What to Expect From Couples Therapy

Okay, can I just say: relationships are complicated! You’ve got two different people’s motivations, needs, and feelings flying around. You’ve got misunderstandings and miscommunications. You’ve got unspoken expectations and niggling resentments. Yikes!

Couples therapy can help with all of that. My aim with couples is to help you slow and calm the conflicts down so that each of you gets to fully share and feels fully heard. You both get to feel your feelings. I act as a neutral third party, an ally to each, a coach, and a translator. When you can better hear each other and can make room for each others’ feelings, you can build empathy and collaboration instead of conflict and opposition. In collaboration you can work together against any issues. So it changes from “you against your partner” or “your partner against you” to “you and your partner against the problem.” Relationship gold!

First session
In the first session I’ll ask you what brings you to couple’s therapy, so you can tell me about the challenges as you see them. I’ll ask you about your relationship history and your goals for therapy. As you answer, you may notice that you and your partner have differing views about these things. You may notice feelings come up (you start to get mad, or sad). The two of you may even start to argue in session. All this is welcome, because both your answers to the questions and the dynamic of how you interact with each other help form a picture of your relationship, its hot spots and challenges, and its strengths.

Length of time and how often
How long couples therapy takes depends on each couple. Different factors include each partner’s willingness and readiness to consider changes in their dynamic and the nature of the conflict. Most couples come once every week, at least to begin with. Sometimes they may come more often if they’re in a crisis spot and need extra support untangling it. Some couples reach a satisfying stopping point after several sessions. Some continue longer to carefully unpack a particularly complex dynamic between them. Some couples come for intermittent check-ins. You and your partner get to decide what works best for you.

Taking sides
In couples therapy, my client is “The Relationship.” So I am neutral and I aim to accurately understand each person. Sometimes I may “take sides” for a brief moment in order to help a person unpack their feelings. Then I will take the other side, too, helping the other person the same way.

Occasional individual sessions
I usually want to have at least one individual session with each partner when beginning couples therapy. This helps us better understand each partner fully. It gives us time to hear about each partner’s history and relevant life experiences that may play a role in their current feelings and current conflict within the couple. For example, I may learn that a partner always felt “not good enough” growing up with very overbearing parents. Ah, now we can better understand that person’s strong reaction at hearing “Did you take out the trash yet?”

So yeah, I really love working with couples and helping them improve communication and conflict resolution, move toward collaboration, and strengthen their connection.

In my next article I will share an example of what this kind of slowing down and unpacking looks like in a couple’s session.