Symptoms of Appreciation Deficit Disorder

Womenscorner Desk
September 9, 2020

Physical and emotional withdrawal :

Example: Charlie and Nicole have been living parallel lives for the last joyless and sexless year of their marriage.

Criticism :

Example: Nicole repeatedly criticizes Charlie for being selfish, whereas Charlie repeatedly criticizes Nicole for being… Nicole;

Contempt :

Example: Charlie claims that Nicole hated him during the last year of their marriage, whereas Nicole feels Charlie has been contemptuously ignoring her core needs.

Negative sentiment override :

Example: The spouses are both so flooded with negative emotion that they each accuse one another of rewriting their shared past, as when Charlie insists that Nicole has only decided, after the fact, that she wasn’t happy with their life in Brooklyn, when at the time she was.

Fortunately, appreciation deficit disorder contains, embedded within itself, its own obvious cure: appreciation.

Indeed, the renowned couples therapist Terry Real considers appreciation not only the single “most effective” strategy for improving a relationship, but he goes so far as to say, “This one principle is equal to all the others combined.” As we will see, most of the top couples therapists in the world agree.

Source : Google