Approach

Couples Counseling Methods

Relationships have a way of triggering some of our deepest pain.  At times, they may lead us to try to control, withdraw, prove, protect, or assert.  These behaviors lead to conflict.

I don’t consider conflict in a relationship a problem, per se.  In fact, I expect it.  You and your partner are different people and have different needs and emotional triggers.

The key is in learning how to deal with conflict in a healthy way.  Doing so will ensure a successful and satisfying union.

Couples counseling will help you understand each other at a much deeper level. I will teach new tools that will help you communicate in ways that make conflict much easier to navigate when it arises.

To do this, I draw conceptually from the four different therapies described below.  I strongly emphasize Emotionally Focused Therapy.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

First developed as an individual therapy by Les Greenberg, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) was eventually expanded for couple work by Les and his student, Sue Johnson.

EFT uses emotions as a healing source.

EFT encourages you and your partner to examine how your communication methods and attachment styles present themselves in your interactions.  It helps you to transform your relationship into one that is safe and secure so that you can get your needs met.

The Greenberg model also helps both of you to expand your sense of identity.

Change is accomplished by

(1) first identifying persistent negative cycles in your relationship, and then

(2) encouraging each of you to access and express your underlying primary emotions and attachment needs.

For example, in the midst of anger or withdraw, many people may have difficulty getting in touch with and sharing their underlying feelings of vulnerability, sadness, shame, fear, abandonment, and/or sense of overwhelm.

These underlying emotions drive our negative relationship cycles.  Identifying them helps us to understand ourselves and our partners in a way that engenders closeness.

EFT is backed by a substantial body of empirical research of its effectiveness: 70-75% of the couples move from distress to recovery, and approximately 90% show significant, long-term improvements.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Richard Schwartz is a family therapist who developed  Internal Family System (IFS) as a form of individual psychotherapy and then the model was later applied to couples.  In this work, you learn to heal trauma and find balance by identifying your emotional triggers and then getting to know the different parts of yourself that respond to those triggers.  Multiplicity of mind is considered normal in this model, meaning that our brains have many different ‘personalities’ or ‘parts’ that respond to stimuli in unique ways. These parts may even be in conflict with each other.

For example, you may have a part that causes you to shut down and wall up in the face of conflict.  Or a part that lashes out when you feel emotionally trapped.  Or a part that causes you to stuff down your own needs to please your partner because you fear abandonment.

At the same time, you may also have a conflicting part that wants you to be more present during conflict.  Or a part that wants to be able to communicate more rationally when you feel emotionally trapped.   Or a part that knows that your needs are equally as important as your partner’s.  Sometimes your parts take up too much space in your life – they become too reactive and too protective and keep you from living your true, authentic life

In doing IFS therapy, you begin to acknowledge that there are some parts of yourself that are over-actively protecting you and causing you to behave in ways that are pulling you away from your real self. This therapy is a non-pathologizing approach to helping you develop understanding and compassion for yourself so that you can take responsibility for your reactions and emotions. Applied to couples work, it allows you and your partner to better understand each another and to see the negative patterns that play out in your relationship in a new light.

Overall, this approach helps you transform your inner relationship with extreme parts of yourself and transform your outer relationships with people around you.

Gottman Method

In the 1980s, John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman developed the Gottman Method based on years of research at the their Love Lab in Seattle, WA. It’s a form of couples counseling that strives to assist you and your partner in achieving a deeper sense of empathy, awareness, connectedness, and understanding – which leads to greater intimacy and interpersonal growth.

The method uses techniques that increase affection, closeness, and respect, and teaches you and your partner to discuss problems calmly.  This is a method of couples therapy that allows you to state your needs.  It stresses conflict management rather than conflict resolution. You and your partner learn to speak honestly about your dreams and beliefs, so that trust and commitment to a lifelong relationship are reinforced. There are 9 components that make up what the Gottmans call a Sound Relationship House.  They are

(1) Build Love Maps- you learn about your partner’s inner world (history, worries, joys, stresses, hopes, etc).

(2) Share Fondness and Admiration –  learn to express appreciation and respect

(3) Turn Towards – state you needs and be aware of your partner’s bids for connection.

(4) The Positive Perspective – you learn a positive approach for problem solving and repair

(5) Manage Conflict- conflict is normal and has positive aspects, but you have to learn to manage it properly.

(6) Make Life Dreams Come True – helps create safety so both of you can talk honestly about what you hope for, value and aspire to.

(7) Create Shared Meaning – helps you understand narratives about your relationship.

(8) Trust- knowing that your partner has your back and is there for you.

(9) Commitment- knowing that you are in this together and will continue to improve your relationship.  Both of you are respectful of your partner and view them in a positive light.

Imago

Imago was developed by Helen Lakelly Hunt and Harville Hendrix.  It is based on a phenomena that leads us to unconsciously choose partners who reflect back the very things that we must work on ourselves.  This happens because, as we grow up, the significant people in our lives imprint upon us an image of what it is to love and be loved (both the positive and the negative).

From this image of familiar love, we learn very quickly how we need to act and be in order to get love or approval, and to feel safe.  We develop what are called ‘survival patterns’ of love.  For example, if you had a critical parent, your survival pattern might include becoming a perfectionist to escape criticism from your partner, or to become controlling yourself about how things need to be done and how people need to act.

Also, we tend to be attracted to people who are a combination of the good and the bad of our caregivers (from the critical parent example, you are likely to find yourself in a relationship with someone who also is somewhat critical).  Why would we do this?  Because it feels familiar – there is a comfort in it, even at the unconscious level.

No matter how good or bad our caregivers were, all of us have some needs that were unmet.  Like a moth to the flame, we are drawn to repeat past experiences again and again in search of a different outcome.  Unconsciously we search for a partner who can give us what our caretakers failed to provide in the past so that we can heal old wounds.

You are likely to find a partner who will eventually seem incapable of giving you what you most need (and vice versa), who had a trait that you were once attracted to and now you can’t stand, and/or who seems unreasonable in that they seem to want to change you or because they get upset about things that you think are insignificant.

Imago Relationship Therapy helps to expose unconscious needs and motives so that you can better understand why both you and your partner are so emotionally triggered by certain things, and so that you can learn how to heal and appreciate one another.

Individual Therapy

Individual counseling is recommended when one partner is unwilling to go to couples therapy, or requires more one-on-one attention.

If you have an individual therapist already, it is usually a bad idea to also use him/her as your relationship counselor (developed biases may interfere with progress).

I offer individual counseling for adults with a focus in the following areas: anxiety (including social anxiety), depression, lack of motivation, loneliness, trauma/PTSD/cPTSD,  low self esteem, life transitions, grief/loss, chronic illness, family of origin issues, attachment issues and relationship crisis (for when one partner is disengaged from the relationship).

To learn more about me and my services, please click to my more comprehensive website here:
https://www.portlandcounselingandtherapy.com/

Catherine Palmer Counseling

Individual and Couples Counseling in Portland, Oregon 97209

and Throughout the States of Oregon and Washington

 

email:  cpalmerpdx@gmail.com

Hours:
Mon, Tue, Wed 11:00 am – 6:30pm