The Recorder – Greenfield couple counselor opens up about pandemic impact on relationships

GREENFIELD – After spending most of her life in the social service field working for various agencies, including most recently teaching in a local prison, Amy Newshore is pursuing a dream she has had since her youth: to work with couples.

“I went to the University of Antioch and did my internship at a couples’ center during the two-year internship,” said the Greenfield resident. “Usually it’s a year in one place and another in another place, but I fell in love with it so much that I was able to continue in second year.”

Newshore received her Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch University in New England, after which she was trained in the developmental model of couples therapy.

“My training focuses on working as a couple,” she says. “These are my skills, and there is nothing else that I prefer to do. ”

After working at the Northampton center, Newshore officially launched her own relationship coaching business three months ago, she said. As she continues to search for her own office space, she meets clients in temporary spaces and arranges sessions through Zoom.

Newshore’s career in counseling began in the midst of a time when “people are desperately trying to find therapists,” she said.

“I think there is more demand,” she said, referring to the stress and anxiety the COVID-19 pandemic has caused to people from all walks of life. “I’m glad people are turning to this direction for help.”

While some couples she has worked with have done very well throughout the pandemic, others have found navigating relationships and changing dynamics to be more of a challenge.

“People are not at their best when they are stressed,” she said. “When there are multiple stressors in our lives, or in the lives of our children, we often resort to habitual relationships that are ineffective and often destructive. ”

This includes yelling, shutting down and not wanting to initiate a conversation, or saying hurtful words, Newshore explained.

“Our outward interaction with friends, colleagues and relatives has stopped, and these usual outlets for stimulation – pleasure and stress letting go – are no longer part of our daily life,” she said. declared.

Changes in household responsibilities, adapting to working from home, and managing children’s schoolwork have also been additional stressors for many couples. And when couples experience “simultaneous stress” – each partner facing their own challenges – there is less room for comfort.

“What happens with couples is that they feel incredibly miserable and trapped in a baffling and painful dynamic,” she said.

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing issues between couples.

“Problems between people that may have been managed, dealt with or even denied may start to bubble, to boil to the surface,” she said. “When there are cracks in the relationship, they only widen during more stress.”

Newshore said she is seeing more couples before marriage than before, but has also seen many couples in long-term relationships, including people who have been married for 38 years.

“I think it can be as simple as people having more time alone and more time to contemplate their own lives,” she said. “And they can think even more seriously if they’re engaged and want more than one marriage.”

And that’s where the work of a couples therapist can come in, she said.

“The job of couples therapy is to make each partner develop a stronger bond within themselves and learn even more about their own feelings and needs,” Newshore said. “A big part of my work with couples is developing the language of feelings and needs, and then being able to communicate skillfully, based on what they know about themselves.”

Some tips Newshore offers couples are to recognize that conflict is inevitable and that relationships can thrive when approached in a healthy and productive way; know when is the appropriate time to engage in difficult conversations; practicing “self-healing” or knowing that someone else’s judgments do not reflect who you are; and understand that judgments beget judgments.

Newshore said she was “absolutely optimistic” about the future of the relationship as the couples continue to navigate their way through the stressors of the pandemic.

“I’m here to help people navigate their relationships so that they don’t get stuck in painful patterns that they don’t know how to get out of,” she explained.

For more information or to request an appointment, visit coachingbyamy.com. Newshore can also be contacted at [email protected].

Journalist Mary Byrne can be reached at [email protected] or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne


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