Sunday, December 13, 2009

The Real Client In Couples Work

Today I saw a google ad when I did a search for "couples counseling", that told readers to BEWARE of couples therapy, and not to get involved with it before reading the "guide" to be found on the linked website. I decided to click on the ad and have a look. A "former marriage counselor" talks about the shocking truth regarding marriage therapy, which is that there is, according to him, a 75% failure rate when working with these "experts", and that, no better than the un-helped national averages, a full 50% of couples seeking therapy will end up divorced.

Why is this so? Because, we are told - and this is the "real" core issue in couples therapy, not, as is usually believed, problems with communication - most therapists have had no (not even a single course) training in marriage counseling, and they are in fact trained to treat individuals, and so when working with couples they fail to have as their client, the marriage/or the relationship, and instead have two individuals as clients, thus leading to inaccurate understanding, and to ineffective (at best; damaging at worst) treatment.

While I'm not too fond of the semi-hysterical presentation of this person's ad, I have to acknowledge that he has an extremely valid point to make: in working with couples, it is, in my experience, and in my opinion, of critical importance to be sure to emphasize that the success of the relationship will depend on the ability of each of the people involved to conceptualize the relationship as the focus of their attentions and of their efforts, and not exclusively, or even so much, their individual agendas. Another way to put this is that, if the relationship is to succeed and to flourish, both parties will need to be able to transcend their exclusively personal agendas, preferences, needs, wants, and priorities, and to deliberately decide to make the relationship the top priority.

Of course this can get tricky. There has to be some degree of balance in terms of personal needs also. Asking someone just to give up their personal needs in favor of the needs of the relationship is to over simplify the complex dynamics of good relationships, and to devalue to an extreme the needs of the individual. We're not looking to make martyrs here, but to find ways to grow into a deeper understanding of the realities of successful long term relationships.

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