COUNSELING 911
Seeking a couples therapist? Here are some resources and questions to help steer you to a good one.
Therapistlocator.net lists more than 15,000 marriage and family therapists who are members of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, which requires that they meet strict training and education requirements (a master’s or doctoral degree plus at least two years of supervised clinical experience) and abide by the association’s code of ethics.
If you wish to ensure you see a therapist who prioritizes commitment as the first option, you can search a registry of therapists who have agreed to a values statement at marriagefriendlytherapists.com.
Two widely recognized evidence-based approaches with research supporting their effectiveness include emotionally focused couples therapy, which helps couples shift their negative interactions to positives ones (iceeft.com for a list of certified therapists); and integrative behavioral couple therapy, which helps each partner accept the other as is (ibct.psych.ucla.edu has a list of trained counselors).
For couples on the road to divorce, the University of Minnesota’s Couples on the Brink Project developed a new type of short-term therapy called “discernment counseling” to help them determine whether it’s worth pursuing counseling or if it’s better to let the marriage go. Go to cehd.umn.edu (search for “discernment counseling”) for more information.
Couples counseling, marriage therapist Pat Love says, is “like assembling an airplane in flight.” Highly stressful. Highly volatile. Potentially explosive.
So you want a skilled technician in control. But not all counselors are trained to navigate the rough winds of a relationship in distress. And they can do more harm than good, some experts say.
“Unfortunately, many therapists have not been trained to step out of the who’s-to-blame dynamic,” said Diane Gehart, professor of marriage and family therapy at California State University at Northridge.
While any number of social workers, psychologists and other counseling professionals can perform couples therapy — and many do it well — that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve had much experience with it or that they’ve gone through the specialized course work required of licensed marriage and family therapists.
And when a therapist accustomed to treating individuals brings an individualistic approach to a couples’ session, it can backfire, Gehart said.
Unlike traditional psychodynamic therapy for individuals, the most effective couples’ therapy doesn’t plumb the unconscious or delve into the past or seek to identify the psychopathologies causing people to behave in destructive ways, Gehart said.
Rather, couples therapy works best when it focuses on the systemic interactions between partners, she said — that is, how the relationship dynamics are perpetuating patterns that are driving them apart and what positive steps each person can take to change them.
“You learn to treat the system, not the symptom,” said Love, an Austin, Texas-based author of several relationship books. “If you don’t pay attention to the system, one person will feel betrayed, left out, reactive and not want to come back to therapy.”
Bill Doherty, director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project at the University of Minnesota, has been writing about bad couples therapy for years. One of the most important questions people should ask when seeking a therapist, he said, is how much of their practice is devoted to couples. Look for at least 30 percent.
Among the missteps a well-meaning but inexperienced counselor can take, Doherty said:
- Appearing to side with one partner over the other.
- Allowing hot conflict, including letting partners interrupt each other and blame or criticize each other.
- Offering bromides about good communication but little else.
- Failing to give homework that each partner can work on for the next session.
- Performing a cost-benefit analysis on whether the relationship is worth saving.
- Advising partners that they may be better off split.
Doherty advocates against couples therapy that takes a “values-neutral” approach that treats marriage and divorce as equally viable options or the “me”-oriented perspective that views relationships as platforms for people to be happy.
That’s not to say people should stay miserable. But Doherty notes that there’s a lot of psychological research showing the pursuit of happiness is itself self-defeating.
“Happiness is a byproduct of a life well-lived — of good relationships, of making a difference in the world,” Doherty said.
People should be able to tell early on if the therapy is helpful. Within the first couple of sessions, each partner should feel that the therapist understands his or her point of view and is actively structuring the sessions, Doherty said. The relationship should be improving in five to eight sessions.
When done right, about 70 percent of couples therapy cases show positive change, according to a study last year in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.
When done wrong, it can make things worse, Gehart said.
