How To Treat Jealousy: 3 Therapy Techniques

hi I'm mark Tyrell of uncommon knowledge and welcome to three techniques for treating jealousy save your clients relationships by helping them get their misused imagination under control oh [Music] beware my lord of jealousy it is the green-eyed monster which doth Mock the meat it feeds on now as Iago from Shakespeare's Othello and Shakespeare famously called jealousy the green-eyed monster knowing when we're consumed by it we humans can act in pretty monstrous ways an accusatory suspicious withdrawing affection we can make life miserable not only for our partners but also for ourselves and of course sometimes people do have perfectly genuine and justifiable reasons to feel jealous you know the problem is then situation related rather than psychology related in a way but if someone is feeling jealous with no real cause or their jealousy has grown way out of proportion to any actual wrongdoing of their partner then that's where we as therapists and counselors can make a difference and by the way if you're suffering from jealousy yourself you might find my article on overcoming jealousy more helpful so what is jealousy when I'm treating the green-eyed monster I always think it's worth talking cognitively with the client about what jealousy is you know for example I would say something like Kevin jealousy is a misuse of the imagination and the imagination can do a pretty good impression of mimicking reality and just think how often you've completely believed a dream was real until you woke up okay that's how real the imagination can seem to us and that's why when we're jealous we start to believe the things we've made up in our own heads and act as if they were real okay like questioning our partner obsessively about their day at work because we've spent hours imagining them flirting with their colleagues so apart from emphasizing that imagination is not the same thing as reality necessarily how can we really make a difference to the jealous client who has at least been big enough to come looking for help so here are three therapy techniques you can use to dispel your clients jealous obsession so number one explore the past and I hate that expression personally exploring the past is a phrase that conjures up all those things that are bad about the certain forms of psychotherapy you know focusing on part past hurts at the expense of successes and resources or locking people into long-term treatment with no clear therapy goals or end in sight so the trouble with the past is that there's tends to be an awful lot of it okay holding on to the unfounded dogma that insight into the true origin of a problem will be enough to dissolve it and so on so exploring the past has connotations however we do of course need to know something about how patterns of thought behind problems like jealousy may have become established in the first place in order to clearly distinct distinct which the past from the present so a chronically jealous client will typically have felt bitterly betrayed in some past relationship they may have been genuinely cheated on or let down or abandoned unexpectedly or they may have developed a materialistic style of human relationships seeing other people as possessions to be used and controlled as they see fit so discovering where the jealous pattern may have originated is a first step to dealing with it to separate past from present so the saying has it once bitten twice shy is the problem in a nutshell for many jealous clients having been cheated on before they expect their next partner to do the same so we might ask them to describe a length and even write down all the ways their car partner and situation is different from the past partner and circumstances such as you know he always calls if he's going to be late she hates the previous partners favorite food her hair's a different color she discusses problems in the relationship rather than avoiding them and so forth what are all the difference differences between his current partner and the last one or the one that let them down this can be a very powerful intervention that gets them to appreciate that then is not now and to stop blaring the past on their current partner number three encourage good use of the imagination so making up damaging scenarios and believing them is a misuse of a most useful and potentially beneficial tool that we humans have our imaginations so we can help our jealous clients learn how to guide their imagination towards more helpful uses so ask about times they get jealous for example you know they're they might get jealous seeing their partner talking to attractive colleagues at a social function for example or when their partner has gone out for the night with their own friends and encouraged them to see those situations whilst feeling relaxed and calm perhaps while they're enjoying a hot bath or in hypnosis the more they mentally rehearse in these frightening scenarios or jealousy causing scenarios whilst feeling relaxed the more they'll train their mind to tag the situation as something not to worry about and create a new pattern match to feel physically calm and relaxed the next time they're in one of those situations in reality okay and in this way we can begin to separate imagination from emotionality and unhook the old automatic association of jealousy it's also useful to remind clients that no one ever makes a fool out of you by cheating on you okay they only make a fool out of themselves of course so I hope you found that useful and if you did please hit like and subscribe and if you want to hear when my next video is published hit the notification bell below I'm Matt Tara love uncommon knowledge and if you'd like to subscribe to my email newsletter you can find it over at UNK that's UNK comm slash blog and thanks for watching Oh [Music]

Channel: Uncommon Practitioners

Views: 41,811

Rating: 4.9512568 out of 5

Keywords: stop feeling jealous, jealousy therapy techniques, how to treat jealousy, uncommon practitioners, therapy techniques, how to help jealous clients in therapy, jealous clients, jealousy, mark tyrrell

Id: YLflx-40T9Q

Length: 6min 35sec (395 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 23 2019