Cindy Stulberg on Relationships

self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Cindy Goodman Staalberg.

She's an internationally respected psychologist and director for the Institute of Interpersonal Psychotherapy. She's provided psychological assessment and counseling for individuals, couples, groups, and families for over thirty five years. Her book is Feeling Better, Beat Depression and Improve Your Relationships with Interpersonal Psychotherapy. Hi, Cindy, Welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you very much for having me on today and giving me the opportunity to

talk to you and your listeners. My pleasure. Your book is called Feeling Better, Beat to Depression and Improve Your Relationships with Interpersonal Psychotherapy, and we will get into details about the book in a minute, but first let's start like we always do. There's a grandmother who's talking with her grandson and she says, in life, there are two

wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandmother says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. It's interesting parable, isn't it. Yeah, So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to

you in your life and in the work that you do. Absolutely, I think, certainly as a grandmother it's it's fun for me to to think about those issues, and it speaks to really what I think is the wide range of emotions we all experience. Right, So if we were on a desert island, it wouldn't matter as much how we

behaved as a result of those feelings. But because most of us really interact with so many people, you know, on a daily basis, I think it's how we deal with those feelings, those wolves, how we express or don't

express our huge range of emotions. Right, Not that being unhappy or mad or angry is bad per se, but what how we express them and the impact that's going to have on our relationships that I think is the most important part of what you know, the parable says to me in my life, and really what the book is all about. Wonderful. Early on in the book, you say, we want to let you in on a secret. Your

relationships hold the key to your happiness. Not your bank account, your job, a Caribbean vacation, having a baby, not having a baby, getting a promotion, building your dream kitchen, are losing ten pounds. Those things may give you a momentary boost, but it's your relationships with your friends, family, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, co workers, and neighbors, even your hairdresser, that will determine

whether you're happy for the long term. Absolutely, I think that's what really I p t. It's interpersonal psychotherapy, which is the model that the book is based on. Is based on the premise that if you have good, meaningful, constructive relationships, you're going to feel better. And if you're struggling with depression or mood difficulties and you have good meaningful relationships, then the symptoms of the depression will reduce

and diminish more quickly. So that's really the focus of what I certainly believe and I think we find when

we do address um people's mood difficulties. It comes from the con flicks they're having with others, or the stresses or the disappointments, or if someone has lost a loved one in terms of the death of someone, or maybe there's been a huge transition in in moving cities or losing a job or being divorced, your relationships are are profoundly affected and it it then results in whether you feel good about situation and what's happening, or whether you

don't feel very good about it. Yeah, you say that the founders of interpersonal psychotherapy saw a pattern, and that was that people who had depression were experiencing problems in at least one of four different areas when they became depressed, life transitions, complicated grief, social isolation, or interpersonal conflict. Yes, I think that's something that you can see, um for yourself or others around do. So those areas were commonly

what would kind of trigger a depressive episode. So being able to look at when you became depressed or when you were having difficulty, if you could sit back and say, well, yeah, that was when um, my friend and I got into a you know, serious argument and we stopped speaking to one another. While the result is that you're lonely and you're distressed, and you're just you know, pretty sad about what you've lost um or if you've you know, if

you've lost a loved one. Sometimes you know, these are common situations, but for some people they struggle with that

in a more profound way. So if someone passed away a number of years ago, but you feel still almost exactly the same as you felt when they died, or you never even let yourself feel sadness or loss of that, that will affect your mood and how you're feeling, or you go through a transition, you know, if you've lost a job or you have a baby, even if it's a good thing, you know, I um, you know, I don't know what but your experience. But certainly when I

had my children it was a huge adjustment. I mean I thought, here, I'm a psychologist, I know what I'm doing, and I was open for a rude awakening as to how hard it was and what a big adjustment it was in my life. Or if a person struggles with making relationships or sustaining them and feels very isolated, those things for sure you're going to see how they affect your mood. Well you probably would see that as well,

don't you think. Yeah. I think this was a part of the book though, that I wrestled with a little bit, because because my experience of depression has been now again, what's difficult for me to know is like to take it all way back to where it started. It might

very well have been any of those things. But when I get depression these days, it really seems to me that I can't tie it to anything right because I look and this is in my life today now, plenty of times in the past that I had depression, there were one of those four things for sure happening. But as I've grown, I find that less and less the case. I feel like those areas of my life all feel pretty good, and yet sometimes it's still there, and I

think that can be the case. But I think it's interesting too when clients talk to me or or readers, they'll say, if you go back and you look at what was happening that day, what were you doing in the morning, what did you do the day before, who did you interact with? Was there something that bothered you or upset you or distressed you. So when you go back and look at it, oftentimes people can pick out something that was distress sing to them or you know,

upsetting to them or frustrating or made them angry. But on the other hand, too, sometimes there's a big difference between clinical depression and feeling sad. So if you have a day where you're not feeling great and you're not even sure what's bothering you or what's bugging you, But the next day you get up and you're feeling better, then you're not necessarily need to look for what's going

on in my relationships. But in this particular model, oftentimes people can pick something they can say this past week, this is what I was dealing with, this is what caused me stress, and then we help them work on how they can help themselves deal with That makes sense, and so let's talk about One of the things that interpersonal psychotherapy goes through is it's an eight to twelve week program and the book is set up to walk you through each of those weeks like you would if

you were seeing uh an interpersonal psychotherapist. And so we're not going to get through all of those, but one of them is to draw your social circle and then ask yourself some questions about that. Can you sort of walk me through this exercise. I think it's very helpful for people who aren't sitting really looking and examining their

relationships in details. So the social circle is really valuable in the sense of looking at relationships not as all good or all bad, which we tend to sometimes do and we say, well, that person is terrible and they did this to me and I really am mad at them.

But instead, if you look at each of your significant relationships and as you say, we draw it out on a piece of paper and your name goes in the middle, and there may be three concentric circles, and you can put people who are important to you in different spots. You look at the questions are what's your contact like, what do you talk about with that person when do you see them? And then what do you like about the relationship, and what don't you like about the relationship

and what would you like to be different? So the purpose is really to look at your relationships on a spectrum versus black or white, not all good or all bad, right, And also it gives you an opportunity to think about the things you would like to be different in that relationship. And it also helps you look at are their potential people in my social circle who I haven't connected with for a while, Did I really feel that they were supportive and caring? And maybe I'd like to nurture those

relationships again. So the social circle is really a very dynamic piece of work, or you know, the information you gather in doing it so that those things can change. During the weeks that we work together, we either address one relationship in particular that's causing you maybe more distress or conflict or problems than another but then also you can look at the other relationships and maybe it's a place also to look for support and for care and

concern from. Who are the people who I who I can lean on or can talk to, or can open up to and can help me through a difficult situation. So really, the social circle has I think has a lot of benefits and it's quite fun to do. I mean, I've done it myself as well, and it's like, well where am I going to put this person? Should I make them closer to me or further away? Those are the kind of things sometimes that are are enlightening. Some people social circles are very limited and they don't have

many relationships. And for those people, we want to help them begin to expand their interpersonal networks or inventory and build relationships that will be meaningful to them. That brings up a really good question, and I think sits at the heart of a lot of this and a lot of people that listen to the show. And if you read the research statistics right across America was this epidemic

of of loneliness that we're hearing about. So what are ways for people who don't have a very robust social circle, What are some of the ways you recommend to go about starting to change and build that well. I think there are steps that can be taken, especially small steps

to begin with. So if you think about who you might have had contact with, and that's why we even say like the hairdresser can be helpful, or bartenders are sometimes the best people to talk to write they they they're easy people to speak if so, you really have to be prepared to kind of get out of your house. That's one thing or what I would say, And it's interesting is the idea of even connecting online, you know, people who are reluctant or someone anxious about connecting with

other people. There are some benefits to online connections and groups because it gives you an opportunity to practice some of the skills of what am I going to say? How am I going to start a conversation? Right? Am I going to talk to someone and ask them if they've gone through feeling concerned about? Well, what if I approach somebody and I don't really know what to say?

So we encourage those people who are isolated, who are lonely, who haven't had, you know, practiced the skills or of of engaging with others to do that, to try it out, and we have have conversation starters, so we don't tell people who are reading the book, oh, go do it.

We give them some very specific, you know, sentences and statements to you know, to make so that they know what to say, you know, if they to the person who gave them coffee, or to their hairdresser when they go for a haircut, or if they go to the grocery store and they can ask the person, you know, how they're feeling, or you know, engage in in small talk there, so they're very specific strategies, or to even ask someone else, you know, have you ever had difficulty

making friends? Have you ever had difficulty um sustaining some relationships? And and doing that really give you information and you sometimes find out that other people experience the same feelings that you do, and you don't feel as alone and you don't feel as isolated. So that's kind of one step for people who are you know, who are lonely, who are isolated, who are are less not as engaged with other people. So at one point in the book,

you talk about the difference between feelings and moods. Can you help me understand the difference between feelings and moods, well, I think there's there's quite an overlap. I although in terms of feelings, what we encourage people to do is to um maybe label or identify their feelings. So it helps in terms of when you certainly people tend to feel angry, and it's it's it's kind of easy to get angry, but it's harder to identify what other feelings

you might be experiencing underneath the anger. So besides being angry, you could be frustrated, or you could be disappointed, or you could be sad. And I think we really try to encourage people to look at more than just the one feeling. And in our book, for sure, we have a list of many, many, many feelings, so you can pick in shoes. And you've probably seen those feeling charts right with the happy faces or the faces with all

the different labels on them. You all getting an example the other day, I know I had gotten annoyed at my husband for for not doing something. You know, it was a matter of meeting with a friend, and he didn't ask the questions I'd asked him to to, you know, to enquire about and instead of just getting mad, or angry. He said to me, He said, you had told me

that you were over the difficulties in that relationship. And I could have gotten mad at him, and I could have gotten you know, told him he was a jerk, or why didn't he do it? But instead I thought about what he said, and I said, you know what, maybe I'm not over it. Maybe I'm still sad about it. Maybe I'm still feeling, you know, the loss or feelings of rejection. And and I thought I was more over

it than I was. So by labeling your feelings, trying to understand them, trying to express them in a constructive way, you're going to really avoid a lot of fighting and a lot of arguing and conflict. But then, moods really are a conglomeration of feelings. You know, you may be in a depressed mood, and we have lots of feelings that that contribute to that. That were irritable, that we were unmotivated, that we're sad, that we're angry, that we're

not interested, we don't experience joy or pleasure. So really moods can be more of a kind of broader category of a lot of different feelings. One of the things that you have is ten questions for emotional enlightenment, UM, and I and I like these. Obviously by enlightenment you mean lightening up, of course, But let's walk through these because I actually think that these are good questions that can help us to identify what we're feeling and to

sort of tie what we're feeling to situations. So let's just go ahead and and walk through those ten if that's all right with you. I think there's a huge component of awareness. So being able to be as aware, UM, as much as you can in terms of you can ask yourself how my feeling, so you know, think of

what it is you're experiencing. And I think it's you know, maybe I'm being stereotypical, but it's harder for guys sometimes to do this than girls, like you know, women tend to emote all over the place, but you know, being able to I say, what's making me feel this way, you know, being specific about it. What was making me feel bad the other day was that I was feeling sad and rejected by an old friendship I had had. You know, how do I usually handle this? That gives

you a chance to examine how you usually respond. The next question is well, what happens when I handle things that way? So you get an opportunity to look at the way you handle your feelings. And the question that I often ask somebody is well, how's that working for you? You know? And often it isn't working for them. So by by looking at how you handle it and then asking yourself again, well, how does it make me feel

when I handle it in that way? So when I'm impatient, or I'm frustrated, or I don't listen, I don't feel that good about it afterwards, So I can really evaluate and say to myself, maybe I want to learn how to handle it differently, right, And and then the other question becomes how do other people who are involved feel?

So it's really important. You know, it's easy for us to you know, blame others or not take responsibility for ourselves, or or justify well, I have every reason to be mad by the way they treated me depending on how I respond, it's really useful for me to know, well, how did they feel when I was angry, when I

was mad, when I was short tempered with them? So being able to understand my situation and my feelings, but also considering am is crucially important, right, because you know that its relationships are about, you know, to two people, two or more people, and how the impact of what I do and what they do has on each other. Right. So, and then I enjoy try to look at what could

I do differently? So in the book we spend a lot of time trying to examine is there a different approach, is there a different idea, is there a different way? It's really the interpersonal style, and and my co author Ron tends to talk about this a lot, is what's your style of interacting? Do you interact aggressively? Do you interact by being really passive? Do you interact by trying to be clear about what you're saying? So it it

makes a huge difference. And if I do interact differently, what impact or what effect might that have on other people? So it's a great way to break it down to help people take a look at what they're doing now and how could I be doing it differently and making it work better for me and the other people I'm involved with. Yeah, I really like the way that just sort of starts from how my feeling and kind of walks all the way through to how are other people feeling?

And then you know, what is my habitual response to this? What happens when I respond that way habitually? And then you know one of my favorite questions of all time, and I use it in coaching work with people a lot, is what could we do differently? You know, what can you do differently? That's such a powerful question because a lot of times we get about as far as I shouldn't have done that, which is which is okay, that's good, But now what instead? Because that question what can I

do differently? If we ask it in a really curious and open way, can unlock a lot of things. And if we're not sure, then the idea is to who can help us figure it out? And even if you ask the other person, if I said something to you and you didn't like the way I said it, what if I said, you know, Eric, how could I have said that differently? That would have made you feel better or wouldn't have sounded critical? So I think it's, you know, in terms of figuring out how to do something different,

why not ask the other person? Right? Right? That is a great idea that to me is a really important thing to do. When we feel we want to help people, we have our own ideas of how we want to do it. But if I ask somebody what would be helpful to you? What could I do that would make us communicating better? And I think that's really important with with kids and adolescence because you know, that's fraught with a lot of a lot of problems trying to you know,

trying to solve a conflict with an adolescent. You know, when you say, well, they're not listening to me, or they're not you know, doing what I've asked them to do. Well, what is it that I'm doing that isn't as effective? How could I engage differently? And the best person to ask is is to ask the kids saying is there is there a way that I could speak to you about this or discuss this topic with you that would

make it easier for us not to argue right? That to me is a very valuable and And And the idea is, you know, you could feel like you're doing nothing wrong and and the kids are pain in the butt, right, But the point is doesn't matter. It does. You don't have to be right or wrong. You just have to find a way to communicate better, right, and to solve the problem. So by putting it on yourself and saying, I really don't want to argue with you. I want

to understand what's going on here. Can you tell me what would work better for the both of us? Right, And those conversations are much or fruitful, I find. Yeah, that's a great idea. The other thing that you say, and I think this is so important, you say, human interactions and the relationships that grow from them can't be reduced to mathematical equations. If I always do X, the end result will always be why. If we try something

and it doesn't work once, it's not game over. If we intend to try something new and things go sideways,

it's not a forever failure. And this makes me think back to a previous relationship of mine where our communication was disastrous and I would suddenly decide that I was going to deal with this in a new and better way, and so I would think about what that new and better way was, and I'd come to the conversation and I would trot out my new skills, and the other person would just react in the same way and you know, same anger, same fighting, and I would then be like, well,

I tried something new and that didn't work, so, you know, I mean I I just I just throw away. And what I what I find realized over a period of time was that a dynamic that had been built between us didn't change because I showed up one time to do things differently. I needed to show up consistently with this new approach um. And it took me a while to figure that out because I would just get so angry, like I'm doing something different but you're not. I think

that's such an important thing. You know it's not a forever failure, and now you know the next time you try something different with someone else, you're not going to expect it to work immediately. That's the good news is you know what you did, and you know what you learned, and you can take those skills and use them in future relationships as well, right, which is what I p

T does. You want to focus on one area, You pick a goal and you work on that for the eight or twelve weeks, so and you know what you did that helped you feel better. And also I think partly we encourage people when they've tried something new. So if you had reported you know, I went and I figured out how to interact differently, I would say to you, no matter what the outcome, no matter what the other person does, pay attention to how you feel about when

you tried it differently. So if I asked you even now, most people I would say, say, well, it felt good to try it, to to behave differently, And that's a little victory in a win as well. Right, So, if you were reluctant, if you were uncertain, if you usually behave in a way that isn't you know, you don't feel proud of but you tried something new, Well that you know, that's terrific. It's terrific that you were willing to put it out there no matter what the other

person did. So that that to me is a very important and valuable piece to pay attention to. Yeah, you have a phrase that you guys use through the book over and over, and it's to ask, what's the best that could happen, what's the worst that could happen, and what's the most likely outcome? Give me some examples where that's a useful line of questioning. Well, I think it's

preparing everybody to say, partly what's realistic? So I think that's that's one of the areas that's really helpful So if I, um, you know, I want to approach somebody and I want to you know, say to my kids, you know, or I want to talk to my partner about how we're dealing with the children, and and I say, well, I never want to be the best parent I can be. I never want to argue or yell at them ever again. Well, you know, and I'm trying to figure out how to

do this right, how to accomplish this. Well, if I say, well, what's the best outcome that you could have by approaching your kids and saying, you know, I'm never going to argue with you again, We're going to figure this out. You know, it's gonna be Well, what's the likelihood of that happening? That's pretty unrealistic, right. Or if I say, you know, it's never going to change, it's always going to be the same, and I'm gonna you know, continue to argue and it's going to be a problem, then

that's pretty discouraging. But if I say I'm going to approach my partner and we're going to have a discussion about how we're going to deal with the kids around screen time, then that's a much more realistic way to approach a conversation about how are we going to raise the kids or how are we going to deal with the extended family? Right, So, I think it's mostly in those circumstances where you're interacting with someone else and it's

about your expectations. I think it's really really important to try to talk about one's own expectations in a relationship or in a family, or in a work situation or with a friend, and what their expectations are of you, so that you both are able to really understand and articulate what each person is looking for in one another and what the best possible outcome or more realists, most realistic outcome of the issue where the problem can be so u it helps in terms of preparing what what

if you get a you know, a bad reaction from someone if you haven't talked to them for a long long time and you pick up the phone and say hi, we haven't spoken. Well, are they going to say, oh, I never want to speak to you again, or are they going to say, oh, you know, I've missed you so much I really want to see you, or are they going to kind of be a little surprised that you're calling, but say, how are you doing. How are things going. We haven't spoken for a while, so you're prepared.

We also help people prepare for the worst outcome if someone says that, or the best outcome or the most realistic one. That's where the those three kind of questions really are helpful and kind of preparing oneself for what you might expect when you do approach someone. Yeah, you mentioned the word expectations there, and you talked about how important it is to talk about what our expectations are in a relationship and then to hear what the other

person's expectations are. You guys have a tool in the book called the matrix that helps you lay this out. Yeah, and I love this this tool because it lets people examine what I expect of myself, what I expect of another person soon, right, and then it lets the other person examine what their expectations are of themselves in our

relationship and what they expect of me as well. So it's a good way to talk to one another, and it provides a structure where people can talk without fighting, So you don't do it necessarily when you're in the midst of the argument, but afterwards you sit down and say i'd really like to address some things that are going on with us, whether it's and if it's a romantic relationship or or you know, marriage, or you basically might want to talk about finances. You may want to

talk about extended family. You may want to examine issues about intimacy or sexual relationship. You may want to talk about, you know, children and what those expectations are. So by each person identifying with those topics what they expect of them selves, what they expect of the other person, you really have a vehicle. You have a tool where you sit down and you talk to each other and try to come up with the common a kind of a master matrix that you both agree on, and you deal

with it one thing at a time. You don't deal with all of them. You pick one area, one topic, one issue, and you sit down and you discuss it with one another. You know, we help people identify how to do that, and then you come to an agreement, hopefully something that's you know, you both are comfortable with doing. Let's say it's you know, do we have Sunday night dinner with my family every week? You negotiate it, you have a discussion about it. How are we going to

deal with our finances. How much money are we going to bring into the family. Those are the things that the matrix is. The matrix really helps people clarify what their expectation are of the relationship. People really find it extremely valuable to use the matrix. You also go on and you talk about the psychologist Albert Ellis about how he has linked expectations to happiness, and he said that seriously unhappy people often have three rigidly held expectations. Can

you walk us through what those are? Well? I think certainly any time you do have rigid expectations, and it's not hard to have those in our society right where everything is put out there and it you know, all

the wonderful pictures of what the proposal should be. So when when you see on TV or magazine's a you know, flowers strewn all over the room, and if if you're you know, the person who's proposing to you in real life doesn't do all of that, you can really feel pretty disappointed that your wonderful, you know, expectation of how that was going to work would would be problematic you. Um, I also think I can give an example of with um, you know, my husband who we were going to go

on a road trip. Well, we had to go to a family function that was about five hours away, and I know that he tends to be pretty quiet in the car, so I said to him when we go, let's, you know, make sure you kind of engage. Let's engage in conversation or talk about things. And he said, well, you know that's not realistic to expect of me, because you know I don't talk a lot. He said, why don't you just take the plane with the kids and they'll be happy and I'll be happy and it'll all

work out right. So you know, my ex we've we've been doing this for forty five years and we found a way to, you know, to make it work. So, you know, in terms of expectations, if you're rigid about them, if you still kind of feel mad or angry about the fact that you know, after so many years, the person is a wonderful, kind, loving, terrific guy, but he's really not going to talk as much as I want them to talk, you know, So you know, you you're

you have to really adjust your expectations. And another thing that I think with expectations that's so valuable, and I'd love to know. Your opinion about this is, I don't think you can expect one person to meet all your needs all the time, in the way you want them and exactly in the time you want them to be met. So you can't put that pressure or that expectation on on one person in a relationship because it's really not

going to work most of the time. I think you have to have your expectations met by different people, you know, in different your friends, or your family, or your you know that it's really, you know, to put that that pressure on one person, I think is unfair to yourself

and them. I agree. I think I I certainly have needs to get met from lots of different people, and that does seem to be a unique thing about modern relationships, as we expect, you know, one person to meet what used to be met by a lot of different people. And I think if we change that, if we really become more um realistic about that, and we really look at the things that someone can do and can provide versus what they don't, I think we tend to feel a lot happier we and we look at the things

that are the most important to us. And I think the matrix helps this um identify the values of what's important to us. So I've you know, I think I'm I'm thinking a lot these days about what that values are crucially important and and understanding the people that we relate to and do they share the same values as we do. Do they share the ideas of being honest, of being there for you, of being compared shouldn't, of being kind, about being enthusiastic and supportive to you and

each other? So to me, those expectations are really crucial in my life and also how I want to treat other people. If I want to be respectful of someone, then I assume that they will be you know, I want them to be respectful of me as well. So if those values I think are very very important in building good relationships, I agree. Well, Cindy, we are at

the end of our time here. You and I are going to talk for a few more minutes in the post show conversation about some suggested conversation starters and some to be avoided conversation enders. So we're going to get kind of specific on some actual ways to make conversation go better, and we'll do that in the post show conversation. Listeners, you can get access to this one and all of those, as well as a mini episode I do each week where I give a teaching, a song and a poem.

All that is at One you Feed, dot Net Slash Support. Cindy, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you very much for the opportunity. It's been a real pleasure. Okay bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to One you Feed dot Net slash Support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.