Home · Couples therapy
Couples therapy, given the same depth as individual work.
Not communication drills. What each of you is reaching for underneath the argument, and what keeps getting in the way of it.
The cycle
Many couples do not have several arguments. They have one, in different clothes.
It changes costume. It is about the dishes, then about the calendar, then about a tone of voice. Underneath it is usually the same pair of fears meeting each other in the same order.
The first work is to see the cycle clearly enough that it stops being something that happens to you, and becomes something you can both name while it is happening.
Closeness and distance
One of you often moves toward, and one away.
That is not a character difference so much as two strategies for managing the same risk. Pursuing and withdrawing both make sense from the inside.
We slow it down enough to hear what each move is actually asking for, which is often not what it sounds like.
Rupture and repair
The goal is not a couple that never gets it wrong.
Most relationships rupture at some point. What tends to distinguish the ones that hold is whether repair is possible, and how long it takes.
So part of the work is practical: what happens after, who reaches first, and what makes it safe enough to come back.
What this is not
Two things worth saying plainly.
I do not use the Gottman Method, and I am not certified in it. If that is specifically what you are looking for, you want a different clinician and I am glad to say so early.
I also will not promise an outcome. Couples work sometimes clarifies that two people want different things. That is a real result, and it is better arrived at with help than alone.
Questions
Things people ask about this.
- Do both of us have to be in New York State?
- Yes, and physically, at the time of the session. A New York permit is tied to where the client is sitting rather than where the clinician is. If one of you will be out of state that week, say so and we move the session rather than hold it.
- What if only one of us wants to come?
- That is common, and it is not a reason to wait. One person can start individually and work on their own half of the cycle, which changes the cycle. What does not work is couples therapy that one person is attending to be seen attending.
- Do you take sides?
- Not between you. I will take a side against the cycle. In practice that can mean saying an uncomfortable thing to whichever of you is closer to being able to hear it that week, which looks uneven from the inside and is not.
- Is couples therapy a last resort?
- It is usually treated as one, which is why a lot of it starts late. Nothing about the work requires a crisis. Two people who are mostly fine and keep hitting the same wall are a straightforward place to begin.
Two people can be lonely in the same room.
If you keep having the same argument in different clothes.
A consultation is a conversation with both of you about what has been happening and whether this way of working suits you.