Trust Your Gut

By Denise Humphrey, Ph.D., www.DeniseHumphrey.com

As a therapist who specializes in relationship therapy, I have counseled many couples who have struggled with infidelity in the relationship or perhaps one person in the relationship suspects adultery. An article in Psychology Today explains, “Intuitions, or gut feelings, are sudden, strong judgments whose origin we can’t immediately explain. Although they seem to emerge from an obscure inner force, they actually begin with a perception of something outside—a facial expression, a tone of voice, a visual inconsistency so fleeting you’re not even aware you noticed.”

Gut feelings are the body’s physical manifestation of rapid cognition or a condensed reasoning process. Our brains trigger connections and send messages and the gut says, “Yes, I got that!” Scientists now understand that the brain is able to assess a situation, quickly scan stored data (whether that be fact based data, emotionally based data or some other sensory processing data) and then send messages to the body. The gut may communicate excitement, nervousness, sense of dread or a feeling of sickness based on information that may be detrimental to your currently held perception of safety and security.

What I have learned in my practice is that when infidelity is present, most individuals had a gut feeling they chose to ignore because it conflicted with what the person was being told by his or her partner and/or what that person wanted to believe to be the truth.

Gut feelings should be honored, and the situation surrounding what caused that gut feeling to arise, she be examined. While it is certainly possible that a gut feeling can be wrong, the reality is they rarely are.

Denise Humphrey, Ph.D
Schedule an appointment with Dr. Humphrey today! 972-239-2490

CREDENTIALS
•    Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology:  Fielding Graduate University
•    Master of Music in Piano Performance:  University of Notre Dame
•    Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance:  Southern Methodist University
•    License No. and State: 32345 Texas
•    Board of Trustees, Dallas Foundation for Psychoanalysis
•    Chair, Arts Committee for the Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology
•    Member, National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology