|
|
|
|
|||
|
Carolyn
Bushong, L.P.C.
|
|||
|
WHO IS CAROLYN BUSHONG: Carolyn Bushong, L.P.C, is a Licensed Professional Counselor who is an expert on relationships. She is known as one of the top relationship therapists in the country and has authored 3 relationship books. Carolyn Bushong has been helping men and women, and both marrieds and singles, improve their lives and relationships for more than 25 years. She has appeared on Oprah and the View, and has been giving relationship advice on Denver radio for more than 10 years. Cosmo, US Weekly, and other magazines quote her expert relationship advice, and she also writes articles for magazines and on-line article banks. Carolyn Bushong offices in Denver, CO, but she also has clients all over the country who receive her relationship advice through phone counseling. Carolyn Bushong lives what she teaches, as she is in a happy, healthy relationship with Alan, her mate of 20 years. Personal Message from Carolyn: I'm Carolyn Bushong, a relationship therapist, who looks forward to sharing some of my most effective relationship secrets with you. I have been helping people with relationship problems for over 30 years, as a licensed therapist in private practice. My relationship books teach readers the secrets to getting what they want in their relationships -- the secrets I have been using now for over 20 years in my own life, and the secrets I teach my clients, readers, and listeners/viewers. I'm invited to clients' weddings and told, "This would have never happened if it wasn't for you and the secrets I've learned from your books." Couples who were in trouble tell me, "We were fighting over silly things and feeling so unloved by each other, but now we’re making lots of deals and feel emotionally close again. Resolving our relationship problems seems so simple since you showed us how to stop trying to be right and instead focus on how to resolve our problems." I've been well-known as an expert in the field of relationship help ever since my first Oprah show, “Wives Held Captive in their Own Homes,” back in 1992. Since then, I’ve appeared on numerous television shows, and began giving advice on the radio when my second, and most popular book, The 7 Dumbest Relationship Mistakes Smart People Make, was published and promoted heavily by Random House. Cosmo, US Magazine, and many other magazines now call me regularly for quotes because of my expertise in solving relationship problems. They say that people who become therapists are more screwed up than anyone. And in some ways, it’s true. Many of us who become therapists have a lot of problems ourselves, and we often go into the field for that reason. But we also become therapists because we have a passion to figure out how to resolve issues in our lives, as well as our clients lives. We are invested in understanding why we, and others, behave in certain ways, and what to do about it. I have tested all of my theories by following the advice I ask others to follow. I not only know that my program works for my clients, but it also worked, and is still working, for me. I was married at 21 and divorced by 23, and didn’t understand what went wrong. I was in school to be a therapist at the time, but couldn’t solve my own problems. It took me years of personal introspection, as well as seeing several therapists myself, before I began to realize why my relationships with men weren’t working. In the meantime, I decided to make myself happy alone, so I moved to Aspen, CO and focused on having a good time as a single woman – and in fact, started seminars on “How to Be Single, Secure, & Satisfied (turning it into an article later published in New Woman Magazine). Still frustrated that I could never find a healthy relationship, and realizing that even though I was an independent woman, I still seemed too needy with men, I began to write my first book, Loving Him Without Losing You. As looked at my own life, as well as the relationships of my clients, I began to realize that it all began with our families and what roles we learned to play – whether we modeled after mom or dad – whether we were choosing mates like mom or dad, etc. There was no question that I had married my dad, and had become my mom in my marriage. Later, while in Aspen, I changed and became afraid of relationships, acting more like my father who was dominating and commitmentphobic. I began to develop an 8-Step Program that would teach women (and men) how to love without feeling needy and giving our "selves” away, like our mothers often did – AND how to love without avoiding emotional intimacy like our fathers often did. It didn’t happen magically, as I still had a lot to learn, and a lot of frogs to kiss before I found the man of my dreams -- my soul mate. And then it happened. I met him. They say it never happens until you stop looking. And that was true for me. When I met Alan, I had become very “single, secure, and satisfied” -- in other words, I had taken my own advice and learned to be emotionally independent, and didn’t need a man. Don’t get me wrong, I still longed for a happy, healthy relationship with a man, it’s just that I had given up and decided that it probably wasn’t going to happen, and that I needed to get on with my life (buy a house, focus on my career, enjoy dating around). And, of course, I didn’t know Alan was my soul mate when we met. He wasn’t perfect, but then, neither was I. My female clients say they wish they could just find a man like Alan, so that it would be easy. And I tell them that Alan had many bad behaviors when I met him, as did I. As we dated, I began to focus on spotting and changing the bad behaviors Alan & I (and my clients) often displayed, and began writing The 7 Dumbest Relationship Mistakes Smart People Make. As the relationship progressed, there were still major issues that were difficult to resolve (his unemotional way of relating, his “macho” male friends, boundaries he needed to set with exes and women who came on to him, etc.) As we resolved those issues, and issues with my own bad behaviors (my sometimes bullying attitude (that I learned from my father), my talking more than listening to him, my self-righteous attitudes about how people should behave), the third book evolved, Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love With. Alan and I have been together for 20 years now, and are extremely happy. We’ve faced many crises together, and we’ve worked them out. Clients and friends ask me what we fight about, and I mean it when I say, “Nothing.” Don’t get me wrong, we disagree on things and are two very different people with different interests, and sometimes different priorities. It’s not resolving these differences that cause divorce. When issues go unresolved, it causes resentment that eventually kills love -- and destroys the relationship. Alan and I made deals about most of our problem areas in those first five years, and it's now easier to negotiate our differences -- whether it’s about my impatience and his patience; or that I hate golf and he loves it, and that I love to sing with friends, and he hates to go listen. In my book, Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love With, I tell you how Alan and I made deals on each of our issues, as well as how you can work out your differences. Now 20 years later, Alan and I still have a deep loving relationship where we allow each other our differences without fighting or judging each other, but instead showing love and respect. I wrote my books for many reasons: I wanted to make money, I wanted to help others, but most of all I wanted a healthy relationship myself. I wanted to figure it out so that I could be happy, and I did. My three relationship books are self-help books that are informative and filled with advice on how to improve your life and how to have healthy relationships. These self-help books address issues important to couples, singles, and specifically women. The first of my relationship books, Loving Him Without Losing You, gives you specific advice on how to be a strong independent woman and still be in a healthy relationship. My second relationship book, The 7 Dumbest Relationship Mistakes Smart People Make, spells out the 7 most common mistakes couples make, and how to stop making them. The third of my relationship books, Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love With, gives you step-by-step advice on how (by using behavior modification techniques) to handle specific problems in your relationship. (Note: These books work just as well for men as women.) |
|||
Carolyn Bushong, Psychotherapist
|
|||