I'm Dr Orion terban and this is psycha Better Living Through psychology and the topic of today's short talk is couples therapy almost never works so I might take some heat for this one but I am not a big fan of coup's therapy I have not seen it associated with a high degree of positive outcomes and I think this is true for a number of reasons several of which I will be discussing in this episode so let's Jump Right In first and foremost what many folks who have never been to coup's therapy often fail to appreciate
is that in most couples therapy the client is the relationship the client is not the two individual people in the room the client is the relationship between them as such the therapist is going to be advocating for the best interests of the relationship this means that the therapeutic intent is typically to perpetuate the relationship or in rare cases when both parties are on the same page with termination to help dissolve the relationship harmoniously so why is this problematic well in the first place it means that one or both of the parties might be supported to
stay in a relationship with someone they absolutely have no business being in a relationship to begin with a couple's therapist is not going to turn to the man in the middle of a session and say my dude you need to get as far away from that woman as poss possible personality disorders hardly ever go away entirely and it can take years of hard work just to get them under control you'd be better off cutting this off and finding someone else as quickly as you can by the same token the therapist is not going to turn
to the woman in the room and say this guy is never going to commit to you no matter what sacrifices you make for the relationship if you want a family you are wasting your time here and let me tell you in certain situations this is precisely the the feedback that people need to hear withholding this feedback because your client is the relationship irrespective of the best interests of the individuals in that relationship does not sit right with me personally now in the second place when the client is the relationship it means that working through problems
generally requires some measure of negotiated concession if you're not already aware I'm not a big fan of compromise especially in Intimate Relationships compromise is two people not getting what they want at which point you have to ask what is the point of this relationship anyway in my opinion it's a better idea to be selfish and to find someone else whose selfishness you can live with on the other hand compromise suggests a negotiated process which is often counterproductive for two obvious reasons first and this may come as is a shock to you but the people who
show up to couples counseling have often been acting very badly in their relationships the reason why a relationship is dysfunctional could be that at least one of the people involved is acting like an emotional terrorist throwing Tantrums being bullying and aggressive hijacking family events threatening to leave if demands are not met etc etc and you know what it's not a good idea to negotiate with terrorists coming to the bargaining table only when the other side behaves sufficiently badly only reinforces bad behavior and functionally guarantees that you will see more bad behavior in the future appeasement
didn't work for the Nazis and it's probably not going to work for your relationship now if you have The Misfortune of being in a relationship with an emotional terrorist then you likely need to take a long hard look at the person in the mirror because this is your fault at least to some extent after all you're the one who chose to be in a relationship with this person for some reason you likely have some unhealed emotional wound that left you vulnerable to such an individual and that healing is something that you could more effectively do
in your own individual therapy because as you'll recall the Rel relationship is the client in coup's therapy get that sorted out yourself and your path forward in the relationship might just become clearer on its own now before I go any further if you're liking what you're hearing please consider sending this episode to someone who might benefit from its message because it's Word of Mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow and you can also hit the thanks button and tip me in proportion to the value you feel you've received from this
episode I really depend on your support I don't do a lot of product placements or corporate sponsorships I don't do any of them uh so I really depend on your support to keep all of this going I really appreciate it thank you very much all right and the second reason why negotiated concession often doesn't work in couples's therapy is because one of the most common issues that couples typically bring into the counseling room is their sex life or their lack thereof and you cannot negotiate desire you cannot say get more sex more often in exchange
for doing more of the housework it doesn't work that way now you can increase desire in a relationship but the pathway to doing so is almost completely antithetical to the couple's therapy process it involves less communication less time together more mystery greater spontaneity etc etc and this can be accomplished unilaterally that is if you just change how you show up in the relationship it will force a shift in the dynamic of the relationship and you definitely don't need your partner's permission to be more attractive in your own relationship so just focus on doing that as
opposed to talking about the lack of desire which typically only makes the problem worse now here's yet another thing to consider as a therapist I can tell you that it's actually very difficult to tell the truth to a person in a way that he or she can hear it the truth is generally tough for people to hear it's bitter medicine so it typically requires some finesse to be able to speak the truth in such a way that it isn't automatically rejected and while it is very difficult to tell the truth in a way that one
person can hear it it's almost impossible to tell the TRU truth in a way that two people can hear it simultaneously the best way for one person to hear this truth will not be the best way for another person to hear it and the upshot of this is that the truth is typically what gets compromised the truth is diluted to the point that two people can hear it and this is often not nearly as effective as just giving it to each person individually in their own way here's another reason coupl therapy is more or less
predic on the belief that most problems that people experience in their relationships are just based on some lack of understanding or some failure of communication so the solution of course must be more communication and mutual understanding and in my experience this is not the case on some level it's not important to understand why say one person is throwing temper tantrums it's important that the temper tantrums stop perpetuating the belief that say a woman is throwing a tantrum because she doesn't feel sufficiently validated or cared for is gaslighting because there are plenty of women who don't
throw Tantrums when those same conditions or Worse are met and the person who may believe that these are sufficient grounds for a tantrum would likely be better served in individual therapy anyway the point is that certain things don't need to be understood they just need to change and understanding does not by itself inevitably lead to change some things just don't have a place in a healthy loving relationship and acting as though the real issue is a lack of appreciation for the reasons why bad behavior exists as opposed to the bad behavior itself is to my
mind Shifting the blame to the other person in the relationship unfortunately this can happen in coup's therapy I imagine that Coupes therapy could be helpful to certain people dealing with certain classes of problems however I haven't seen it produce positive outcomes in the vast majority of cases what do you think does this fit with your own experience let me know in the comments below and if you've gotten this far you might as well like this episode And subscribe to this channel you may also consider becoming a channel member with perks like the priority review of
comments or booking a paid one-on-one consultation as always thank you for [Music] listening
