Couples therapy for adults - teach more compromise, Teach Intimacy in Conflict

If only couples therapy worked. The problem is that for the most couples therapy is not effective. As is well documented, less than one in four couples seeking marital therapy experience long-term improvement in their marriage (eg Atkinson, 2002). This is totally unacceptable. But it says a lot. Because statistics on long-term effectiveness so poor? There are serious, hard working, well-meaning and talented therapists who work with couples. So what's the problem? Our experience in this field over the last 20 years tells us that couples therapy is so often ineffective because many couples therapists have not traveled enough on their own path of real development in the long term, the intimacy that limits their ability to guide couples along this psychologically challenging journey.

In this article we present a strong conceptual model of the couple's relationship, which is simple, but powerful tool for helping couples achieve long-term change. The basis of this model lies in the work of Bader and Pearson (1988, 2000). This is a model that requires a strong capacity for intimacy on the part of therapist pairs. We affirm that this ability, the therapist pairs to be a "great", is a prerequisite of any truly effective couples therapy. It 's our hope that this article will help to stimulate the development of more effective player as a couples therapist. Since couples do therapy with the most intimate of human relationships, the ability to help couples truly achieve long-term change requires a high level of intimacy problem resolution by therapists couples themselves. We can help couples to go farther on the road to intimacy of ourselves are gone. Unfortunately, this crucial question of the growth of the therapist is virtually ignored in couples therapy training and literature. Strangely, considering our profession, it seems strange not to incorporate the subject.

When we speak of intimacy we are not talking about the ability to feel close to another or the ability to take care of customers or self-revealing. These are important, of course, but many therapists do these things and create strong bonds with their customers. Instead, we're talking about therapists who worked with their problems in dealing with the negative aspect of intimacy, what we call the "dark side" of the passion.

A common mistake in Western culture is that the passion is all the love and sex, the wonderful, warm, warm, loving, something close to an intimate relationship. We have forgotten that just as essential to the dark side is his passion, the passion like agony. In fact, the English word "passion" comes from the Latin "passio" which means suffering.

The dark side of passion for each pair is their experience in dealing with their negative "hot" feelings, with their differences and conflicts. This is where many couples therapists fail their customers because the therapist has developed its own capacity to face the dark side of passion and in his personal life. The maturation of this personal ability of the therapist is essential for effective couples therapy.

Because the fact that the couple to deal effectively with the dark side of their passion has contributed to their difficulties, it is critical to the process of creating positive change in the long-term couples that each therapist has experience with the dark side of passion themselves . We teach our clients that conflicts are inevitable in any intimate relationship, but not necessarily destructive or indicative of the failure report. In fact, we tell them that the differences could be fodder for the growth and evolution of a relationship, whether or not we welcome them. But to help them achieve this growth must have already successfully traveled this road for privacy. Otherwise, we are the blind leading the blind.

But even if we are "blind" therapists we need a simple but powerful conceptual model to structure and direct our work with couples. This model allows the therapist to create a pair of long-term change and effective for couples is the model of differentiation therapy for couples.

The differentiation model has been developed in particular by Ellyn Bader and Pete Pearson (1988). As the title suggests, the differentiation is the central concept of the model. So what is the difference? And 'the person's ability to express and retain their sense of self, their values, feelings, ideas and desires, while facing the tension that is created when another intimate or significant disagrees. Faced with this tension, the individual retains the differentiated his views and feelings at the same time respecting consequential, even if not necessarily agree with the opinions of others. In contrast, when we are not yet differentiated avoid the tension of the differences, trying to get the other person to agree with us or (resentful) comply with their position.

Using differentiation as the key to the development of an individual and the growth of the pair, the model differentiation is elegant in its simplicity. The model has three main elements. One is that it is a model of long-term development relationships. Two is that this development revolves around the growth process of the torque to be symbiotic in the differentiated functioning. And three, one of our contributions to the model of differentiation, is the concept of Tre intimacy. We affirm that there are three types of intimacy that govern the progress of each pair, or lack thereof, in continuous evolution and symbiotic navigation from the differentiated functioning.

The differentiation model assumes an evolutionary approach to understanding relationships. Just as individuals proceed through a course, the development process (eg, Erikson, Piaget) so couples do. How we conceptualize this process consists of four phases of development.

Stage 1 is what we call Sweet Symbiosis, the honeymoon phase at the beginning of a love relationship. It 'full of love and passion and scored by the two parties to the merger into a single identity. This is the symbiotic functioning at its best intoxicating. This symbiotic magic is what many couples trying in vain to win back for many years here.

It 's also the stage. This magic moment, when "love is blind", is almost always essential for long-term success, because love creates a deep and strong that it will be necessary for the couple is to overcome the inevitable arrival of their differences that create tension between them.

The aspect of their individuality and differences is the hallmark of Phase 2, Symbiosis sour when the honeymoon is over as each partner begins to realize that there are other things that he or she does not like, when the disillusionment occurs first. This is the stage that the vast majority of couples who come for therapy are mired in. It is characterized by the couple's struggle to develop the ability to be intimate, once the blinders of symbiosis sweets are gone. This phase can last for years, why so many marriages go sour than symbiosis. Consequently, the relationship erodes and instead of fighting for the report, one or both partners or escape infidelity and / or divorce or settle for a stagnant relationship that has failed its promise.

But if each partner has its own wholly or in part the problems of the relationship of sincerity and works on these issues and weaknesses, the couple can get to Phase 3, Differentiation. This is the phase in which each partner struggles within the self and with your partner to learn to deal with the dark side of passion. The key is being able to remain differentiated in conflict, to be able to retain the knowledge that the negative feelings of the partners, or hurt her her disappointment and anger about the partner, not me. As Pete Pearson likes to say, all this is to be able to be "curious, not furious." Also crucial is the ability to define themselves, to hold themselves in front of the tension of the conflict and be able to defend themselves in a constructive and effective.

If the pair continues this work, learn this new more mature intimacy through differentiation, which then enter Phase 4, Synergy. It is then that the couple has mastered the dark side of passion and have well understood that while working through the tension, the wonderful aspect of loving passion returns and is enriched. Through this process has strengthened the relationship and the couple has created a bond of love and life with a term that is greater than either of them. Both fuse and differentiate to create a mature relationship in the long-term love.

It is important to note here that the movement of the pairs through these steps is bi-directional. For example, during periods of high stress, couples who have reached stage 3 and 4, the operation often regress to earlier levels of functioning, less mature. For example, this can be seen when there is a serious illness in the family. One or both spouses often become more symbiotic. But if the couple has grown into differentiated functioning earlier, the partners would expect to be able to work through the fight and successfully restore differentiation.

With the model of differentiation in his hand, well-equipped couples therapist must then clear a set of tools to teach and create a variation of both the individual and the couple. In our work to help couples move from acid in the differentiation Symbiosis and Synergy we focus on what we call Three intimacy: intimacy Self, Conflict Intimacy and Affection intimacy. We use these concepts to help ourselves and our clients understand that strengthens and nurtures a healthy long term relationship. Integrated within these concepts are the tools we use and teach our clients to enhance their intimacy three.

In short, Intimacy Self (SI) refers to the single moment by moment awareness of his or her feelings, desires and thoughts. And the tool that we use and teach our clients to develop his / her exercise SI is the Emotional Self Awareness (Solomon and Teagno). Conflict Intimacy is the ability of couples to get through the conflict, tension and differences well and the instrument used is the Initiator-Inquirer year (I-to-I, Bader and Pearson). And third is the intimacy Intimacy affection which we call in four ways: verbal, actions, non-sexual physical and sexual. With an understanding of the three intimacy and how to assess how each partner is with each one, the therapist can introduce and use the ESA to-and I-I exercises to help the couple develop their intimacy Self and Intimacy conflicts within and out sessions....