Like many things that help our relationships, couples therapy has a habit of sounding appallingly
unromantic, involving patience, gruelling work and a host of embarrassing conversations
about matters it would be much nicer never to have to think about – let alone discuss
with a partner and a trained stranger. Our culture teaches us to trust and follow our
feelings. But couples therapy knows this is to be a disaster, for our feelings are for
the most part errant and encoded with primitive responses from a troubled past. So instead,
it encourages a far wiser response: standing well back from our first impulses, neutralising
them through understanding and where possible rerouting them in less self-punishing and
more trusting directions. Related image Living alongside another person is obviously one
of the hardest things we ever attempt; we should expect to get it wrong unaided and
feel unashamed about the need for in-depth training. There are a number of vital things
we might learn in couples therapy: – For a start, in a quiet room, we finally have
the chance to define what we feel the problems in the relationship really are – without
things immediately degenerating into shouting, sulking or cynical avoidance. We’re normally
far too cross with, or upset by, our partner to be able to share with them, in a way they’d
understand, what we’re so angry and upset about. It helps to be in front of a stranger
we’re both a little intimidated by and have to behave ourselves with. It is highly unusual
to be able to put things so starkly but also so reasonably: ‘That you never touch me
and behave so limply and unenthusiastically when I touch you is slowly killing me – and
though I love you, I don’t know how much longer I can take it…’ How much better
than a decade of low level sniping and repressed fury. – Secondly, therapists are skilled
at teasing out from us why what bothers us bother us. Normally, left to our own devices,
we don’t unearth the emotional meaning behind our positions. We squabble about where to
go on the weekend, rather than explaining what exactly going out or staying in represents
for us internally. And as a result, the other finds us merely stubborn and mean; and all
that is interesting and poignant in our position is lost. – Thirdly, therapists break up
unseen repeated patterns of upset and retaliation. A classic therapeutic game is to ask both
parties to fill in the blanks: When you ….., I feel ….. – and I respond by …. So when
you disregard the children, I feel rejected and then respond by trying to control who
you see in the evenings. Or when you don’t touch me in bed, I feel invisible and respond
by being ungrateful about your money. – With the therapist acting as an honest broker,
new contracts can be drawn up, along the lines of: If you do x, I will do y… Once we get
a little bit of what we really want (but usually haven’t properly asked for), the other’s
needs feel a lot less onerous and hateful. – Sometimes the advice is almost beautifully
pedantic. Name three things you resent about your partner. And, next, three things you
deeply appreciate. Also, keep the criticism specific: not ‘you’re cold and ungrateful’
but ‘if you can call me when you’re running late, then…’ Families can be kept intact
with little more than this. Image result for matisse paintings love – Through therapy,
we are challenged to abandon some of our grimmer ideas about how people can be and what will
happen to us in love: If I am vulnerable, I am not necessarily going to be hurt… I
might try to explain, and the other could listen… We are given the security to throw
out some of the scripts we grew up with about the futility of ever trying to be understood.
– We can start to be moved by one another’s pain. What does it feel like, a good therapist
will ask, to hear your partner explain how it is for them when you… We can start to
take care of each other. A remarkable idea comes to the fore; that this isn’t really
our enemy, that they – like us – have some very bad ways of getting across what
are, at heart, some very understandable and touching needs. Couples therapy is a classroom
where we can learn how to love. We’re normally so embarrassed at not having the first clue
how to do so, we leave things until we are too angry or despairing to do anything but
hate. The most hopeful and therefore romantic thing we can ever do in love is sometimes
to declare that we haven’t yet learned how to love – but, with a little help, are very
keen to learn one day.
The School of Life offers professional couples counselling with qualified psychiatrists that can
benifit people at all stages of their relationships. If you would like to learn more, click the link on your screen now.