Meet the Counselors | Lindsay Poth

 

Meet Lindsay!

Lindsay is the most recent addition to the Austin Relational Wellness team. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate and provides couples therapy and individual counseling for adults in Austin, TX.

The Road to Becoming a Counselor

Lindsay’s journey to becoming a therapist came as a result of her own quest to learn more about herself, find a stronger sense of purpose in her life, and understand others’ perspectives more fully. Prior to entering counseling, Lindsay worked as a geophysicist in the oil and gas industry and lived overseas for several years. During this time, she was increasingly fascinated with how different people from various backgrounds and cultures related to each other. While contemplating a career change, Lindsay began teaching yoga at a studio in the Texas Hill Country. After class, her students started sharing their relational struggles and individual challenges – she quickly realized she was not qualified to help them. This realization led her to decide to return to school and pursue a new career in counseling.

Lindsay’s mother was a school counselor, so she grew up seeing how impactful the work of those in the helping profession could be – she still hears stories of how her mother positively affected many lives in her home community. Witnessing how her mother impacted others, as well as drawing on her own experience in therapy, has inspired her to collaboratively work with clients during their struggles and challenges in life. Lindsay believes in the power of healing relational wounds within relationships and is inspired to help her clients navigate this process in a safe, nurturing therapeutic space. 

Lindsay’s Work as a Couples Counselor with Austin Relational Wellness

Lindsay feels there is always hope for greater understanding of yourself, your partner, or your relationship. She enjoys working with couples who are experiencing challenges associated with communication, physical and emotional intimacy, infidelity, or trust recovery and working with individuals facing life transitions, discovering their own sense of self, or wondering how to bring more purpose to their daily lives. When working with couples, she draws from her specialized training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy and sex therapy.

Beyond the Counseling World

Lindsay graduated from St. Edward’s University with a Master of Arts in Counseling. She also holds a B.S. from Texas A&M University and a M.S. from The University of Oklahoma, both in Geophysics. While working on her counseling degree, Lindsay volunteered at a local counseling center, assisting with weekend workshops for couples and co-facilitating a women’s process group. She was also a Child Advocate Volunteer with CASA, assisting with the placement and adoption of three children. Outside of the therapy space, Lindsay is an avid traveler and enjoys hiking, yoga, country dancing, and spending time with her friends, her family, and her two Westies.

Get in Touch

To learn more about Lindsay or to schedule a couples therapy or individual therapy appointment, reach out to Lindsay through the button below. She offers a free 15-minute phone consultation for all potential new clients.

 

5 Steps to Stop Seeing Your Partner in a Negative Light

 

In our previous post, we set the stage for how couples can get stuck in a negative “frozen box” of seeing one another at their worst when fighting. Here, we will introduce a tool that a counselor using the Relational Life Therapy (RLT) model might use to help couples break out of this box, the Core Negative Image exercise.

Head to the post, Is a Negative View of Your Partner Affecting Your Relationship?, to understand the scenario for the following exercise:

Now, let’s take a look at how a couples therapist using RLT might help you and your partner using the Core Negative Image (CNI) exercise.

  1. Write down the adjectives that describe your partner at their worst - this description is your CNI of your partner 

    • You: lazy, selfish, unsupportive

    • Your Partner: demanding, critical, unforgiving

  2. Write down what you think your partner’s CNIs of you are - how do you think they see you at your worst?

    • You: nagging, mean

    • Your Partner: worthless, lazy

  3. Pause (regulate your nervous system) and check in on what part of these could be true. Next, have an open and honest dialogue with your partner exploring each of your CNIs with the guidance of your therapist.

  4. Identify ways in which you each exhibit CNI Confirming Behavior (aka - behaviors that reinforce the CNI you or your partner have of one another) and when you each exhibit CNI Busting Behavior (aka - behaviors that contradict the CNI you or your partner have of one another) .

    • You:

      • CNI Confirming Behavior: When you don’t take out the trash, the story I tell myself is that you are lazy, selfish, and unsupportive.

      • CNI Busting Behavior: He actually keeps the garage swept regularly, picks up an extra salsa on taco night for me even though he doesn’t want it, and supports me by listening when I’ve had a rough day. 

    • Your Partner: 

      1. CNI Confirming Behavior: When you yell at me to take out the trash, the story I tell myself is that you are demanding, critical, and unforgiving.

      2. CNI Busting Behavior: She actually expresses appreciation for my help with the kids and laundry pretty often. She also lets it slide when I screw up dinner on occasion.

  5. Now, with this new understanding and insight, you can use this information to inform future behaviors and reactions. You can use this insight as a “CNI Busting Behavior Compass” to gain awareness of what you’re reinforcing and choose to make a different choice and behave differently in these moments.

This exercise can be powerful and also very challenging to work through. After all, most of us would find it hard to hear how our partners see us at our worst. Even harder is accepting that, every so often, our most immature and wounded sides come out for our partners to see.

This is why it’s important to create a safe place for sharing and exploration. Because of the sensitive nature of the exercise itself, it’s important to have a therapist trained in Relational Life Therapy help you work through it at first.

With this support, couples can use this difficult conversation as an opportunity to lean into the hard parts of the relationship to step outside of the “frozen box” and step deeper into a space of greater insight, self-awareness, intimacy, and connection.

Article by Sarah Imparato, MA, LMFT Associate

 

Is a Negative View of Your Partner Affecting Your Relationship?

 

Imagine yourself in this scenario:

You come home from a long day at work to find an overflowing trash can. Meanwhile, you turn to find that your partner is enjoying their day off from work and watching tv while lounging on the couch. You start to get heated. Your mind starts racing. You think to yourself… Really? Again? He’s seriously just going to lounge around all day without even thinking about taking out the trash? He is so lazy and unsupportive. Then you say to him, “Are you kidding me? You never take out the trash!”

Have you ever caught yourself thinking or saying something similar about your partner?

Has your partner ever said these things about you?

If so, what usually happens next?

Perhaps it goes something like this:

Your partner begins to think… Here we go again… nag, nag, nag. This is my only day off this week and she’s going to act like this? She’s so demanding. Your partner has been enjoying a much needed day off from work and is exhausted. They respond to you, “I’m so sick of this. All you ever do is nag me! Take out the trash yourself.” Then they storm out of the room. 

Terry Real, founder of Relational Life Therapy (RLT), states in his book New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work:

“The problem with trying to help (this couple) stop arguing with each other is that they actually aren’t arguing with each other anymore; they’re arguing with each other’s ghosts. By the time they move into ‘You always’ and ‘You never,’ they no longer address their real partner but rather a caricatured version of that partner… They are no longer actually fighting with each other, but rather with each other’s core negative image.”

Couples can get stuck in a “frozen box” of seeing their partner only as the worst version of themselves, which fuels the argument and the cycle continues.

The next time you find yourself in an argument with your partner, consider if you might be doing just this — thinking of your partner at their worst and seeing this negative image of them in those moments of conflict.

In my next post, we’ll explore how couples can move beyond this stuck place of arguing with one another’s core negative images and communicate in a more relational space with an RLT exercise I use in couples therapy called a Core Negative Image Exercise.

Article by Sarah Imparato, MA, LMFT Associate