Relationships, Communication & Physical Health | Dr. John Stracks & Dr. Yana Dubinsky
Video: Watch the full session here → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdZeNqoRCsA
Dr. John Stracks: I'm Dr. John Stracks, a physician focused on the reduction and elimination of physical symptoms using mind-body medicine. I'm joined today by Dr. Yana Dubinsky, a psychologist at Cormendi Health whose specialty is exploring relationship dynamics — helping clients find clarity and healing in their relationships. She works with both couples and individuals using a relational approach. If you'd like to learn more about working with either of us, visit cormendihealth.com.
Yana, thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Yana Dubinsky: Thanks for having me, John.
How Dr. Dubinsky Found Her Way to Relationships
Dr. Stracks: Was couples and relationship work always your focus, or did that develop over time?
Dr. Dubinsky: I've always been interested in how people show up differently depending on who they're with. I've always liked kids — worked as a camp counselor growing up — but I knew I wanted to work with adults. I figured the best way to help kids was to help their parents. If Mom and Dad are doing well, communicating well, able to model how to navigate conflict and come back together after a disagreement, kids are going to be okay. That was my original motivation for working with couples.
Dr. Stracks: And how much of your practice is couples work now?
Dr. Dubinsky: Up to half.
How Relationships Affect Physical Symptoms
Dr. Stracks: In mind-body medicine, we pay a lot of attention to individual patterns like perfectionism, self-criticism, and people-pleasing. There's less conversation about how relationships themselves affect the body. What do you see?
Dr. Dubinsky: Relationships bring things up. When we feel disconnected — especially in romantic relationships — it can creep in quietly. Feeling disconnected makes it harder to engage, which deepens the loneliness, which creates worry and stress. And when we carry that stress and tension, it shows up physically.
It's been a real privilege to be invited into people's relationships, to shine a light on what might be happening there, and help them name it.
Dr. Stracks: Do you think that tendency to keep emotions inside gets amplified in relationships, where unexpressed feelings start to show up physically?
Dr. Dubinsky: Absolutely. When we have a feeling and don't name it, don't share it, we develop a bias. "Here he goes again." "She always does this." That bias grows, and confirmation bias kicks in — we start only seeing what confirms what we already believe. Naming the feeling diffuses it. It invites the other person in. And that's something we can practice and get better at.
Working With Individuals on Relationship Issues
Dr. Stracks: If you're working with someone in individual therapy and a relationship issue is causing physical stress — even if the other person isn't in the room — how do you approach that?
Dr. Dubinsky: First, we create space. The therapeutic relationship is unique — it has boundaries that allow someone to explore their own perspective fully, without having to defend it. In that space, patients get better at naming their feelings and identifying their triggers. They start noticing what happens in their body during conflict — clenched fists they hadn't registered, a tightness they couldn't explain.
And then we clarify what's theirs and what isn't. We don't have remote controls for other people, as much as we'd like them. Individual therapy helps people find that clear line: this is where I end, this is where my partner begins. Once you have that, there's actually a lot you can do on your part — and your part influences the whole dance.
Dr. Stracks: What about the person who says, "I don't have the problem — they do"?
Dr. Dubinsky: That's very common. And even if someone is objectively correct about what's happening, they still need a way to express it that the other person can actually hear. We don't have remote controls. So we work on: how do I communicate in a way that opens the conversation rather than closing it?
I love Harriet Lerner's description of relationships as a dance. If you've been dancing the same way for years and suddenly change your steps, your partner isn't going to love it at first. But you are going to impact the dance — and often more than you'd expect.
The Tesla Story
Dr. Stracks: I worked with a patient who had bought a Tesla and quickly realized it didn't work for his lifestyle — he was driving all over the Chicago area and kept running out of battery. He wanted to swap cars with his wife. She said no. He was convinced she was "making a mistake." When I pulled out a feelings wheel, and we worked through what he was actually experiencing — frustrated, a little embarrassed about the purchase, uncertain — and he went back to his wife, leading with those feelings instead of logic, it completely defused the situation. They worked it out. But as long as he was thinking "it's her fault for not seeing reason," there was nowhere to go.
Dr. Dubinsky: Exactly. Trying to convince someone to see your perspective rarely works. Leading with what it means to you — how it feels — gives the other person something to connect with rather than something to debate.
Couples Therapy: What It Actually Looks Like
Dr. Stracks: How does it change things when both people are in the room with you?
Dr. Dubinsky: It's efficient. And it's a different frame entirely — in couples therapy, my patient isn't either of them individually. My patient is in a relationship. That shift means neither person is trying to convince me who's right. We're all looking at the relationship together.
I also get to see things happen in real time rather than hearing about them secondhand. I can pause a moment and say, "Let's try that again, but with this." They get to practice right there, in session, and feel the difference themselves.
Dr. Stracks: What do you do when both people are seeing things completely differently and just not hearing each other?
Dr. Dubinsky: Usually the first thing I address is the word you. When someone points a finger and says "You always do this," the other person immediately wants to defend. It's a physical response — like having a finger in your face, you want to push it away. So we establish some ground rules around language, and I offer a stem sentence:
I feel [feeling] when you [describe the behavior] because [meaning].
Three sentences. Then stop and let the other person respond.
What I notice immediately when people try this is their voice gets lower, their pace slows down, because now they're thinking rather than reacting. And when your voice slows and deepens, your heart rate follows. Your nervous system calms down. And when you're not in fight-or-flight, you can actually hear what the other person is saying — and they can hear you.
Role Play: Two Ways to Handle a Conflict
Dr. Stracks and Dr. Dubinsky demonstrated two versions of the same scenario — a disagreement while driving.
Version 1 — Reactive: Accusations, absolutes ("you always do this"), defensiveness, escalation. Kids in the back seat are getting activated. A Park date derailed.
Version 2 — Regulated:
Dr. Dubinsky:"I'm having such a hard time right now. I'm feeling so unsafe. I saw that pedestrian — I don't think you saw them — and I'm so scared when you're on your phone, because I worry about what it could cost our family. My heart is racing. I want to ask if I can drive so I can relax and we can actually enjoy the afternoon."
Dr. Stracks:"I hear that you feel unsafe, and I don't want that. And honestly, I've got work texts coming in — if you drive, I can handle those before we get there."
Dr. Dubinsky: Same outcome — she drives. But we got there without anyone shutting down, without kids getting frightened, without the afternoon being ruined. And neither person attacked the other. She talked about herself. He responded with openness instead of defensiveness.
Three Communication Strategies to Try Today
Dr. Dubinsky: Pick one of these and try it today.
1. Talk with your partner, not at them. When we unload everything at once, we flood our partner. Flooding is a real physiological response — heart rate spikes, the person shuts down, turns away. They're not ignoring you; they've hit a threshold. Use three-sentence chunks: say what you want to say in three sentences, then stop and let them respond. Avoid absolutes ("you always," "you never") — none of us always or never do anything. Focus on yourself, not them.
2. Start soft. How you open a conversation sets the trajectory. Starting with an accusation or blame almost guarantees defensiveness. Starting with a feeling keeps the conversation open. A soft start doesn't mean avoiding hard topics — it means leading with your experience rather than a verdict.
3. Fight what you're fighting about. Escalation often starts small and then pulls in every grievance from the last decade. Suddenly, you're arguing about in-laws and a vacation from ten years ago. Stay with the actual topic. Anything else that comes up deserves its own conversation — give it one. Resisting the urge to bring in that perfectly illustrative example is hard, but it makes an enormous difference.
In our house, we actually use a Talking Stick — sometimes it's a kitchen spatula. One person talks in short chunks and passes it to the other. Even our kids have started using it on their own. — Dr. Stracks
When Your Partner Doesn't Want to Change
Dr. Stracks: What do you say to someone who wants to work on the relationship, but their partner has no interest?
Dr. Dubinsky: First, understand the difference between not interested and afraid. A lot of resistance to couples therapy is actually fear of what might come up, of what might be discovered. I often ask each person in that first session why they're there. Sometimes I hear "because he made me" or "she gave me an ultimatum." We work with that.
If someone can't get their partner in, I work with them alone. We look at what they can control, where they end, and where their partner begins, and what they can shift in how they show up. Even small changes — coming home and speaking in three-sentence chunks — will feel different to the other person. My guess is they'll start listening differently because it is different.
Dr. Stracks: It's the same answer I give people working on physical symptoms. We don't know exactly how much will change. But start moving in this direction, and things often improve far more than you'd have expected.
Relationships Beyond Romantic Partners
Dr. Dubinsky: Everything we've talked about today applies beyond romantic relationships — to friendships, family, colleagues. We're living through a period where a lot of people feel socially disconnected, and that disconnection has physical consequences, too. It generates worry, stress, and tension that show up in the body. Showing up authentically — sharing how you actually feel, talking about yourself rather than performing — creates real connection, and that connection is genuinely healing.
Dr. John Stracks practices mind-body medicine via telehealth nationally and internationally, focused on the reduction and elimination of chronic pain and physical symptoms. Dr. Yana Dubinsky is a psychologist at Cormendi Health specializing in relationship dynamics, couples therapy, and individual therapy with a relational approach. To work with Dr. Dubinsky or Dr. Stracks, visit cormendihealth.com.