Have you ever wondered if going to couples therapy would be helpful for you and your partner? There are so many shows, movies, podcasts, and books on what therapy is, who it is for, when it is needed, and what you could get out of it.
Additionally, if you talk to five different couples that have seen a counselor, you will probably get five different stories about how it went, what they thought of the counselor, if it was worth it, and what changes it made in their relationship.
So is couples therapy really helpful? Our answer at Tennessee Mental Wellness is that it depends. It depends on you, the therapist, and the model or type of therapy used.
How effective therapy is depends on you. To make progress, you have to put in effort both in the session and at home. Your job as the client is to be honest, curious about yourself, willing to explore new perspectives, and open to achieving new insights. You will learn ways to understand yourself, your relationship, and what makes certain situations so important to you. Your therapist will guide you through this process of self-discovery in session. To make lasting changes, you will need to remain curious about yourself and possibly share your discoveries with those around you.
The therapist has to do their job too. The therapist has to help you feel comfortable in the session, seek to understand the relationship dynamics, and then help you to understand those dynamics as well. If you don’t feel comfortable or don’t understand your therapist, you aren’t going to benefit much from them. If you feel incredibly comfortable, but they aren’t helping you understand and discover anything new, that may not be helpful either. The therapist is working to help you understand and think about your relationship dynamics, your emotions, and your reactions in new ways. With the new tools and insights you learn, you can choose what to change about the relationship and yourself. Then you have to implement those changes.
There are multiple models of therapy. The “Gold Standard” established through decades of research is called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). EFT helps couples recognize their communication pattern, identify and share the emotions and sensitive subjects that cause conflict to escalate, and share why those subjects are so sensitive. Essentially, couples will learn their pattern, slow it down, share what powers the pattern, see where that energy comes from, and then settle the underlying issues. If that model sounds interesting, we have a separate blog that goes into far more detail on it!
Back to the main question: would couples therapy be helpful to me? If you are ready to be honest with yourself, your partner, and your therapist about possibly sensitive and difficult topics, that’s a good start! If you are willing to take ownership of things you can work on within yourself and the relationship, that's a key factor. If you are open to growing and changing both in and out of therapy, it will probably be very helpful! From there, you need to find a therapist that understands, challenges, and puts you and your partner at ease. Finally, find one really good at the “Gold Standard” EFT.
Learn more about our Couple Therapy Service here.