Most of us have had the experience of interacting with an individual therapy patient or a personal acquaintance and subsequently being with them and their life partner and feeling startled at how differently they behave when together from the ways we have known them individually. We are witnessing the operation of an intersubjective system that is co-created by the two brains of the couple as a natural part of all intimate systems. The characteristics of each system are determined by our earliest attachment experiences.
Neurodynamic Couples Therapy is founded on the premise that every intimate couple is attempting — outside of conscious awareness — to heal each other’s historical wounds, losses and traumas through their conflicts. The couple’s therapist joins their system in being curious about why their system needs the particular conflicts and problematic behaviors they have been experiencing in order to become conscious of what they are trying to heal. Trusting the system to deliver up the answers about where to go with the treatment frees the therapist from taking primary responsibility for “fixing” a relationship.
What is involved in “trusting the system?” As the therapist is exploring why a couple has sought therapy and is getting to know them better, their brains will automatically present words and phrases that perfectly encapsulate the feelings that the couple is experiencing during their troubled moments. Their exact words expose the source of their conflicts and the repetitive dynamics that their system has constructed to re-experience their pasts. The therapist must be alert to the presentation of these system words, for they hold the key to understanding what the couple’s system has been trying to complete. Trusting the system means repeatedly using their words to discuss a conflict, rather than resorting to a professionally jargon-filled conceptualization of their problems.
A therapist who is trusting the system consistently relies on the three-person treatment team to solve any problematic issues that come up within the treatment setting. For example, if one partner is disrupting the safety of the treatment or persistently trying to operate outside the treatment frame, the question becomes, “What should we do about this?”, similar to the story of the preschool teacher in the previous post. The focus is the protection of the system by all three participants so it can function productively.
Turning to the partners to act as consultants in understanding their system will likely occur more often than them turning to the therapist as consultant. Asking one partner to clarify what the other means by a particular statement is a powerful message that the therapist trusts their system to be helpful, and it sparks deeper conversations about the feelings all members of the treatment team are attempting to reach.
The authority of the therapist is only expressed in the unwavering position of commitment to the couple’s system to be the purveyor of healing, not in an expectation that the therapist “knows” what’s wrong with them and how they must change.
Next post: How the system heals