Functional Love

About Functional Love

Lori Kret and her husband Jeff Cole are Licensed Therapists, Board Certified Coaches and Founders of Aspen Relationship Institute. They are have been utilized as marriage and relationship experts for numerous national media publications including Newsweek, Women's Health, BestLife, Cosmopolitan and PsychCentral, and are columnists and the resident relationship experts for The Aspen Times. Functional Love is the model they developed for working with couples that integrates awareness and action. Utilizing concepts from Attachment Theory and Emotion Focused Therapy, Lori and Jeff support couples in understanding what is at the core of conflicts and challenges and how to overcome these deeper roadblocks to achieve the connection, intimacy and communication they most desire. Through the Functional Love podcast, Lori and Jeff share the insights, tools and skills they utilize with their marriage counseling clients and provide explanations for why well known tools for communication and connection often don't work. They explore a wide range of relationship topics including creating healthy communication, resolving conflicts, enhancing emotional intimacy, navigating affairs and infidelity, overcoming relationship stalemates, and moving through divorce. Each episode focuses on one key insight, tool or relationship issues to allow listeners to easily digest these lessons and tailor their listening experience to their own personal relationship goals and needs.

Publisher

Lori Kret, LCSW and Jeff Cole, LPC

Category

health & fitness · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Oct 2022

Latest episode

30 May 2024

Latest episodes

3 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 May 2024

   10 Qualities of a Healthy Relationship

   In this short Podcast episode, Lori provides an overview of 10 most important qualities to creating and maintaining a healthy relationship. Use this list to assess where your connection is strong and identify specific opportunities to enhance and deepen your bond. This discussion includes common relationship topics including communication and trust, but also explores less talked about aspects including mutual validation and interdependence.

2. 

   13 Dec 2023

   4 Steps to Healthy Communication

   One of the most common challenges reported by couples is communication. In this episode, we share the framework we've created for navigating difficult conversations and will walk you through our 4 step process for healthy, healing resolution to even the most challenging conflicts. In this episode, you'll learn why arguments escalate and lead to stalemates, develop deeper understanding of your and your partners core needs for moving forward, increase empathy and invite validation, and create resolutions without resentment.

3. 

   19 Oct 2022

   The Trauma Triangle

   The Trauma Triangle (or Drama Triangle in interactions with less emotional charge) is a dynamic that many couples experience, and can easily become locked into. The triangle consists of three roles: Victim, Perpetrator and Rescuer. These roles are often unconsciously assigned. An individual who feels vulnerable, hurt or wronged will look to their partner for emotional soothing, and if that soothing isn’t provided, the partners is viewed as a perpetrator of further hurt. For some couples one or two key topics are the catalyst for this dynamic such money, division of responsibilities or intimacy. For other couples who have been struggling in their connection for some time, this triangle dynamic can live in almost every moment of their relationship. In this episode, you’ll learn more about how this triangle shows up, the costs of staying locked in it, and what the goal is for couples who are experiencing it.

Contact Functional Love

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.