It has been said almost too many times that treating couples is very hard work. But, so what. Most couple therapists aren’t afraid of hard work. What they don’t like is working too hard and feeling like they are getting nowhere. It is very difficult to stay motivated that way.
I know that therapists are working too hard when I hear them say something like, “I need to get them to….” In Neurodynamic Couples Therapy, we don’t need to get couples to do anything. Trying to do that is the epitome of working too hard, because you simply can’t do it. That is no way to stay motivated.
Our job is to provide a couple with a safe space to put healing words and new understanding to what they have already been doing. Our job is to listen and observe–not to engineer. We are not there to teach them how to be, but to help them unlock the words that will lead them to express how they have already been for their entire lives. The words of their conflicts almost get them there. We use our abilities to listen and put the pieces of their lives together differently than anyone else has done for them.
Interested parties will ask, “But isn’t it the therapist’s job to help them change the way they have been behaving toward each other?” Let’s examine this concept of “change.” Whose idea was it that they need to change? To change how? How do we know that the direction of change we might be attempting to create won’t make things worse? Did their parents, teachers, communities tell them they needed to change? Was the experience of being treated like they needed to change connected to childhood trauma?
Our clients behave the way they do because it was the only way their brains could find to feel safe in their childhood environments. Who are we to threaten that safety? The effective couple therapist is motivated to uncover and understand everything they can about why partners behave the way they do rather than trying to “get them” to change what they do. The therapist’s attention is focused on learning the correct language from the partners’ pasts that will aid in translating their conflicts into a healing experience.
Motivating the therapist is about maximizing the likelihood that they will succeed in helping their clients heal each other. Much of that success is predicated on creating an environment in which partners can very gradually relinquish their wishes that the type of change they have hoped for will magically heal their wounds–that the facts of their history will change; that their partner will change; that their families of origin will change. Our success has nothing to do with promoting change–it has to do with accompanying our clients into acceptance of the grief and pain that goes along with honoring the validity of what has already happened to them.
Next post: The art of accompanying