[MoxieDoxie]

with your T? I am thinking about doing marriage counseling to enhance our marriage?

Anyone been through that?

[starfishing]

Are you asking about couples counseling in general, or couples counseling with the same therapist you already see individually?

My partner and I have done a few sessions of couples counseling, and it was helpful at giving us some new ways of thinking about and talking through a set of conflicts/difficulties we were having at the time.

That therapist was completely separate from each of our individual therapists though, and I don't think it would be useful to try to do couples counseling with my individual therapist. Not that he'd ever be willing to do it--I'm pretty confident my therapist (and many others) would consider it an ethical breach, since the pre-existing individual therapy relationship seems like it wouldn't be compatible with competent couples counseling.

[MoxieDoxie]

Thanks...yes I was considering couples counseling with the T I see now. We really do not have any major conflicts just thought it would help us reconnect as we have been together for 20 years. I guess we do not need counseling. Just was exploring the idea.

[healinginprogress]

I'm currently in couples counseling with my individual T. For my husband and I it's been very helpful. Before we all agreed, we sat down and she explained her boundaries in what she would and would not hold in confidence. Basically anything like infidelity, addictions, etc. she would not keep from the other person. And there was and continues to be the rule that should any one of us become uncomfortable with the arraignment that we would change it to better suit what we're looking for.

I can understand why some therapists wouldn't be comfortable with it. However, I'm glad that my T is not one of them. She is very specialized and that may be why she's comfortable in this role. Additionally, my initial reason for seeking therapy was to improve my marriage, so that worked well.

[Ididitmyway]

I've had a marriage counseling, but not with any of my individual therapists, but with the ones specifically for marriage counseling. First off, I'd never advise to have a marriage/couple's/family counseling with the same therapist you work with individually because there is a natural conflict of interests in this situation. This is why in my state it is unethical for therapists to mix individual and couple's counseling with the same client.

Now, to the couple's counseling itself, for me and my husband it was very successful. It helped to improve our relationship tremendously. This was, probably, the only bright spot in my entire therapy experience. We were able to uncover some long time buried relational wounds and to see the nature of our discord more clearly. This was brief - just three sessions with the therapist who specialized on couple's and divorce counseling. And, I have to say, she had earned her reputation as the expert in that area. She was really good.

I don't believe couple's counseling should take long. One of my former supervisors said that if the couple's problems were not adequately addressed and the solutions were not mapped out within 10-15 sessions then the therapist didn't know what they were doing. I think, her estimate of 10-15 sessions was too liberal. I'd give it 5-6 sessions max.

Couple's therapy is the process where the goals are much more specific than in individual therapy, so there is no need to go deeply into each partner's individual material. That's why it shouldn't take long. Once the sources of the problem and the ways to resolve the problem are highlighted, the objectives of the couple's therapy are reached. The rest of the work is done by the couple outside of couple's therapy. If there are individual problems that contribute into their relational problems they could continue to work on that in their individual therapy, not in the couple's therapy.

So, don't get sucked into the couple's therapy process beyond its objectives. I've seen many people fall into that trap. When that happens, nothing is resolved. In fact, when a couple sees a marriage counselor for a long time, they are just using him or her as an absorber of tension. That way the tension and its source never gets properly addressed. Many therapists, unfortunately, take on that role. It suits them because it ensures a consistent cash flow. And it suits the couple on some level because it allows them to stay in the comfortable place where they could tell themselves that they are really "working" on their relationship while they are not.

For more on couple's therapy see this article Therapy Consumer Guide - Couple?s Therapy

[Favorite Jeans]

Strongly advise against doing couple's therapy with your individual T. Even where not considered a frank breach of ethics, it's a widely frowned-upon practice for a good reason. Having a few sessions with a couple's therapist to pro-actively address issues in your marriage and work on strengthening your bond sounds like a good idea. I don't think couples therapy works best for marriages in crisis, I think people can benefit most when they're doing okay and looking to improve.

[TishaBuv]

We went to a couples psychologist who focused on CBT. He would only see us together and said individual would be unethical. I thought he was very good for what a therapist should be, but he released us after several sessions, saying it’s a sexual issue. I think he just got rid of us because he knew there was no saving our marriage, too much, too long, too far gone.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Strongly advise against doing couple's therapy with your individual T. Even where not considered a frank breach of ethics, it's a widely frowned-upon practice for a good reason. Having a few sessions with a couple's therapist to pro-actively address issues in your marriage and work on strengthening your bond sounds like a good idea. I don't think couples therapy works best for marriages in crisis, I think people can benefit most when they're doing okay and looking to improve.

It is true that in many cases when the marriage is in crisis, it is often too late to work on it and that the problems are addressed more effectively when they have just manifested themselves. But that's not true of every case.

My marriage was in crises when we sought couple's counseling. In fact, the only reason my husband agreed to counseling was because our marriage was heading for a divorce and he really wanted to save it and so did I. The counseling did, in fact, save our marriage and made our relationship truly solid and healthy. We uncovered a giant, deep seated relational wounds we both carried deep inside which we had never tried to heal before. Once it was done, it opened the possibility for healing and we took advantage of that opportunity 100%.

I believe, the agendas of both partners have to be uncovered and discussed openly in order to see if they've been truly aware of their expectations of each other from the get go. Once it's uncovered, it'll be clear if they were truly compatible to begin with and that is something that would determine whether their marriage will be saved or not. This, to me is a more of a determining factor in the outcome of the couple's counseling than whether the couple is in crisis or not.

[WishfulThinker66]

I have and it wasn't pleasant. All it succeeded in doing was speed up what should have already happened anyway. It was good to have the gumption to walk out and do so with someone's blessing.

My husband attended quite high on himself with the attitude the therapist would slam me for all his misguided ideas about why I was the problem. Instead though the opposite happened and she tore a strip off him. Hearing someone stick up for me was the best thing to happen to me - as unpleasant as it was.

Perhaps this is not what you wish to hear in a reply to your post. I guess what I am saying is think long and hard about what you want from the experience and whether you are prepared for the difficult event of hearing something you don't wish to delve into.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by WishfulThinker66

I have and it wasn't pleasant. All it succeeded in doing was speed up what should have already happened anyway. It was good to have the gumption to walk out and do so with someone's blessing.

My husband attended quite high on himself with the attitude the therapist would slam me for all his misguided ideas about why I was the problem. Instead though the opposite happened and she tore a strip off him. Hearing someone stick up for me was the best thing to happen to me - as unpleasant as it was.

Perhaps this is not what you wish to hear in a reply to your post. I guess what I am saying is think long and hard about what you want from the experience and whether you are prepared for the difficult event of hearing something you don't wish to delve into.

It is absolutely true that couple's counseling may speed up the process of separation, but I don't consider it a bad outcome necessarily. I think, if things have been going downhill for a long time and if the partners were not meant to stay together, then it's better to bring this suffering to an end sooner rather than to continue to drag it for years. But this could be very painful, yes. When long term significant relationships end, it is never sexy. It's always accompanied by a heartbreak. But those heartbreaks come no matter what. The counseling will not create them. It just exposes what's been rotten for a long time, which just makes the end come sooner. But the end comes anyway. This is just part of life.

[healed84]

My t will not do mc with me and husband.. he said I have been his client for so long, it would hard for him to be unbiased at times. He thought it could damage my own relationship with him.

He just referred us to one of the other t’s in his office.

[wheeler]

My wife and I did mc with my individual T for a short period of time. We weren’t in a crisis just wanting to learn how to communicate better. My T said it wasn’t unethical and her client was ‘the marriage’ so thats what her focus was.
It was helpful and we didn’t have any conflicts.

[Ididitmyway]

Just to clarify, when I am taking about the "unit of tx" concept, I am

1) talking about the rules of my state
2) I am not saying that the therapist cannot switch roles from that of an individual to couple's/family counselor. They just can't keep switching it back and forth, because the agendas of individual and couple's/family counseling are different.

Here is the exact quote from the CAMFT (California Marriage and Family Therapists) Association ethical standards:

"When treating a family unit(s), marriage and family therapists carefully
code of ethics
4 California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists | We’re here for you! | CAMFT | California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
consider the potential conflict that may arise between the family unit(s) and each individual. Marriage and
family therapists clarify, at the commencement of treatment, which person or persons are clients and the
nature of the relationship(s) the therapist will have with each person involved in the treatment."

and here is the link to that page https://www.camft.org/images/PDFs/CodeOfEthics.pdf

My husband's and my marriage counselor became my husbands individual therapist after we were done with marital counseling, but she made it very clear that once she starts doing individual work with any of us, she would not go back to marital counseling and we were 100% ok with that. She even was reluctant to go ahead with the session when my husband came alone once. I couldn't come on that day for some reason and she told my husband that she can have a session with him only just once since we were not informed about the rules but that in the future we both have to come or cancel the session and that when we come next time she'd bring up whatever my husband discussed with her on that day. I respected her for that very much. That woman was crystal clear about where her boundaries were and she could keep them in place at all times so easily and so naturally that no other therapist I knew could.

[WarmFuzzySocks]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

My husband's and my marriage counselor became my husbands individual therapist after we were done with marital counseling, but she made it very clear that once she starts doing individual work with any of us, she would not go back to marital counseling and we were 100% ok with that.

This is what happened with my t as well, who started as a marriage counselor for me and my then-husband.

He stopped seeing her and I continued. When he was at a point at which he felt he needed to go back to therapy, he called her and she referred him to a therapist that she felt would be a good fit for individual therapy for him.

Moxie-I do know two couples who decided to go to marriage counseling just to tune things up, and it was very effective for them. One couple was starting a positive thinking-healthy life blog/business, and wrote that they felt that it was a great way to reconnect and make their marriage even better.

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by WarmFuzzySocks

Moxie-I do know two couples who decided to go to marriage counseling just to tune things up, and it was very effective for them. One couple was starting a positive thinking-healthy life blog/business, and wrote that they felt that it was a great way to reconnect and make their marriage even better.

Thank you!

[kaleidoscopeheart]

My husband and I went into marriage counseling in crisis and ended up also going to see our MC on an individual basis as well. I was really uneasy about this idea but it has worked out really well for us. He knows us both, he knows our issues individually and how they affect our marriage, and he knows how we interact with each other. I do feel that in order for this to work there needs to be a fair amount of openness and honestly between all parties involved though. Nothing gets said in individual counseling that we would not share with each other and every session is followed by a debriefing by the one who wasn't there. I know a lot of people are against a single therapist being so involved and there have been bumps in the road, I won't lie, but it was the best thing for us.

[kecanoe]

My husband and I started seeing T1 as a couple, after a couple of years I started seeing T1 alone sometimes and with H sometimes. Then for a few years, I saw T1 alone. Now I see T1 twice a week and H and I see T1 once a week. Both H and I have seen other Ts along the way and still see other Ts. But we are both rather complex cases.


It has been very helpful.

[WishfulThinker66]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

It is absolutely true that couple's counseling may speed up the process of separation, but I don't consider it a bad outcome necessarily. I think, if things have been going downhill for a long time and if the partners were not meant to stay together, then it's better to bring this suffering to an end sooner rather than to continue to drag it for years. But this could be very painful, yes. When long term significant relationships end, it is never sexy. It's always accompanied by a heartbreak. But those heartbreaks come no matter what. The counseling will not create them. It just exposes what's been rotten for a long time, which just makes the end come sooner. But the end comes anyway. This is just part of life.

Absolutely. It was hard but I am so much the better off for it.