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APA Psychotherapy Training Videos are intended solely for educational purposes for mental health professionals. Viewers are expected to treat confidential material found herein according to strict professional guidelines. Unauthorized viewing is prohibited.
Therapists often underestimate the challenges of working with couples, thinking mistakenly that it is like "individual therapy x 2." Couples bring to therapy a host of experiences because partners often come from different backgrounds and carry different interpretations of their relationship. An added dimension in couples therapy is the dynamic created between the two people in the relationship: The challenge is not working with one person plus another but, rather, with the unique entity of the couple. The goals of cognitive–behavioral therapy with couples are skill-building and skill-using, as one or both partners may not have the skills needed to make the relationship succeed; sometimes, if they do possess these skills, they choose consciously or subconsciously not to use them. If skill-using is the goal, often the therapist must work with the couple to figure out why they are not using the skills they possess. The key skills of a successful couple involve communication and negotiations skills, but most important is the ability to accept each other, whether they agree with each other on a given opinion or behavior. The therapist may need to help the couple discover what values, beliefs, behaviors, or emotions are nonnegotiable—that is, what personality components partners simply have to accept in each other. This approach follows five steps:
If a therapist wishes to adopt this approach, Dr. Freeman recommends reading the literature on couples therapy and getting training and supervision in couples therapy. |
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