6 Elements to Teamwork in Couples Therapy
The decision to go to couples counseling isn’t always easy. In fact, many couples struggle to make this difficult decision.
Yet, regardless of when you decide it’s time to get help, it's important to keep certain things in mind to get the most out of the experience.
Going into therapy with a game plan will help you and your partner to be more engaged with therapy. That way both of you can get to the root of what’s holding you back. This insight is helpful for growing together as a couple or if you decide together the best choice is to part ways.
Here are six elements to teamwork that are crucial for couples therapy.
1. Keep an Open Mind
There are many misconceptions and broad generalizations made about couples therapy. For instance:
This will never work.
The therapist will blame all of our problems on me.
Why do we need to see a therapist in the first place? Can’t we just talk about it?
If you have these and other misconceptions about therapy, you close yourself off to getting help before even getting started! So, one way you can work as a team is by keeping an open mind about the process.
2. Come to Therapy Ready to Work
Another important element to working together as a team in therapy is coming to sessions ready to work. But what does that mean?
Consider these ideas:
Each of you blocking off time in your calendars for the appointments
Turning off your cell-phones during the session
Staying focused on the task at hand and keeping a watch on when your mind begins to wander
Participating in and completing exercises or activities your therapist may ask you to do between sessions
Coming to a session ready to discuss what you worked on if your therapist assigned each of you homework
Therapy can’t be a passive experience. In order to get the most out of it, you both need to be actively engaged in the therapeutic process.
3. Be Ready to Listen
During therapy, it’s very helpful that both of you agree to accept feedback from one another. That’s hard for many couples. Oftentimes, when couples finally come to therapy, each partner may already have developed preconceptions. These judgments may have solidified over months, or even years.
Each of you brings this baggage with you to therapy. When conflict arises, it is important each person has a chance to speak and feel heard. Your therapist will help you with this process during session and will provide communication tools that will allow you to practice these skills outside of session as well.
4. Seek to Understand
As you listen to one another, seek to understand where your partner is coming from. Understanding means connecting what the other person is saying to your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
For example, your partner says they struggle with trusting you. Think about: Was there ever a time in your life when you didn’t trust someone? Or where someone else didn’t trust you? How did that make you feel? By making these connections you will have greater empathy for your partner. Which, in turn, will allow both of you to make progress in therapy, together.
5. Watch Out for the Blame Game
One thing that both of you can work on together is not playing the blame game. This occurs when you put all of the problems of the relationship on your partner.
There are a couple of reasons why this is unproductive for couples counseling:
It is untrue. Both of you share responsibility in how the relationship got to this point. By blaming your partner, you deflect your personal responsibility of how you influenced the relationship.
It objectifies your partner. When you blame your partner for everything, you are saying that they are the “problem.” But this only objectifies them. People are not problems. Problems arise because of actions.
If both of you agree to watch out for and not be drawn into the blame game during counseling, you will find the therapeutic experience to be much more productive.
6. Agree to Do this Together
A final element to teamwork and couples therapy is agreeing to go through this process together, no matter what happens and how difficult it may be. Therapy becomes much less productive if only one of you is willing to invest in therapy. Couples who get the most out of therapy come to the process ready to work together on their relationship issues, and see it through.
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Successful couples counseling requires active engagement for each partner. That's not always easy, but you don’t have to do this alone. A couples counselor will be able to help guide you through this process. And by following the above-mentioned six tips, you can begin to repair your relationship.
At Journey Mental Health, we welcome and affirm all couples and family units. If you would like to find out more about how Couples Counseling with Journey Mental Health can help you, please feel free to contact us.