Most couples enter therapy not knowing what to expect. By this point, the relationship is usually badly strained and one, or both partners want relief from the conflict and fighting as soon as possible. To support you in your own therapy process to improve your relationship, the following are some key points to help you get the most from your sessions with a Couple’s counselor. Working in conjunction with an individual counselor and a couple’s counselor can offer the most effective way to make immediate positive improvements in your relationship.
Goals and Objectives of Couple Counseling
The primary goal of counseling is to increase your knowledge about yourself, your partner and the patterns of interaction, past and present, between you both. Therapy becomes effective as you apply new knowledge, change ineffective patterns, and develop new ways to interact.
The C’s of Couples Counseling
Change: The most important cornerstone of couple’s counseling begins with each person’s willingness to change. Generally, each partner begins with the idea that it is their partner that needs to do most of the changing. You can’t change your partner. Your partner can’t change you. You can influence each other, but that doesn’t mean you can change each other. Becoming the partner you desire to be with yourself, is the most efficient way to change a relationship. One way to begin making changes is developing a better understanding of your role in the patterns and behaviors in your relationship. This process is not about blaming and finger pointing, which does not support the creation of a loving supportive relationship.
Commitment: The process of entering couple’s counseling requires a commitment of time and effort. Part of that commitment includes arriving on time for sessions and completing work outside of sessions. By doing these things you show your partner that you are trustworthy and demonstrate to him/her that you will do what you say you are going to do. Fulfilling, satisfying relationships require effort, therefore each person must be willing to work equally to solve problems and sustain the partnership.
Collaboration: You and your partner are a team. Part of the work is shifting the focus from “I” to “Us”. The team approach to marriage allows for common goals, as well as individual goals. Instead of two opposing agendas that are always at odds, the team approach allows for the partnership to be the main priority, and within that team, each individual is encouraged to excel and succeed at their own goals which will therefore facilitate and enhance the team. Love is destroyed when self-interest dominates. In a strong disagreement, do you really believe your partner is entitled to their opinion? What does it mean to you if you and your partner do not agree? How can you be on the same team and yet have different opinions about major issues?
Curiosity: Couples often develop the belief that they know everything about their partner, especially after many years together. By developing a desire to know more about how your partner thinks and feels, and their beliefs, is essential to the process of creating a deeply connected relationship. Part of the challenge, is learning that expressing an understanding of your partner’s beliefs does not mean you must agree with them. Curiosity will help to bring about a new understanding of not only your partner but also yourself.
Communication: This topic is last because although many couples label their main problem as a communication problem, often it is too much and/or destructive communication that is truly the problem. Communication skills are a foundation of good relationships and will be addressed during your sessions. A few of the key skills that are addressed are empathy, non-reactive listening, validation, and mirroring.
Tradeoffs and Tough Choices
To create sustained improvement in your relationship you need:
To create the relationship you really desire, there will be some tradeoffs and tough choices, the first is time. It simply takes time to create a relationship that flourishes; time to be together, time to be with family, time to play, coordinate, nurture, relax, hang out and plan.
The second is comfort. That means emotional comfort, like going out on a limb to try novel ways of thinking or doing things. Listening and being curious instead of interrupting, speaking up instead of withdrawing. At the beginning, there will be emotional risk when taking action, but you will never explore different worlds if you always keep sight of the shoreline.
The other comfort that will be challenged is energy. It takes effort to sustain improvement over time: staying conscious of making a difference, remembering to be more respectful, more giving, more appreciative , etc., it takes effort to remember and act.
The effort put forth in improving your relationship will bring many benefits including a buffer towards the emotional ups and downs that are natural occurrences in life. The prognosis of your relationship has very little to do with the amount of arguing, disagreement, or conflict that is experienced, but rather by how each of you manage these issues. The belief that committed relationships are supposed to be a conflict-free paradise creates unrealistic expectations in the vision of your life together.
How to Maximize Session Value
A common yet unproductive pattern in couples therapy is making the focus be whatever problem happens to be on someone’s mind at the moment. This is a reactive (and mostly ineffective) approach to working things through. Another unproductive pattern is showing up and saying, “I don’t know what to talk about, do you?” While this blank slate approach may open some interesting doors, it is a hit or miss process.
Another common unproductive pattern is discussing whatever fight you are now in or whatever fight you had since the last meeting. Discussing these arguments without a larger context of what you wish to learn from the experience is often a useless exercise.
A more powerful approach is for each person to do the following before each session:
- Reflect on your objectives for being in therapy.
- Think about your next step that supports or relates to your larger objectives for the kind of relationship you wish to create, or the partner you aspire to become.
This reflection takes some effort. Yet few people would schedule an important meeting and then say, “Well, I don’t have anything to bring up, does anyone else have anything on their agenda?”
Your preparation will pay high dividends.
Partially adapted with permission from the work of Peter Pearson, Ph.D., of The Couple’s Institute.