How to get the most from your Couples Therapy
I have created this article to provide clarity and focus to our work together. Couples are often uncertain what to expect from the process of Couples Therapy. I have found that most couples approach therapy with the notion that each person will describe their distress and somehow the therapist will assist them to create a happier more functional relationship. They expect to learn some new or better skills. However, most people hope that their partner will do most of the learning in problem areas. It doesn’t work quite that way.
Your job is to create your own individual goals for being in therapy. My job is to help you set and reach these goals. I have many, many tools to help you become a more effective partner – they work best when you are clear about how you aspire to be as a partner.
Goals of Couples Therapy
The major part of Couples Therapy is increasing your knowledge about yourself, your partner and the patterns of interaction between the two of you. Therapy becomes effective as you apply new knowledge to break ineffective patterns and develop better ones. The key tasks are:
~ The kind of life you want to build together
~ The kind of partner you aspire to be
~ Your individual blocks to becoming that partner
~ The skills and knowledge necessary to do the above task
Tradeoffs and tough choices
To create sustained improvement in your relationship you need:
~ A vision of the life you want to build together
~ To have a life separate from your partner because you’re not joined at the hip.
~ The appropriate attitudes and skills to work as a team
~ The motivation to persist
It takes effort to sustain improvement over time: staying conscious of making a difference over time, remembering to be more respectful, more giving, more appreciative, etc. It takes effort to remember and act.
There is often a conflict between short term gratification and the long term goal of creating a satisfying relationship. The blunt reality is that in an interdependent relationship, effort is required on each person’s part to make a sustained improvement. It is like pairs figure skating, each person has a job to do to sustain balance together.
How to maximize value from your Couples Therapy sessions
Some of the common unproductive patterns are:
~ Showing up and saying, “I don’t know what to talk about, do you?” It becomes a hit or miss process.
~ Focusing on the latest problem. This is a reactive, ineffective approach.
~ Discussing fights or arguments without a larger context of what you wish to learn. This is very often just an exercise in spinning your wheels.
A more effective way is:
1. Reflect on your goals for being in therapy
2. Think about your next step that will support your larger goal
3. Have a journal where you write important thoughts and collect newly acquired information, and review frequently.
Important concepts
Attitude is the key!
Identifying what to do is often easy. The bigger challenge is why you don’t do it.
Think differently about a problem… Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Realizing that each one of you has some flawed assumptions about your partner’s motives is a sign of maturity.
Focus on changing yourself rather than your partner!!!
Couples Therapy works best if you have more goals for yourself. You can’t change your partner, your partner cannot change you. You can influence each other.
Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it……
Fear lets you know you’re not prepared. If you view fear in that way, it becomes a signal to prepare the best you can.
You can learn a lot about yourself by understanding what annoys you and how you handle it.
The more you believe your partner should be different, the less initiative you will take to change the patterns between you.
It’s not what you say. It’s what they hear!
Can you expect your partner to treat you better than you treat him/her?
If you want your partner to change, do you think about what you can do to make it easier?
About communication
We are all responsible for how we express ourselves, no matter how others treat us. We need to pay attention to:
~ Managing emotions, such as anger that may be too intense
~ How you’re communicating – whining, blaming, being sarcastic, criticizing, etc.
~ What you want from your partner during the discussion
~ What outcome you want from the discussion
~ Your partner’s major concern
~ How you can help your partner become more responsive to you
Some final thoughts
You can’t create a flourishing relationship by only fixing what’s wrong, but it’s a start.
Love is destroyed when self-interests dominate. Learn to love your partner on their terms.
Knowledge is not power. Only knowledge that is applied is power.
Business and marriages fail for the same three reasons. A failure to:
~ Learn from the past
~ Adapt to changing conditions…be flexible
~ Predict probable future problems and take action…be proactive
Effective change requires insight plus action. Insight without action is passivity. Action without insight is impulsivity. Insight plus action leads to clarity and power.
If you want to create a win-win situation, you have to help your partner to win too!
PS
Please download this document, keep it in your journal and bring it to your sessions for discussion
Adapted from Peter Pearson, Ph.D, Articles for Couples
I have created this article to provide clarity and focus to our work together. Couples are often uncertain what to expect from the process of Couples Therapy. I have found that most couples approach therapy with the notion that each person will describe their distress and somehow the therapist will assist them to create a happier more functional relationship. They expect to learn some new or better skills. However, most people hope that their partner will do most of the learning in problem areas. It doesn’t work quite that way.
Your job is to create your own individual goals for being in therapy. My job is to help you set and reach these goals. I have many, many tools to help you become a more effective partner – they work best when you are clear about how you aspire to be as a partner.
Goals of Couples Therapy
The major part of Couples Therapy is increasing your knowledge about yourself, your partner and the patterns of interaction between the two of you. Therapy becomes effective as you apply new knowledge to break ineffective patterns and develop better ones. The key tasks are:
~ The kind of life you want to build together
~ The kind of partner you aspire to be
~ Your individual blocks to becoming that partner
~ The skills and knowledge necessary to do the above task
Tradeoffs and tough choices
To create sustained improvement in your relationship you need:
~ A vision of the life you want to build together
~ To have a life separate from your partner because you’re not joined at the hip.
~ The appropriate attitudes and skills to work as a team
~ The motivation to persist
It takes effort to sustain improvement over time: staying conscious of making a difference over time, remembering to be more respectful, more giving, more appreciative, etc. It takes effort to remember and act.
There is often a conflict between short term gratification and the long term goal of creating a satisfying relationship. The blunt reality is that in an interdependent relationship, effort is required on each person’s part to make a sustained improvement. It is like pairs figure skating, each person has a job to do to sustain balance together.
How to maximize value from your Couples Therapy sessions
Some of the common unproductive patterns are:
~ Showing up and saying, “I don’t know what to talk about, do you?” It becomes a hit or miss process.
~ Focusing on the latest problem. This is a reactive, ineffective approach.
~ Discussing fights or arguments without a larger context of what you wish to learn. This is very often just an exercise in spinning your wheels.
A more effective way is:
1. Reflect on your goals for being in therapy
2. Think about your next step that will support your larger goal
3. Have a journal where you write important thoughts and collect newly acquired information, and review frequently.
Important concepts
Attitude is the key!
Identifying what to do is often easy. The bigger challenge is why you don’t do it.
Think differently about a problem… Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Realizing that each one of you has some flawed assumptions about your partner’s motives is a sign of maturity.
Focus on changing yourself rather than your partner!!!
Couples Therapy works best if you have more goals for yourself. You can’t change your partner, your partner cannot change you. You can influence each other.
Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn’t have to do it……
Fear lets you know you’re not prepared. If you view fear in that way, it becomes a signal to prepare the best you can.
You can learn a lot about yourself by understanding what annoys you and how you handle it.
The more you believe your partner should be different, the less initiative you will take to change the patterns between you.
It’s not what you say. It’s what they hear!
Can you expect your partner to treat you better than you treat him/her?
If you want your partner to change, do you think about what you can do to make it easier?
About communication
We are all responsible for how we express ourselves, no matter how others treat us. We need to pay attention to:
~ Managing emotions, such as anger that may be too intense
~ How you’re communicating – whining, blaming, being sarcastic, criticizing, etc.
~ What you want from your partner during the discussion
~ What outcome you want from the discussion
~ Your partner’s major concern
~ How you can help your partner become more responsive to you
Some final thoughts
You can’t create a flourishing relationship by only fixing what’s wrong, but it’s a start.
Love is destroyed when self-interests dominate. Learn to love your partner on their terms.
Knowledge is not power. Only knowledge that is applied is power.
Business and marriages fail for the same three reasons. A failure to:
~ Learn from the past
~ Adapt to changing conditions…be flexible
~ Predict probable future problems and take action…be proactive
Effective change requires insight plus action. Insight without action is passivity. Action without insight is impulsivity. Insight plus action leads to clarity and power.
If you want to create a win-win situation, you have to help your partner to win too!
PS
Please download this document, keep it in your journal and bring it to your sessions for discussion
Adapted from Peter Pearson, Ph.D, Articles for Couples
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