What to Look for in a Couples Therapist
If you want to get me on a soapbox, ask me about finding a good couples therapist.
There are few things I feel as passionate about professionally as the importance of finding a couples therapist with training in a solid, research-supported model. Now, I also think this is important for individual therapy, but I think it is ESPECIALLY important for couples.
Why?
Well, a model gives a therapist a map; a way to understand where you are and how to move you from one place to another most effectively. If you see an individual therapist who doesn’t have a great map, you’ll likely still get someone who listens to you and validates your feelings, and, that alone can be healing.
But, if you get a couples therapist without a map, what happens? When all the pain and conflict surfaces between you right there in the session, listening and validation just aren’t enough to contain it. So, one of two things happens:
The therapist isn’t able to create much change in the dynamic and you leave feeling like you just paid good money to fight the same old fight but this time in front of someone
The therapist goes into problem solving mode trying to reach resolution and accidentally ends up communicating that one partner is right and the other is wrong
The imaginary therapist here is well-meaning. Couples work is just very hard to do well without considerable training. Unfortunately, because of this, couples often come to us with stories of past experiences in couples therapy that felt pretty negative and turned them off of it for a while.
In our practice, we’ve landed on Emotionally Focused Therapy as the model we feel gives us the most effective map to help our clients achieve deep, meaningful changes in their relationships. But, it’s not the only good model out there.
The most important thing is to ask a potential couples therapist if they have training (that means more than a class in grad school) in a specific model of couples therapy and, if so, which one. The important thing is that the therapist dedicates time to developing their couples therapy skills specifically, recognizing that they are distinct from individual therapy skills and need their own focus. Ok, soap box officially over.
Feel like we might be the right fit for your relationship? Visit our Couple’s Therapy page to learn more.
