Therapy for Couples

Statistically, individual therapy is not good for relationships. It stands to reason that if therapists encourage clients to look after their own interests primarily, the interest of the relationship can suffer. Individual therapy also can reinforce the client’s own perspectives, so that challenging staunchly held views (for example, “I’m a victim”), more difficult. With this in mind however, I can conduct therapy on behalf of a marriage even if I am seeing only one member, because my perspective is systemic: I want not just my client, but his or her family members to benefit from our work.

About 40% of my work is with couples. I use the terms “marriage therapy” and “couples therapy” almost interchangeably, and the distinctions with “counseling” also don’t concern me very much. I work with gay couples on a semi-regular basis though more often they will want the therapist to be gay.

I am not willing to work with a couple if there is current physical violence at any level. One reason for this is that I cannot be sure of the safety level. Violence could stem from something said in couples therapy and I would be violating the “do no harm” principle. Another reason is that in couples and family therapy, everyone shares responsibility. There is little talk of “fault”. When there is violence however, the responsibility is with the perpetrator no matter what. I do not want to diminish this message in any way but talking about what the victim did as part of the escalation preceding the violence.

Can I see you individually and in couples therapy at the same time? Sometimes yes, but can be pitfalls. For instance it is hard for me to keep the necessary neutrality, or hard not to be viewed by one member of the couple as allied to the other. Also, while I have to respect confidentiality for the individual, I can’t be sitting on a secret as I see the couple. It’s icky and unprincipled even if I thought I could pull it off. And so the deal has to be that the individual client has nothing I would need to keep hidden from the partner.

Usually in working with a couple I will start to uncover some way in which each member is responding to what the other is doing in a way which backfires. Inadvertently, we tend to elicit just the behavior we would like to diminish – and our partner is doing the same with us. For instance, there is a stress and partner A wants to talk about it. Partner B on the other hand experiences that there is stress when they talk about certain things. And so B will avoid talking. Partner A has more stress when they don’t talk, and so will escalate and talk more forcefully to B, who ups the ante by shutting down more firmly, and so on. There are countless variations on how different areas of contrast between two people become more polarized over time, and increasingly so as they try to rectify the problem. One wants more privacy, the other more mixing. One wants more sex so that conversation is stimulated, while the other prefers more conversation so that sex is stimulated. Stricter parenting vs. looser parenting… And so on.

If your partner is highly reluctant to start therapy with you, check out my article I don't want marriage therapy.

Naturally, I work frequently with couples who are breaking up. I can support divorce, but never recommend it. If you want to know why, give me a call at 206.669.9801 or use my contact form.