Couples therapy, part 2

Important Concepts for Couples Therapy and Relationships

The following ideas can help identify areas of focus in therapy and/or stimulate discussion between you and your partner between meetings. If you periodically review this list, you will discover that your reflections and associations will change over time. 

Attitude is Key

If you find that you don’t feel like taking a positive attitude, that is a clue that you are in a pattern of feeling compelled to censor or hide some of your thoughts or feelings.   People typically censor thoughts or feelings 1) to avoid criticism or invalidation from others, 2) because they are judging themselves for having them, 3) to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, or 4) to avoid getting into a fight.

How to think differently about a problem is often more effective than just trying to figure out what action to take.  What meaning have you been assigning to the situation?  Are alternative interpretations possible?  Your perspective is likely to change when you understand more about yourself and your partner. 

It is highly likely that you have some flawed assumptions about your partner's motives. And that he/she has some flawed assumptions about yours. The problem is, most of the time we don't want to believe our assumptions are flawed.  Often, those assumptions are tied to the ways we have learned to make sense of the world.  Challenging that framework is scary. 

Focus on Changing Yourself Rather than Your Partner

Couples therapy works best if you have more goals for yourself than for your partner.  Accepting that there are places where you will need to change your response to a problem (how you think about it, feel about it, or what to do about it) is often the biggest hurdle. Very few people want to focus on changing their response. It's more common to build a strong case for why the other should do the changing. 

As you form your own goals for the therapy and your relationship, remember that effective goals:

1. Require some self-reflection and self-confrontation (what is your part of the problem?)
2. Are clearly stated and involve action/behavior
3. Tangibly benefit you (not just your partner)
4. Are individually focused (not dependent on what someone else does)
5. Are framed as positive (what I want, not what I don’t want)