Speaking of Psychology: Relationship advice from a couple psychologist, with Anthony Chambers, PhD

When relationship issues arise—around money, fidelity, kids, or even just coping with the stress of everyday life—couple therapists can help partners work through them together. Couple and family psychologist Anthony Chambers, PhD, talks about how couple therapy works, when it’s useful, when couples are most likely to break up, and why it’s helpful to think of talking with your partner as a game of catch rather than a tennis match.

Anthony Chambers, PhD, ABPP, is the chief academic officer and a board-certified couple and family psychologist on staff at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. Chambers is also the director of Northwestern University's Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies, in addition to his clinical professorship in the department of psychology. He is the former director of both the couple therapy program and the postdoctoral fellowship program at The Family Institute. Chambers is also the former president of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Couple and Family Psychology.

Kim Mills: Anyone who has ever been married or been in a long term relationship has probably heard the well-worn adage that relationships take work. And it's true that for almost every couple, some issues will crop up around money, fidelity, health, kids, or even just coping with the stress of everyday life together. When those issues arise and partners cannot resolve them, couple therapists can often help partners work through them together to build a stronger, more fulfilling relationship.

So today we're going to talk to a couple psychologist about how couple therapy works. What types of issues can therapists help partners address? How do you know if you and your significant other might benefit from couple therapy? What if you want to go to couple therapy and your partner doesn't? How do you know when it's time to end a relationship rather than continue to work on it? And what research-based advice can help us all build stronger, happier, healthier relationships?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills.

My guest today is Dr. Anthony Chambers. Dr. Chambers is a board-certified couple and family psychologist, a professor of clinical psychology at Northwestern University, and the chief academic officer of the Northwestern Family Institute. He is a scientist practitioner who conducts research on couple and family therapy and uses research to inform his work with patients. He is the author of many book chapters and journal articles summarizing the science behind assessing and treating common couple issues such as communication, trust, intimacy, parenting, and conflict resolution. He has also taught an undergraduate course at Northwestern University called “Building Loving and Lasting Relationships, Marriage 101.” 

Thank you for joining me today, Dr. Chambers.

Anthony Chambers, PhD: Thank you so much. Thank you for the invitation, and I'm thrilled to be able to be here to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is a couple relationship.

Mills: All right, well, let's get going. I want to start by asking a basic question. How is couple therapy different from, and similar to, individual therapy? Where do the goals and treatment diverge and overlap?

Chambers: Probably the single biggest difference between couple therapy and individual therapy is actually who the actual client is. When you are in couple therapy, the client is the relationship. You're focused on being able to help the relationship, trying to understand what are the constraints and things that get in the way of being able to have a healthy relationship. And that really is the focus. Couple therapy is not about coming into the courtroom to be able to say, okay, who's right and who's wrong. This is about being able to focus on how to be able to have the kind of relationship that you're looking for. And so it's really important that people are able to make that kind of distinction when they're thinking about couple therapy versus individual therapy.

Mills: How do you know when it's time to seek couple therapy? In other words, how can a person tell when they and their partner could benefit from couple therapy rather than just trying to work through relationship problems on their own?

Chambers: Well, first of all, I think almost everyone can benefit from some type of couple therapy. You know, we are all social beings, we're all actually very much wired towards relationships. However, we receive very little training on how to be able to have a successful relationship. For some reason, we tend to think that, you know, we should just be able to have a healthy relationship by the function, the fact that we're an adult, but that's not really the case. And so I think couple therapy actually can be helpful for literally just about everyone, in terms of being able to learn the skills and the tools for how to be able to have a healthy relationship. Now, that being said, I do think that it's important that if someone is having—if a couple is having repeated arguments and they are not able to get any kind of headway, on how to be able to solve those relationship problems, then that should be the real sign that okay, we definitely need to get some additional help because clearly we're going around in circles and we're not making the kind of headway that we want to be able to make.

Mills: So it's like a recurring thing. You have the same argument or type of argument, and you always end up at an impasse. So it's really time for somebody to come help you figure out how to behave differently.

Chambers: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I should also point out another, I think really important aspect to this, which is it also matters who you are going to seek help from. Meaning that almost all therapists are trained in treating individuals, but a relatively fewer proportion of those therapists are actually well trained in being able to work with couples. And we know that that's just a really important factor for a couple to be able to have a good experience in couple therapy, to be able to make sure that they are receiving help from someone who has been well trained in working with couples, and someone who has couples as a primary part of their clinical practice. So I do think it's important that people do their due diligence in being able to find someone who can help them with their struggles that they're having in their relationship.

Mills: So to go a little deeper on that idea, are there particular forms of therapy that are more effective than others? You find somebody who's a couple therapist, but how do you know that that person is going to be right for you?

Chambers: I would actually say there are more things in common than there are different in terms of the different types of therapy. There's a whole literature out there called “common factors.” And common factors basically means that there are certain ingredients that really are part of any good couple therapy. And we've been starting to take, a lot of, in the literature, a lot of researchers and scholars have started to work on being able to synthesize all of those different pieces. So there's more similarities than there are differences in terms of the various couple therapy approaches. That being said, I think what's really important is that again, that making sure that the couple therapist has received supervised training in working with couples. And you can be able to figure that out sometimes by if they are board certified, for instance, such as myself. If you're board certified in couple therapy, then that means by definition you've received a lot of supervised training.

Someone might have a degree in family therapy, good chance that they've received supervised training in working with couples. So I think that's a really important piece. I would also say, again, being able to ask the therapist, what percentage of your caseload are couples? In my practice, I would say probably 90% of my practice are couples. I do about 10% with individuals. And so I think, you know, being able to see somebody where at least 50% of their caseload are working with couples, that means that they are really one of their areas of expertise. And then finally, you know, the old school way of being able to get a good referral from a friend. If you had a friend who went to couple therapy and they had a good experience, then I think that's also another indicator perhaps that you can be assured that this is someone also who can hopefully provide a good experience for you.

Mills: Now, what happens if you want to go to couple therapy and your partner doesn't? Can one half a couple do anything to fix a relationship or improve a relationship by going to therapy alone?

Chambers: I would say that first, the best way to treat a relationship problem is by having the relationship in the room. You know, it takes two to tango. And so, you know, a therapist, even though they're well-meaning and intentioned, if they're only talking and hearing the perspective of one person, you're not getting the perspective of the partner who may have a very different perspective about the relationship and the problems. And so one of the things that I am always trying to encourage couples—if someone calls me on the phone, for instance, and they're saying, “Hey, I want to come in for therapy to focus on my relationship, but I know my partner's not really willing to come in,” I will have a conversation right then and there to try to see if we can't encourage the partner to be able to come in.

Because we do know from the literature there is a higher rate of the relationship dissolving or divorce if only one individual is coming in to treat—to be able to get help for their relationship, because that therapist is only hearing from one person. And at some point that therapist, no matter how well intended, they say, “Oh, so why, what keeps you in this relationship? Why are you still in this?” and things along those lines. And next thing you know, the relationship is not—has increased the risk for the relationship not working. So I always try to encourage people to say, “Hey, you know what? Let's see if we can't get your partner in one session.”

And I do this, you know, I have an approach when I work with couples where I do a four-session evaluation. But, you know, one thing in general that you could do is say, “Hey, let's see if your partner is willing to come in just for at least a handful of sessions, maybe three or four sessions to try it out.” That you don't have to sign up for life, this is just to be able to see whether or not the, you know, you think it's a good fit. And I would say nine times out of 10 when a person who is ambivalent about coming in and then they come in, and they realize after a few sessions, “Oh, this actually isn't so bad. This actually can be helpful.” Ninety percent of them usually stay. And so I think that's a really important piece for couples out there to be able to pay attention to.

Mills: When a couple comes to you for therapy, where do you start? Do you talk to them separately, together, both? What's the process that you use to figure out how best to help them?

Chambers: Sure. So as I was just referring to, I do something that’s called a four-session evaluation. And so what that means is I'm going to meet with the couple first together, to be able to talk about their relationship. I want to hear each of their perspectives about their relationship strengths as well as their, obviously their relationship concerns. And then I schedule an individual session with each of them so I can be able to understand more about their individual histories, their family of origin, things along those lines. And then we will come back together as a group. And in that fourth session, I give them my feedback about what I think is going on and developing a good plan for moving forward. And so that's the approach that I take. And I know that there are a lot of other couple therapists who also engage in a very similar process of trying to be able to be systematic about understanding the relationship and the individual.

And to go back to the point we were just discussing earlier, when you're just signing up for four sessions, it doesn't feel quite as intimidating. So if someone is ambivalent about coming in, they're more likely to say, “Okay, I'm signing up for a handful of sessions to see how this sort of works.” And if they feel like I can be helpful, then we will continue. And again, over 90% of the time, the person that was ambivalent does actually stay once they sort of come in and they realize that this is perhaps not what they initially were fearful of.

Mills: So if a couple commits to therapy and really wants to do the work with you, or somebody like you, do you have any sense of about how long they should expect to be in therapy?

Chambers: I would say that that's part of the assessment process because it really is, it varies quite a bit. You know, if a couple is coming in who's premarital, they're dating and they're trying to figure out their relationship, they don't have a long relationship history, that's going to be very different than a couple that I see that's been married for 30 years with three kids and they have a lot of history with each other. It really depends on the presenting problem, the stage of their relationship. And so what I will say across the board though is that, you know, therapy is about, from my perspective, I want to be able to get out of business with this couple. Meaning I want to give them the tools and skills that they need as quickly as possible so they can be able to go on into, apply them to their lives and be able to move forward. Now, sometimes we do have—I sometimes also see myself as a family doc, a family medicine doc where I'm going to see a couple for different episodes over the course of their life. Because sometimes there are certain stressors that are predictable, some that are unpredictable, that will come up and they may need to return to be able to talk about a specific thing. And so we're going to develop a relationship that oftentimes is going to be long term, even though any one particular episode may only be for a shortened duration of time.

Mills: So what are the most common issues that drive people to seek a couple therapist’s help?

Chambers: So communication, you know, not surprisingly is the big one, that's probably what a lot of couples will come in and say, “Yeah, we're having a hard time communicating.” They will also come in for issues such as the transition to parenthood. The transition to parenthood is the number one predictable stressor that a couple will have faced. Most divorces actually happen during the transition to parenthood, so it's a very stressful time. So that's a fairly predictable time period where couples are realizing, oh my gosh, these problems are just now overwhelming, and they will come in. Infidelity is the number one reason why couples come in for therapy. And interesting, it's not the number one reason why they get divorced, but it's the number one reason why couples come in for therapy. And so it becomes important for a therapist—a therapist is going to obviously know how to be able to treat infidelity because it's such a common presenting problem.

Mills: But it is treatable, right? I mean, there are definitely couples who can get through it.

Chambers: Absolutely. That's exactly which is why it's not the number one reason why couples get divorced, because it actually is quite treatable. And actually not only, I would say treatable, it has the potential to be transformational. That all of a sudden when you're faced with this crisis, you're starting to now—when both members are willing to come in and to say, and they are distraught by what's happened, and they are willing to do the work to say we need to transform our relationship, because clearly what we were doing has led us to this difficult point. Some of the most powerful sessions in—periods of therapy that I've had is actually working with couples when there has been infidelity. So it is absolutely something that is treatable and the research bears that out that it actually has really good efficacy.

Mills: So changing gears a little bit, I think we would probably agree that therapy can't always save a relationship. How do you as a therapist know when it's time for relationship to end rather than for the couple to continue to work on it? And how do you get the couple to see that it's time to split? Or is that not your job?

Chambers: So as therapist in general, we try not to—it is always the couple's decision to whether or not they want to stay in a relationship or break up. I think ethically it becomes very dicey terrain for a therapist to say, “Oh, you should break up” or “you should stay together.” That being said, I think a good couple therapist will point out any repeated patterns, will point out when things are, you know, these constraints that do seem quite profound or what have you. And sometimes a good outcome actually for couple therapy is to have a healthy breakup. That actually is something to that for some couples can actually be quite important and helpful, that when it gets realized this “we're just not a good fit and we have too many challenges and things here.”

So we'll talk about how to be able to have a healthy breakup. But that being said, I think there are some predictable warning signs, right? So if there is a consistent sense of hopelessness, that just no matter what you're just feeling hopeless about the relationship, that should be a warning sign. Any kind of substance abuse that's going to be a potential risk factor for this, it can be treated, but they both—I mean, it's a very dicey terrain when you're talking about substance use issues, and so you really have to be mindful about that. A big one, of course, is domestic violence where—and “domestic violence,” I'm talking about emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. There is just no—it is not healthy to have any kind, any form of any of those issues happening in a relationship. If you're finding yourself in a relationship where there is that sort of dynamic happening and the partner that you're with is not willing to engage or to change that, that really should be a huge warning sign at that point that this relationship is no longer a healthy place. So there's some real—I think those are some of the real big, you know, warning signs that a couple needs to be mindful of.

Mills: What advice do you have for listeners who maybe they don't feel the need for couple therapy at this point, but they want to learn how to strengthen their relationship?

Chambers: So there's always a lot of great workshops that are out there. A lot of couple workshops that I would always recommend that couples that they're interested in just strengthening, to go look for different workshops or weekend getaways that they can be able to, or they can learn about how to have a healthy relationship. I think that really will go a long ways for some couples. There's a lot of great self-help books on how to be able to have a healthy relationship. That being said, it's important that both members are willing to engage in it because just like I said, it takes two to tango. No one person can be able to fully change or fix their relationship. It takes two to have a healthy relationship. It only takes one to end it, but it takes two to be able to progress and thrive and be able to heal. And so it becomes a—I think a real important piece for being able to strengthen any kind of relationship.

Mills: During the pandemic a lot of therapy and healthcare of all kinds has become virtual. It's gone online. Is a lot of couple therapy being done remotely as well these days? And is it equally effective? I mean, as a therapist, if you can't see how a couple is interacting on Zoom—you know, are they sitting at opposite ends of the couch? Do they reach out and touch each other? Do they ever look at one another? If you can't see that, how effective can you be as a therapist?

Chambers: First of all, the research shows that couple therapy is effective over Zoom. And so it's obviously—there's a lot more research being done because of the pandemic, that there's been obviously a real increase in being able to understand the effectiveness in the nuances of in-person therapy versus tele. But teletherapy for couples really does work and it is still happening. So in my caseload right now, my practice is still 100% remote. I have not had a single couple yet even request to be able to come in. The convenience factor is significant, where being able to just have more flexibility and so couples are really, you know, enjoying the couple therapy. And I was not sure to be honest, because my practice was 100% in person, probably—maybe I had one or two remote clients, but for the most part it was all in person. And so I was skeptical about how that change was going to work. And I’ve got to tell you, it's actually been—it's really surpassed my expectations for being able to do that. Now there are some things that, you know, therapists are trained on how to be able to—there's been a lot more trainings on how to do teletherapy effectively. And so with couples, for instance, I'm oftentimes encouraging them to be in the room with each other, versus a split screen so I can be able to—

Mills: Yeah, I was gonna ask that.

Chambers: Yep, yep. Those sorts of dynamics. I think they actually – it’s helpful for them to be in the same screen to be able to see what kind of eye contact and things that they're having. I will have them adjust their camera if I can't see enough of their face, for instance, or something along those lines. I want to make sure that I can see their full face and as much of their body as possible so I can be able to look for body languages. Because therapists are always scanning to be able to look for how things are being received. So there are things like that, that you are needing to be intentional about in terms of making sure that the teletherapy is effective. But with caveats in mind, it actually, it does work quite well.

Mills: You wrote an academic article a couple of years ago called “The Black Lives Matter Movement: A Call to Action for Couple and Family Therapists.” And one of your research interests is couple therapy with African American couples. Can you talk a little bit about that and why it's important for therapists to take these factors into account when working with couples from different backgrounds?

Chambers: For African American couples, there's a lot of challenges that our relationships are facing. So African Americans have the lowest marriage rate, they have the highest divorce rate. So if you think about it, they're, we are really struggling with a lot of our relationships and 70% of children are born out of wedlock for African American children. And so when you start to just sit back and think about those statistics and dynamics alone, it's a really powerful problem and opportunity, I would say, to be able to see if we can strengthen those relationships. And so these factors that we're talking about, for African American couples become really critically important for being able to have the healthy relationship. If you came from a background where you did not see a healthy relationship, you can get this intergenerational pattern, right?

We know that children who grow up in single parent households are 50% more likely themselves to be divorced and not have that kind of relationship. And so you get this sort of pattern that happens intergenerationally. And so there's such an opportunity to be able to provide the kind of information about how to have a healthy relationship, what goes into a healthy relationship, what are the things that we need to do, because a lot of times people just don't know. It's almost analogous to, you know, if you're going to start a business, you're going to probably do some research to be able to figure out how to make sure this business is going to be successful. And we need to do a very similar thing for our relationships, because sometimes because of our own sort of traumas or things that have happened in the past or what we didn't see, sometimes things that might seem intuitive are actually counterintuitive, and actually need to—you need to do things differently for success in a relationship than you might sometimes otherwise think. And so for couples like African American couples where you don't have that kind of history and background for how to have a healthy relationship, it becomes really important to be able to come in and to get the help, because it can get better.

Mills: Is couple therapy different for people who are legally married versus those who are just living together even for, for many years? And do couple therapists treat same-sex and opposite-sex couples any differently?

Chambers: There are a lot more similarities than there are differences, but the differences are what we have to pay attention to. So couple therapists absolutely will see same-sex couples, non-binary couples. And so it, that absolutely is a part of the work that couple therapists do. I would say, just like I was mentioning before, the importance of finding a good couple's therapist, it also can be helpful to find someone who also is familiar with the nuances of same-sex couples and because there are some important differences and things that need to be paid attention to. But that absolutely is something that couple therapists do work with and do treat.

Mills: And are there differences between people who are legally married and those who are just living together, do you treat them the same way? Do they have the same problems or are there problems different?

Chambers: So they are mostly similar in terms of having a long term relationship, but there is something different between, you know, when you're cohabitating, and you're not married. The big difference is that it's just sometimes, you don't have the same kind of protections of thinking about, you know, why should we around commitment, of what things I'm trying to put out there that this idea of when you're married and you're with children, there's a different level of commitment to be able to work through some of these different challenges. And how do we sort of work through this when you're not married? Sometimes that can be a little bit more challenging. We know from the literature that couples who cohabitate and then get married, those relationships tend to be a little bit more unstable.

And so we do, I think there is something different about the cohabitating relationship from being married. That being said, again, there's more similarities than not, right? A communication problem is a communication problem. If you're coming in and you're not having good, you don't know how to be able to resolve conflict, it doesn't matter what your marital status is, you're going to need to be able to get the skills and tools to be able to have effective communication, and being able to learn how to resolve conflict. So there are obviously some basic things that are across the board, but particularly when you start to think about, you know, commitment and whether or not, what do we have here for the future, what's our level of dedication to this relationship—marital status does provide some differences compared to those who are not.

Mills: What about the presence of children in a relationship? How does that alter, if it does, couples therapy?

Chambers: Well, it's an interesting—it's not a one size that fits all here. So there is a group where I had mentioned earlier, the transition to parenthood is the most difficult transition that couples will go through. There's what they call this sort of bimodal distribution of divorce, which basically means there are two periods of time when divorce is most likely to happen. The most common is the transition to parenthood. The second most common is actually the transition to empty nest. When the couples who stayed together just for the sake of the children, children go off to college or leave home, and then the couple actually gets divorced at that period of time. So children can—it's not sort of linear because you have a risk factor, particularly in those first seven years or so of marriage, which overlaps with the transition to parenthood, when couples are oftentimes doing childbearing, it's hard. And for some they don't make it through that.

And then there's another group who might make it through because of the kids and they stay together just for the kids. So it actually helps to sort of keep the family system together. But then there can be that risk factor later, if they have not done anything at all to nurture their relationship and they were only focused on the co-parenting piece. That's hard. One of the things that I will oftentimes tell when I'm teaching or when I'm even working with couples directly, the co-parenting relationship is a necessary but not sufficient condition for having a healthy relationship. Meaning that, you know, it's almost impossible to have a healthy relationship if you're disagreeing about co-parenting, because it takes up so much room and oxygen in the relationship. But you could be good co-parents and you co-parent well together, but you haven't done anything else to nurture the intimacy or the emotional connection. And that becomes a risk factor when the children are gone and you're no longer co-parents in that same way. You may not have the kind of relationship connection that you're looking for or needing.

Mills: So we talked a little while ago about communication being fundamental to a good relationship and one of the major drivers behind people coming to you. I believe it's Dr. John Gottman who came up with the idea of the four horsemen of the apocalypse concept—there are some things that happen in a relationship that are just, they will do it. If you have one of these problems and you can't fix it, it's done.

Chambers: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, let me tell you several things to that. So as I mentioned before, we were talking about infidelity not being the number one reason why couples get divorced. The number one reason why couples get divorced is actually money. Money creates a lot of different dynamics, that is actually—and that's true for rich couples and poor couples. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It's what the money represents, which is issues of power, fairness, vulnerability, these sort of psychological factors of what money represents. Security, anxiety, that's really behind the psychological variables that really what drives money for being such a difficult issue to work with. So money is a big risk factor for couples, if they don't set things up well. Another piece, of course—this gets to John Gottman's four horseman—how you communicate and how you resolve conflict. It's quite predictive for how the relationship is going to go. If you're doing something, what they call stonewalling, for instance, and you're not actually able to—you go give a your partner the silent treatment, that is not a good way to handle conflict. There are very important things for having healthy communication. And when you're not engaged in these sort of healthy things for how do you resolve conflict, that's going to be a real risk factor. And so that is a really important piece here.

Mills: I love this metaphor that you've used, which is that the relationship is not a tennis match. It's more like playing catch. Can you explain what you mean when you tell people that?

Chambers: So, you know, when you're communicating, it's important to slow the communication down. When conflict is happening, oftentimes you're going back and forth and you're trying to hit the ball over the net as hard as you possibly can to try to score a point. You're sort of thinking about, “I think I'm right and let me show you how right I am and how wrong you are.” And so you're going so fast that you miss the essence of what actually your partner is trying to communicate. So I'm trying to help couples to say, Okay, let's slow down tennis back and forth. Where you are now, you are facing your partner as an opponent that you're against in a fight. That's the wrong way to think about this. But rather, if you're playing catch, it's a much slower game. The whole purpose of playing catch is to toss the ball over gently so your partner can be able to catch it, receive it, you look at the ball, you pick it up and you toss it back.

And that's I think metaphorically how communication needs to be able to work, You have to be able to slow it down. That becomes a really important piece. While we're talking about this, if you don't mind, I would like to just sort of expand on that a little bit because I do think there are some really important communication strategies that couples need to be able to do. And one is when you're in a relationship and you're trying to communicate with your partner, you need to make sure you're speaking for yourself and not mind reading. One of the worst things that you can do is to start telling your partner, “Hey, this is what you're thinking and this is what you're feeling.” It doesn't matter how right you are, your partner is not likely going to receive that very well.

And so you're going to need to be able to make sure that you're not engaging in mind reading, that you're focusing on yourself. And when you're listening to your partner, make sure that you're listening with the goal to understand and not to rebut. Oftentimes if we're sitting in a relationship and our partner is saying something, we're not really listening for what our partner is really trying to communicate to us. We're trying to evaluate if what our partner is saying is right or wrong. And if we disagree with it, we're then going to build up our rebuttal in our head, and then we just go and we start, you know, giving our rebuttal.

You have to assume that there is some validity to what your partner is telling you. You have to start with that assumption because when you start with the assumption that there is some validity, it will actually engender curiosity. And curiosity is one of the best things that you can do to have a healthy relationship, to be curious about, Oh wow, you're seeing it this way that is different than how I was experiencing this or what I was thinking. Let me try, I want to understand more about what was going on here for you in that way. So you're slowing the conversation down, you're playing catch, you are actually now focused on trying to assume that there's validity and you want to try to understand what that discrepancy might be between why you were thinking one thing and why your partner was thinking something else. And so being able to do those, I think are really important.

And one last thing if you allow me to sort of expand on too. This whole idea of the right-wrong dialectic is really problematic. Meaning that when you begin to—if you're a relationship and you are focusing on evaluating if what your partner is telling you is right or wrong, you're not going to get to a good place. There is a very low correlation between being right and being happy. And so you want to make sure that in a relationship you are focused on trying to do the things necessary to be able to help engender closeness, to help foster connection rather than being able to be in this sense of opposition and trying to be able to think about, Oh, I think I am more right than you, so let me tell you why I'm right and you're not. And so those are some of the real important aspects of communication and conflict resolution that are really important ingredients for the communication to do well.

Mills: Well, last question, I want to go back to something that I mentioned in the introduction, and that's that you teach an undergraduate course that's basically Marriage 101. A lot of the stereotypes today about young people is that they want to just date casually and they're not really interested in settling down. Do you find that these undergrads are really interested in learning how to develop strong relationships? What are—what questions do they bring to you in the class?

Chambers: Interestingly, the Marriage 101 course is probably one of the most popular courses that we have at the university. You know, everyone's interested in relationships. This is true across—this is not a generational thing. I think this is a human thing, that we are social beings and we are oftentimes driven towards wanting to be in a relationship. And so they are absolutely interested in that. And one of the things that really was behind the impetus for why we developed that course was actually because we realized it's important for people to have a better understanding of who they are, in order to be able to select the right kind of partner and to be able to be a healthy partner in order to have a healthy relationship. You know, if we have a lot of self-esteem issues or we're struggling with some baggage from our past that we haven't resolved, where we're not compassionate with ourselves, one of the things that can happen—we're not oftentimes able to receive the kind of love and compassion from someone else when we're not able to give it to ourselves.

And so being able to really help students to understand a little bit about their family history, understand the aspects of a relationship, having the right paradigm, those are all critically important things, and the students really just love it. They find it very meaningful and are really engaged in the course. And so it was one of the most enjoyable courses that I had the privilege of being a part of.

Mills: Well, Dr. Chambers, I want to thank you for joining me. I think you have given our listeners a lot of important information and I hope that it will help them in their relationships. Thank you.

Chambers: Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about couples and relationships. I really appreciate it. Thank you again.

Mills: You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you heard, please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speakingofpsychology@apa.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lea Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condayan.  

Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.