With over 20 years of clinical experience, Dr. Katrina Kuzyszyn-Jones owns and operates The Purpose Center. She has a master’s degree in forensic psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology. She has taught undergraduate and graduate students in forensic and clinical psychology. After opening KKJ Forensic and Psychological Services in 2011, she focused her practice on helping individuals, parents and families navigate separation and divorce through highly contentious court-involved cases and collaborative divorce. She is trained in Collaborative Divorce, and as a Parenting Coordinator and Certified Family Financial Mediator. Over the years, she expanded her practice to training and supervising other mental health clinicians in providing co-parenting services, individual and family therapy, couples counseling, reunification therapy, custody evaluations and parenting evaluations, and other court-ordered evaluations.
While the entire practice focuses on preventing the trauma associated with high-conflict divorce, Dr. Katrina has shifted her individual focus to leading people and systems to develop their personal and professional health and growth. Her mission is to help people develop their purpose through health, growth, and leadership. This includes helping professionals reduce their stress and bring more purpose and focus into their lives.
Katrina Kuzyszyn-Jones, Psychologist
How did you shift from forensic psychology to focus of The Purpose Center?
As a psychologist, over and over again, I have witnessed how individual struggles ruin people’s partnerships. While all relationships have their dynamics that create problems, these dynamics are impacted by our individual ‘stuff.’ And our individual stuff is what we have control over and where we can really make the most change in our own lives and impact the world around us.
What we’ve learned from our family of origin, how we deal with conflict, how we sacrifice ourselves or overcompensate through self-orientation all impact how we engage with our family, friends, and colleagues. Helping individuals develop insight about their own personal narrative, how they have contributed to their own stress, and how to use these insights to realign with their personal values to develop more purpose, meaning and happiness in their lives, is the center of my work.
What top 3 stressors I see the most In my practice
Differences in conflict resolution, i.e., difficulty with communication - The key to effective communication is understanding how to start a conversation, deal with your own and the other’s emotions, and how to make repairs when things don’t go well. We cannot expect a conversation to be productive if we start it with criticism or sarcasm. If you are flooded with negative emotions or overwhelmed with the other person’s emotions, you either shut down or fight back, neither aid in productive conversation. Once things have gone poorly, we need to be able to walk away, sincerely make an apology, and/or sincerely receive and accept an apology.
Balancing individual with collective needs, i.e., self-care and work-life balance can be a tricky business particularly as a partner and parent. You can’t always get what you want, and you should not always sacrifice your own needs and happiness for others. Relationships are give-and-take, and you should always pay attention to whether you feel resentful towards others or if a particular period of time feels ‘reasonable’ to put yourself after others. For example, your partner has received a recent promotion and needs to work late or travel for the first month. Picking up the slack in that timeframe is reasonable. Skipping yoga for the next three months shouldn’t be necessary.
Blaming someone else and making ourselves the victim is not conducive to good relationships in any setting. When we treat others with disrespect, criticize, respond with defensiveness, or completely shut them out, it’s avoidance and lacks accountability.
How do I help people with these stressors?
A lot of good communication skills are learned through modeling the behavior. When people come to therapy or see a coach, they want that person to listen to them without judgment. The reality is, we can all do this with everyone in our lives, but we have to practice listening without thinking about what we’re going to say next. This is what you should expect to experience in therapy and coaching, and what you can also practice with others in your life.
Support and understanding. You are there to support them and can understand how difficult this situation is. You do not have to have the same experience. In fact, sometimes, when we try to bond with people over a shared experience, it can backfire. If we start telling our own similar tale of woe, the person who was sharing can feel ignored and invalidated.
Help with identifying emotions from a neutral stance. People can be really surprised at how little they pay attention to and understand their emotions. We can certainly not tell a person how they are feeling. We can help people redefine and label an experience. I like to encourage people to do a body scan. Do you feel tense, sweaty, or have a headache? Is that because you are excited, angry, or scared? Are you interpreting this as good or bad? Why?
Encourage breaks. Conflict resolution can be exhausting, so it is important to take breaks when needed. In therapy and coaching, this can be that the person needs time to practice deep breathing, sit in a yoga pose, or just take a few minutes to cry it out. IRL, this may include a 15-minute break from a particular conversation to self-soothe and regroup. Taking a break should not mean that you completely walk away from the conflict, you have to come back to the hot topic.
Develop a plan. Do you need to infuse more fun into your life, work fewer hours, talk to your partner more, let your kids sit in front of the tv for 30 minutes? Do you need to find time to exercise? A therapist or coach can help you develop short and long-term goals, but they have to be actionable, and you have to have others in your life you will help you be accountable.
Offer practical support. This can include researching resources, drafting a letter, or practicing for a difficult conversation.
Be assertive not aggressive. Both the speaker (whether it’s your therapist/coach, partner, or yourself) and the listener need to express their needs and wants briefly, clearly, directly, and with kindness.
Find common ground. If you need to talk to your boss about working a different schedule, you can appeal to their own work-life balance. If you need to resolve a conflict with your partner, you likely share the same values, even if you have a different perspective on a particular problem.
Stress management and conflict resolution is a process. It takes time and effort to take care of yourself, manage your relationships, and resolve a conflict. It is important to remember that everyone experiences conflict differently. Some people may be more emotionally or physiologically stressed by conflict than others. If you are looking for a therapist or coach, finding a ‘good fit’ is important. Some people, no matter their training, are more empathetic than others, and some are better problem solvers. Depending on what you need, you should get a ‘feel’ for how someone will help support you through your process. And, when dealing with people in your community or family, remember the same thing, we all have strengths and
weaknesses. What is your own emotional and social IQ? How do you respect these differences and find ways to use them towards your aims in stress management and conflict resolution rather than allowing the differences to get in the way? Be open minded, thoughtful, and assume the best rather than the worst in people.
For more information about Dr. Katrina visit here website, Facebook, and Dr. Katrina Kuzyszyn-Jones | LinkedIn, KKJ @ The Purpose Center (@kkjpurposecenter) • Instagram photos and videos.
