Empathic Partner

Couples Therapy, part 1

Developed with reference to “How To Get The Most From Couples Therapy” by Ellen Bader, Ph.D and Peter Pearson, Ph.D, from the Professional Collection at CouplesInstitute.com.

The major aim of therapy is increasing your knowledge about yourself, your partner and the patterns of interaction between you. Therapy works when you apply new knowledge to interrupt ineffective patterns and develop better ones.  During therapy, you develop a shared understanding of what happens in your relationship, and learn to respond to each other more effectively and without violating your own core values or deeply held principles.

Key tasks of couples therapy include increasing your clarity about:
.The relationship you want
.The choices and behaviors that are consistent with having the relationship you want; and
.Where and why it gets hard to make those choices and engage in those behaviors

The hard work of great relationships:

Putting in the time. It takes time to create a great relationship: time to be together, time to be with family/community, time for shared fun and relaxation, time to coordinate and plan.  It can feel hard to make this time if there are competing pressures (e.g. children, work, and your own individual development).

Leaving your comfort zone. This work requires you to be brave: both when you share information about yourself with your partner, and when you listen to what they tell you about themselves.  In addition, therapy involves exploring what happens when you are each at your worst: no one’s favorite topic. 

Owning your part.  People often enter couple’s therapy focusing on a problem they see in their partner.  However, each of you will be called upon to examine your assumptions and your coping strategies, and how these impact your interactions with each other.  Ultimately, you will each confront the reality that you can effect change only within yourself and through creating an environment that supports the relationship you want. 

Getting the most out of sessions:

As you work with a therapist to map out the recurring patterns and cycles of conflict or distance in your relationship, the starting point will sometimes be a specific issue you have identified, or a fight you’ve gone through.  However, keep in mind that these are not “the problem” but symptoms of an overall pattern you are trying to understand and rework. 

 

In order to keep your focus on this bigger picture of the relationship, it is helpful for each person to do the following before each session:

1. Reflect on your objectives for being in therapy.
2. Think about the next step you can undertake that supports or relates to your larger objectives for the kind of relationship you wish to create, or the partner you aspire to become.

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)