Created for Connection by Sue Johnson

Author:Sue Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Family & Relationships / Marriage, Religion / Christian Life / Family, Religion / Christian Life / Love & Marriage
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2016-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

A COUPLE IN TROUBLE

Charlie and Kyoko are a young immigrant couple who come from an Asian culture where the husband is very much the head of the household and emotional expression is frowned upon. Kyoko had been placed on antidepressant medication by her doctor when she became “hysterical” after being refused entry to a university graduate program. Charlie tried to help her by offering advice. But it consisted largely of telling her how unsuited she was to any of her career choices. Needless to say, that didn’t help. This is where they are when they come to see me.

Charlie and Kyoko easily identify their Demon Dialogue: he stays emotionally removed and delivers logical lectures full of shoulds, while she dissolves into angry tirades and teary hopelessness. After a few sessions, they can touch on their raw spots, although it is still hard for them to really explore their sensitivities. Kyoko, small, exotic, and speaking very fast in her lilting English, confides that her childhood was full of rigid rules and that she was shunned by her family until she complied with these rules.

I frame it that Kyoko is now allergic to being told how she “should” be and feels punished when Charlie is distant. She tries to explain to Charlie. “It is like I am already on the floor, feeling small, and you come in to take charge. You tell me, ‘Yes, you should feel small, now do this and do that.’ So I fight you. Your advice just puts me down. I get hurt and angry. Then you give me more rules about not being angry. And I am alone. With no comfort.” She allows that her husband is “incredible” in many ways. He is responsible and conscientious, and she respects him very much. But their fights and his physical and emotional distancing are “driving me crazy. I think you call it nuts. I only get more depressed.”

Charlie, a physics whiz, has a very hard time taking this in at first. His idea of love has been to protect his wife from her own “upset” and to “guide her” in this new North American world. As to his own emotions, he admits at one point that his heart is “shattered” by Kyoko’s angry “explosions.” But mostly he minimizes his hurt and focuses on his wife’s “problems.”

Charlie slowly moves from criticizing Kyoko’s reactions (“Kyoko has a psychological problem; she is like the weather”) into discussing his own reactions (“I do protect myself. I can’t deal with her unreasonable outbursts. We never spoke like that at home. That kind of talking is foreign to me”) and finally into exploring his own emotions and motives (“I get overwhelmed here. So I give her advice, formulas to stop her being so angry”).

Kyoko becomes clearer on how she “pushes” to get her point across and stop Charlie from moving away from her. She acknowledges her hurt at Charlie’s censure, and goes on to reveal that she feels “discarded” since Charlie has pulled away from making love or any physical contact.

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