Couples
Effective change requires insight plus action. Insight without action is passivity. Action without insight is impulsive. Insight plus action leads to clarity and power.
The main aim of Couple Therapy is to increase your awareness of yourself, your partner, and the patterns of relating between you. Therapy becomes effective as you apply this insight to break ineffective interactions and commit to action that will nurture better ones.Couple Therapy works best when you have more goals for yourself than for your partner.
One of the hardest parts of Couple therapy is accepting that you each will need to improve your response to a problem (how you think about it, feel about it, or what to do about it). Few people want to focus on improving their response. It’s more common to build a strong case for why the other should do the changing…
To this end, your ‘job’ will be to explore your own contribution to the relationship, clarify what is most important to you in terms of the relationship you want and the partner you aspire to be, and each set goals to support this. To do this work requires a commitment of time, effort, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone (over and over again!) as you try new ways of thinking and doing things. But rest assured, becoming a more effective partner is, without a doubt, the most efficient way to change a relationship!Clear direction maximizes the value of your Couple Therapy.
Just like we wouldn’t call a meeting to order before first considering our agenda, we don’t want to take a haphazard approach to our therapy work. A common, yet unproductive pattern is to focus on whatever argument you are having now, or since our last session. Discussing these arguments without a larger context of what you want to learn from the experience is often an exercise in spinning your wheels. This can lead to the question: ‘Are we getting anywhere?’
For this reason, I take a directed approach, using a variety of assessment exercises to clarify and expand this context of your relationship, the changes you want to see in it, and the individual steps you each want to take to bring these desired changes to life!Successful therapy is based on insight AND intentional action. To highlight this, I break the process down into Insight and Action steps.
Your Relationship Investment.
In my experience, it can be a daunting experience to expose our relationship flaws, trusting a complete stranger with our vulnerability. There can be a tendency to get uncomfortable or discouraged early on, and stop therapy prematurely. My belief is that therapy works best when a commitment is made to see the process through. A thorough assessment of your relationship-past, present, and future-sets us up with the insight needed to tailor the strategies of intervention.
Through the Insight Assessment (approximately 3-4 sessions), you will build:- An awareness of the ineffective (and effective) patterns and strategies you each are contributing to your relationship, and the resulting behavioral cycles
- A clear focus on the kind of partner you aspire to be, and a commitment to your action strategy for accomplishing this
- A framework for engaging in successful conversations
Action Sessions focus on helping you improve your responses to each other without violating your core values or deeply held principles. It is common that we go into conversations without really being clear about what these values are, much less being able to describe these to our partner. Instead we respond to each other in ways that don’t line up with what is really important to us. So rather clearly communicating what we are thinking, feeling, and wanting (ie: what is really important to us) in a clear and respectful way, we react from unawareness of ours and our partner’s values…by bullying, giving in, avoidance/escape, whining, blaming, shutting down in resentful silence…and the list goes on!
Action Sessions take the knowledge from the Insight Assessment, and apply it to meaningful action to support and accomplish your specific relationship goals. These may include (but are not limited to) strategies and skills to address:- Building a more loving and connected relationship
- Repairing after a relationship rupture
- Strengthening engagement and communication
- Negotiating differences
- Healing through separation
- Reconciling after separation
Additional Resources: Why Couple Therapy isn’t Just for When Things are Going Wrong Stepping Stones to Intimacy: A Positive Look on Problems