s how it works:

Think about a current problem that you have, which is serious enough to require urgent treatment. This problem might make you feel angry, anxious, depressed, or some other seriously painful emotion.

Try to create a visual image or representation of that problem.  Then look through each of the following nine ‘windows’ in turn, (as if looking at that serious problem), and ask yourself the questions suggested:

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Window No.1: The frame around this window says:

“In life, there are certain things I can control, and certain things that are beyond my control”. 

Looking at my chosen problem:

– Am I currently upset because I am trying to control something that is beyond my control? (For examples: Other people are beyond my control; though some of them may be more or less open to being influenced by me.  The economy is beyond my control; as it government policy [today, and for the foreseeable future!] And so on.)

– If I give up trying to control what is clearly beyond my control, how much happier would I feel?  (Normally, a lot!)

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

Or go to my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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Defining relationship

The first of a three-part definition of relationship:

1. A relationship is an understanding and being aware of another person’s way of being. That is to say, a relationship is the condition of understanding and being aware of another person. (Notice there is no “entitlement” to anything in this statement!)

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End of Day 1 of the homework. Please reflect upon the ideas presented above, preferably in writing. Written reflections are easier to manage, because of the small size of our Working Memory system; and the things we write down make more of an impact upon us; often resulting in changed behaviour without thinking further about it.

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[i] This model was developed by me, Jim Byrne, around 2014, and originally consisted of just four windows, mostly derived from Buddhist sutras and moderate Stoical principles.  I then expanded it to five and then six windows, but had to modify it because one or two extreme ways of reframing had crept into the system, mostly from Buddhism.  Then it increased to eight windows, and very recently I added number nine.

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My Enhanced Main Service has now been discontinued, and it is replaced by my briefer, cheaper, Enhanced Couples Therapy Service.***

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If you have heard of my couple relationship work, and want to contact me, then please email me at Dr Jim’s Email Address.***

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