Serious teenage boy stands alone on roofAs a family systems therapist, it’s been my experience that when parents bring a child to my office due to acting-out behaviors or social challenges, it usually comes back to the dynamic in the parental relationship. Typically, what’s going on (or not) between Mom and Dad is at the root of the issue, regardless of whether the parents are married, separated, or divorced.

Marital dissatisfaction and parental conflict, in my experience, are often correlated with how well children adjust to situations. In addition, parental attitudes and approaches can impact children. Children may experience anxiety, depression, shame, or other issues when conflicted parental relationships result in dysfunctional parenting practices. Parental conflict can result in reduced parental involvement, harsh discipline practices, lack of praise and acknowledgement, and increased parent-child conflict.

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A common scenario that often plays out in families with parental conflict is when a child is blamed and scapegoated by the parents, which in turn may cause the child to act out. This nonadaptive parenting style creates a dynamic of discord that is enmeshed, reciprocal, and reinforcing.

When overt or covert (silent or aggressive) parental conflict is present, there may be a tendency to create “alliances” or “collusions” among family members, which typically only alienates healthy family relationships. Additionally, some parents who do not actively engage in conflict in front of their children may allow their negative feelings toward each other to guide their decisions. These decisions, when motivated by resentment and not the best interests of the children, may be equally harmful.

Naturally, parental conflict also can result in reduced emotional availability toward children. Generally speaking, the lower the level of parental conflict, the more positive parent-child relationships tend to be.

Suggestions for Managing Parental Conflict Around Children

Conflict is a natural part of relationships. It is important for children to see that parents can disagree and work through conflicts. The problem solving that follows occasional conflict between parents can be a healthy thing for children to witness. When parents are able to demonstrate effective problem-solving strategies collaboratively, they model supportive parenting and parental involvement at a much higher level.

The lower the level of parental conflict, the more positive parent-child relationships tend to be.

However, when conflict is chronic and parents aren’t able to come to resolution, it can become problematic from the children’s standpoint.

So what can parents do to demonstrate healthy conflict management in front of their children? Here are some suggestions to consider:

Finally, when trying to resolve conflict, it is important to look at family-of-origin patterns to determine how conflict was resolved in earlier generations, as patterns tend to be passed down in families from generation to generation. Then, it is important for parents to look for patterns in their relationships as well as their own behaviors and motivations.

Ideally, parents should be open to seeking help from a professional, as getting input from an objective third party who is trained to help resolve conflict can be beneficial in identifying ineffective resolution strategies that parents may be engaging in.

Park-in-the-fallI am an introvert. Both of my daughters, now grown, are extroverts. When the second was in her mid-teens, I was working very long hours. I would frequently come home, brain fried, and find her waiting to tell me all the things that had happened during her day. I would try to listen, but more often than not I did not have the energy to do so.

One evening, after a few minutes I apologized and told her I was really tired and needed to just sit and read. She was more hurt and confused than angry. She said, “Daddy, I do not understand. You listen to others all day long, but when you come home you do not want to listen to me.”

I felt bad, really bad. However, feeling bad did nothing to generate the energy needed to engage. I apologized again and she left the room. I did not understand what was the matter with me. Her statement was so reasonable.

It was during this time, quite by accident, that I became aware of the existence of natural and normal differences in how individuals perceive, process, assign meanings, and respond.

These differences are determined by the degree to which each is:

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The stronger an individual’s response orientation is toward one pole or the other on these dichotomies, the more likely the characteristics and traits known to be common for individuals with that orientation will be present. These differences are natural and normal, present at birth, identifiable at an early age, and do not change much across time.

An individual’s response process may be the same as or quite different from a parent, sibling, significant other, or child. A naturally extroverted parent, for instance, cannot get a naturally introverted child to become more extroverted any more than a naturally introverted parent can get a naturally extroverted child to be more introverted.

My efforts to get my extroverted children to be less talkative were about as successful as my extroverted children’s efforts to get me to be more talkative: close to nil. As best I can tell, the only change that has occurred across time has come from our accepting each other’s natures as a given and accommodating this difference whenever possible.

A number of misperceptions exist regarding the meaning of these differences in response orientations.

Extroverts, for example, tend to view introverts as quiet, shy, withdrawn, maybe depressed, or antisocial, withholding, self-centered, or uninvolved. Introverts tend to view extroverts as talkative, sociable, and friendly, or noisy, needy, intrusive, and either unable or unwilling to listen.

These assumptions regarding the meaning of these response behaviors are usually inaccurate.

Extroverts, in fact:

Introverts, on the other hand:

This information helped me understand my own process as well as that of my daughter in a way that took fault finding out of the equation. A natural disparity existed at the end of the day in what she needed to feel connected to me and what I needed before I could meet her need.

Conversations with her since regarding the nature of this difference have been very helpful. I had always thought I was too self-centered and insensitive, and she had thought there was something wrong with her, that she was too needy. Once we understood that natural differences were the real culprit, we were able to reconnect through an understanding of ourselves and each other.

Seventy percent of the nearly 400 couples I have seen since 2000 have combined an introvert with an extrovert. The information provided above has helped many move from never-ending debates over right and wrong to identifying ways to accommodate and compromise when differences lead to disagreements.

Misperceptions are also common regarding response orientations on the other three dichotomies.

  1. Individuals who automatically process information from a literal frame of reference, from noting what is happening in the moment within the context of past experience, are not usually rigid or lacking in imagination. They are simply wired to provide practical responses to what is happening in the moment. And individuals who automatically process information from a possible-meanings context are not usually unrealistic or unable to face facts. They are simply wired to explore alternative possibilities for meaning and application to future situations.
  2. Individuals who naturally come to conclusions based on objective assessments of cause and effect are not usually insensitive or uncaring. They are simply designed to draw conclusions logically, a process that requires feelings to be experienced in a more neutral manner. And individuals who automatically factor in how others will, or may, feel when making decisions are not usually emotionally weak or unstable. They are simply wired to make decisions in a way that minimizes disruption of harmony in human relationships.
  3. Individuals who naturally plan and structure life events are not usually inflexible or controlling. They are simply wired to plan events in a manner that minimizes the possibility of the unexpected happening. And individuals who naturally respond more in the moment as events play out are not usually immature, irresponsible, or unreliable. They are simply wired to respond more spontaneously as events play out and provide optimum creative adaptations when the unexpected does occur.

There appears to be a yin-yang aspect to these dichotomy-specific differences; responses that can appear contradictory but are actually interdependent and complementary, with each covering one part of that dichotomy’s whole that the other cannot. In my experience, understanding the meaning of these differences leads to increased self-acceptance as well as acceptance of those who naturally differ.

GoodTherapy | Conflict Resolution: Understanding the Four TemperamentsThere are four types of human beings, and I believe each is designed to attend to at least one of four critical areas of need in a functioning human society.

The tasks that each temperament is designed to attend to are so disparate that significant differences in perceptions, priorities, values, and meanings are required to attend to them. These automatically triggered differences are present at birth, identifiable at an early age and, like the degree to which each newborn is left-, right-, or mixed-handed, will not change much across time.

For instance, a naturally literal parent will not be able to get their naturally possibilities-oriented child to become more literal, any more than a naturally feel-response-oriented parent will be able to get their natural thinking-response-oriented child to experience emotions more like a feeling-oriented individuals does.

The temperament that each child is born with may be the same as, or different from,

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  1. One or both parents.
  2. One or more siblings.
  3. One or more extended family members.
  4. A teacher, coach, employer, friend, or therapist.

The nature of temperament-driven differences is such that four individuals with different temperaments can perceive, process, prioritize, and respond to the same reality in significantly different ways. Current models for making sense out of these differences treat them as matters of choice rather than of nature.

Consequently, when these differences lead to a disagreement over who is right and who is not, each assumes that the other is choosing to differ when they are not. Never-ending relationship-threatening debates can ensue driven by natural differences that neither is aware exist.

I have been providing my individual, couple, and family clients with information on natural differences in temperaments since 2000. Once most clients have realized that natural differences are at play, debilitating debates over who is right and who is not have come to an end. This allows for accommodation and compromise in areas that had not been possible before.

Taking a freeware version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can identify an individual’s temperament. A two-letter code within the four-letter MBTI psychological type code identifies the temperament providing the driving force for that particular type. The method for identifying temperament codes is found at the end of this article.

 The Four Temperaments

1. Sensing-Judging (SJ): Approximately 45% of the population

People with the SJ temperament provide structure for human societies. From an early age they want to know what the rules are—the societal norms for acceptable behavior. They will then live their life according to those rules and expect others to do the same.

With regards to typological wiring, choice is not an option. An SJ person’s sense of self is connected to following the rules and honoring the traditions of their society and they will automatically be bothered when others do not. Without SJs, human beings would not have a functioning foundation, a social order.

The four SJ-driven personality types are ESTJ, ESFJ, and ISTJ. SJs of note include George Washington, Mother Teresa, Andy Rooney, Desmond Tutu, and Barbara Walters.

2. Sensing-Perceiving (SP): Approximately 23% of the population

People with SP temperaments are designed to address the needs of immediate sensory experience. The common denominator for SPs that distinguishes them from the other three temperaments is their need for freedom to respond or create in the moment, as the moment dictates, without reference to others.

This independence of mind is innate, a derivative of nature’s design and an essential requirement for the purpose and function they are designed to attend to. SJs tend to take care of the structural needs of human societies, that which can be predicted and planned out. Meanwhile, SPs are attending to the needs of the moment, those aspects of human experience that are best served by in-the-moment innovation and ingenuity.

SPs adapt to the constantly changing variables of immediate sensory experience. This can be quite extraordinary; SPs are found among the most gifted practitioners of both the fine as well as the martial arts.

The four SP-driven personality types are ESFP, ESTP, ISTP, and ISFP. SPs of note include Barbra Streisand, Erwin “Magic” Johnson, George C. Patton, Meryl Streep (my guess here), and Michael J. Fox.

3. Intuitive-Thinking (NT): Approximately 15% of the population

Those with NT temperaments are designed to process information from a logical frame of reference. Their primary function is to make sure that what is said or done makes logical sense. NTs can often be found in leadership roles in science, business, government, sports, and the military, making sure that logic rules the decision-making process.

In order to attend to their role responsibilities in a functioning human society, NTs are designed to experience emotions within objective parameters of cause and effect. As with the other three temperaments, choice is not an option. If something said or done does not make logical sense, it is automatically rejected as invalid.

The four NT-driven personality types are ENTJ, ENTP, INTJ, and INTP. Well known NTs include Hilary Clinton, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, General Colin Powell, and Angela Lansbury.

4. Intuitive-Feeling (NF): Approximately 18% of the population

NFs are designed to facilitate harmony in the lives of other human beings. Nature assures that NFs attend to their role of responsibility by triggering feelings of guilt and blame disproportionate to objective reality when they upset or disappoint someone or do not help others when they know they can help but may not want to.

A rule of thumb for NFs is, “If is not said nicely, it is not nice.” No other temperament is designed with this degree of guilt and blame sensitivity in their wiring. Given this innate set of priorities for experiencing a sense of meaning and purpose in life, it is not surprising that as many as 75% of marriage and family therapists in private practice are NFs.

The four NF-driven personality types are ENFJ, ENFP, INFJ, and INFP. Well-known individuals with the NF wiring include Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Maslow, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Isabel Briggs-Myers.

Procedure for Identifying Temperament

For a free short-form questionnaire to find your own temperament, you can go to www.NaturalPersonalityInstitute.com and download the freeware questionnaire (Natural Personality Questionnaire) based on the MBTI located there. Fill it in and score it. When done, you will have a four-letter psychological type code.

The first letter of that type’s temperament code is found on the Sensing-Intuition dichotomy. That is the second column from left on the questionnaire.

For example, my four-letter MBTI psychological type code is INFP. The first letter of my temperament code is found on the Sensing-Intuition dichotomy which, in my case, is N for Intuition. When N is the first letter of a temperament code, the second letter is found on the Thinking-Feeling dichotomy which, in my case, is F for Feeling. Therefore my two-letter temperament code is NF for Intuitive-Feeling.

Between Temperament Communication

In order to maximize your effectiveness in navigating communication problems with temperaments that differ from your own it is helpful to remember the following:

  1. SJs automatically prioritize rules of conduct, if others are behaving appropriately.
  2. SPs automatically prioritize the dictates of immediate sensory experience.
  3. NTs automatically prioritize the logical consequences of an act or intention.
  4. NFs automatically prioritize how people may or will feel about what is said and done.

Choice is not an option. Like the degree to which each newborn is left, right, or mixed handed, the temperament in each newborn’s wiring is the temperament that will provide the perceptual frame of reference throughout their lifetime.

My mother and I provide a perfect example of this phenomenon. She was an ESTJ and I am an INFP, opposites on all four dichotomies. She was a thinking-response-oriented SJ and I am an NF. She was bluntly direct (and usually right!) in letting me know how I should be behaving.

I found her manner of communicating to be hurtful, leaving me feeling guilty, bad, and resentful. I kept her at an emotional distance most of my life. She was 93 and still cognitively sharp as a tack, before I got up the courage to tell her how her manner of communicating affected me.

She was genuinely surprised, stating, “Michael, I do not understand this guilt thing. I did not want you to feel bad about yourself; I just wanted you to do it right.” This comment helped me realize that thinking-oriented and feeling-oriented people naturally experience emotions very differently.

A Note of Caution

While the information on temperaments and temperament-specific psychological types tends to be accurate, it is general in nature, addressing response dynamics known to be common for individuals with each of the type profiles. The specifics of an individual’s self, separate from others, is far too complex to be captured by a temperament specific tendencies profile.

First of all, there are a near infinite number of degrees of response orientation that an individual may have on each of the four dichotomies known to determine an individual’s temperament and temperament specific psychological type. Birth order, degrees of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic perceptual processing, spirituality, aptitudes of mind, and a wide range of environmental influences, as well as an X factor to cover the inexplicable, also factor into the equation.

The complexity involved is such that true knowing of another has some very real limitations. Because of this, type profiles should be used for the gathering of general information about an individual, but most definitely not to define the person.

GoodTherapy | Conflict and the Thinker/Feeler Struggle in Relationships The thinking/feeling dichotomy was first connected to individual differences in psychological types (personalities) by Carl Jung. It is used in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator’s personality typology and addresses natural differences in how individuals make decisions and experience emotions.

It is also the cause of a great deal of tension and conflict for couples that naturally differ on this dichotomy.

The terms used for descriptive purposes here can be misleading. For instance, someone with a feeling response orientation is not inherently more able to feel or less able to think than someone with a thinking response orientation; and someone with a thinking orientation is not inherently more able to think or less able to feel than someone with a feeling orientation (Reinhold, 2007).

These terms are used to address fundamental differences in the perceptual and experiential processes automatically triggered when thinking- and feeling-response-oriented individuals are sorting out and expressing what they are thinking and feeling. (Please note that this interpretation differs significantly from those of Carl Jung and the authors of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.)

Although human beings are aware that people differ in how they come to conclusions and experience and express emotions, few understand that these differences in self-expression are driven by innately different perceptual and experiential frames of reference. Of particular note is a fundamental difference in the experience of emotions when conflicts arise—a difference of such magnitude that role-reversal comprehension is not possible. These differences are a constant in interactions between thinking and feeling individuals, easily confirmed by observation of one’s personal and professional relationships.[fat_widget_right]

Those with thinking response orientation:

Those with feeling response orientation:

Thinking/Feeling Couples

The usual cause of difficulty for couples that differ on this dichotomy comes from a fundamental difference in how they experience and express emotions. The moment harmony is disrupted, most feeling-response-oriented individuals feel bad, as if they have done something wrong. Knowing they have not, in fact, done something wrong does not usually help. They feel bad anyway.

When these feelings are triggered, they may immediately apologize, hoping to restore harmony and neutralize the guilt they are experiencing, or they may get upset with their partner for doing something that caused them to feel that way. Neither of these responses makes much sense to a thinking-response-oriented individual.

Why would a person feel guilty and bad simply because someone disagreed with them; much less suggest that the other is at fault for causing them to feel that way? From the thinking-oriented perspective these responses do not make logical sense and are therefore invalid.

Choice is not an option here. Very much like the degree to which someone is left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous, the manner in which feeling- and thinking-oriented individuals experience and express thoughts and feelings is natural and normal—just different.

The Challenge in Communication

In essence, two naturally disparate perceptual frames of reference for making sense out of the same reality have been activated. The feeling partner seeks validation for how they are feeling about the situation, while the thinking partner seeks validation for why they think their partner’s feelings do not make logical sense. Neither can provide a response that meets the other’s criterion for being heard.

Without intention or awareness, the explanations that each provide for justifying their own natural and normal responses de facto invalidate the natural and normal responses of their partner. Issues of little import can trigger emotionally charged exchanges that leave both parties psychologically battered, blaming each other for the damage done, while the issues themselves remain unresolved. The conflict resolution challenge is significantly magnified when the couple also differs on the extroversion-introversion dichotomy.

Conflict Resolution Approach

I have been using a natural differences questionnaire based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with all couples and families since 2000. Information on natural differences has proven to be consistently accurate.

In fact, the accuracy of the information above is such that most thinking-response-oriented partners have been able to accept its validity. Feeling-response-oriented partners have usually been more ambivalent. Although the information provides concrete validation regarding their emotional sensitivity and reactivity, it does not provide them with much relief from the feelings that get triggered when conflicts arise.

If they accept the premise that natural and normal differences in response orientations are at play, they have to acknowledge that their partner

  1. cannot experientially relate to how they are feeling when conflicts arise and, therefore,
  2. is not at fault for the feelings their comments can trigger.

The inequity inherent to this difference in experiencing emotion is such that some feeling-response-oriented partners have great difficulty accepting it. Fortunately, once most thinking-oriented partners have a logical explanation for their partner’s feel-based responses, they have been able to soften their responses in general and become more considerate and accommodating when conflicts arise. This change has helped many feeling partners contain the resentment they automatically experience during conflict.

The intensity of the explosive exchanges that some thinking/feeling couples are dealing with is such that adherence to a timeout rule is an absolute necessity if they hope to replace their destructive conflict resolution process with a healthier one. It is understandable why some feeling-response-oriented partners have a hard time adhering to this time out rule. After all, extroverted/feeling-oriented individuals have a particularly difficult time letting go before their partner has acknowledged the validity of how they are feeling.

The fact remains that once an issue has become emotionally charged and abusive, the possibility of a meaningful resolution no longer exists. Partners with strong extroversion, intuition, and feeling-response orientations may have a particularly difficult time accommodating this timeout rule.

The level of psychic distress (disruption of self) that some experience is so extreme that efforts by their partner to withdraw may trigger desperate, even violent behaviors to prevent their partner’s exit before a resettling response has been provided. However, a way must be found to contain these emotions if they hope to replace their destructive process with a healthier one.

Consequently, depending on the perceived volatility of the conflicted exchange, the person calling for a timeout may:

  1. Agree to a future time to reconvene and try again, before their next counseling appointment.
  2. Wait until their next counseling session to address the issue.
  3. Contact the counselor to see if an earlier date can be scheduled to meet.

The timeout is almost always called for by the thinking partner and resented by the feeling partner.

Tip for thinkers: Seek to understand and accommodate your partner’s areas of sensitivity rather than attempt to help them understand why they should not feel that way.

Tip for feelers: Use logic-based constructs when explaining why they are upset. Example: “Even though you do not understand why I get upset when you say that, the fact remains that every time you say that I get upset. Given the predictability of my response, why do you keep saying that?”

Once most couples realize that natural differences are at play, and that neither is intentionally responding the way they do in order to get his or her own way, they are able to accommodate and compromise in areas that had not been possible before.

Reference:
Reinhold, Ross. (21 March, 2007). E-mail correspondence.

Conventional wisdom says that having conflict in a partnership is “bad.” Most couples perceive conflict or its lack as a measure of a relationship’s strength or weakness. The truth is that conflict in itself is not bad; in fact it is a necessary part of every relationship.

How could you truly be emotionally intimate with another person, live with them day in and day out, experience all the frustrations of life and not have conflict? If there is no conflict, one partner is not speaking up.

Conflict is not only vital to an authentic and genuine connection; it is the route to discovering your partner’s likes and dislikes, needs and desires. The process of exploring your differences and building consensus teaches you about your partner’s depth and character. Meeting conflict head on is the very path that bolsters connection; facing and embracing discord strengthens the bond between you and drives your relationship to a deeper, more intimate level.

In our practice, Alisa and Trey have come for their first Couple to Couple® coaching session with me and Bob:
Alisa: “You don’t make me a priority! Our marriage is the last thing on your list.”
Trey: “What do you mean? I work 70 hours a week to give you the lifestyle you have.”
Alisa: “You just don’t get it. It’s the little things that matter more to me. When was the last time you planned a date for us?”
Trey: “You only work part-time; why haven’t you planned a date?”

The dialogue between Alisa and Trey is a common example of how couples experience conflict; anger and blame underlie their exchange. Notice how often the word “you” is used in their short conversation: eight times to be exact. The word “I” is used only once.

In conflict couples’ use of “you” reflects each partner’s belief that the other is doing, saying or feeling something “wrong;” which naturally implies that the other person is “right.” Thus the “right – wrong” tug of war is born. In this mode of dialogue, anger escalates and each partner becomes more entrenched in his/her own position, making resolution even more elusive. Without attention, resentment, hostility and passive-aggressiveness grow in a dark and veiled fashion. The fate of the relationship will ultimately be decided by the way conflict is handled.

Unless parents model embracing conflict, we most likely will not learn conflict resolution skills growing up. When differences arise, we respond in the way nature has biologically wired us. Our fight or flight survival instinct, which kept us alive in cave man days, prompts us physiologically to respond to a threat by fighting off or fleeing the danger. When our partner comes at us with anger and blame, heart rate and blood pressure increase, adrenaline pumps, pupils dilate, hearing becomes more acute and blood flows away from our arms and legs and to our muscles so we can prepare to fight off the threat or run away from it as fast as we can.

Each of us has our predominant or typical way of responding, usually a result of the healthy or “not so healthy” lessons we learned and practiced throughout our lives.  Ask yourself, when conflict occurs do I typically get angry and fight, or do I withdraw and flee? Do I engage and move into the conflict or do I avoid and move away from the conflict “sweeping it under the rug?”

With couples, several outcomes result when two people engage.  If both you and your partner fight, there will be arguments that escalate. If you both avoid conflict, a standoff will occur resulting in a chasm that separates the two of you.  Since avoidance creates more avoidance, partners end up living parallel lives without much emotional intimacy. In a relationship where one person withdraws and the other one fights the result will be one partner angrily pursuing the other; or one withdrawing so much that the angry partner gets frustrated and gives up. None of these patterns are healthy.

Paradoxically what couples need most is a way to avoid, “avoiding conflict” or a healthy way to “fight.”  When you don’t avoid or get rapt in conflict and, instead, embrace your relationship “in trouble” as you would embrace a wounded child, you take the first step on a new and exciting path that will transform your partnership.  Taking on the conflict, averts the ensuing poison and prevents the potential crippling effects on each other’s self-esteem.

So how do couples resolve conflict? Here are the steps:
1)   Consciously acknowledge your fight or flight response when you become angry.
2)   Mutually agree to explore the disagreement in a respectful way.
3)   Take turns expressing thoughts and feelings, one at a time, without interrupting.
4)   Use “I” statements to avoid blame and own your feelings.
5)   Listen between the lines for understanding and meaning.
6)   Be “curious” about your partner’s point of view.
7)   Talk until you can “make your partner’s case” as well as your own.
8)   Remember the goal is not to figure out who is right or wrong, but to understand each other’s position.
9)   Then and only then, can you problem solve.

Ironically without the very conflict that tears at the fabric of our connection, you cannot achieve the deepest degree of intimacy. There is some truth to the old saying, “No pain, no gain.” Leveraging conflict stimulates the growth of you and your partner and, most importantly, of the third entity – the relationship itself.

As partners discover how to manage conflict, the vital connection begins to materialize.  A vision of you and your partner turning toward each other, rather than away, emerges no matter what the circumstances, bringing a sense of security and trust. You become strong in your belief that your partner would never intentionally hurt you, so when he/she does, you work on resolving the issue and forgiving, i.e. letting go of the anger.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
-Leo Tolstoy

Miraculously the two of you engage in actively embracing and resolving issues; being direct and honest with each other; disciplining yourselves to practice empathy; and taking care not to hurt the other, despite your individual differences. You and your partner will discover a new resilience, a new peace and an inner confidence knowing that no matter what arises, the two of you will work it through.

A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
-Ruth Bell Graham

In this newly created relationship, the two of you will feel bound in the healthiest aspects of a relationship waiting for you.  You begin to honor and respect your partner anew, and your commitment flourishes.  All seems secure in the relationship that you’re living – it is the dawn of a spiritual connection that you have consciously co-created.

GoodTherapy | Individual Versus Couple Therapy: What Format Is Best for Marital ProblemsThe Textbook of Family and Couples Therapy describes the three “most common types of couples therapy”:

  1. Individual therapy;
  2. Conjoint couples therapy; and
  3. Combined couples therapy

In the first, a member of a couple is treated by an individual therapist, which, the textbook notes, is suitable especially for instances in which one spouse refuses to join marital therapy but a “poor choice, however, in the presence of marital disturbance and severe psychopathology…” Individual therapy for a marital problem does not give the therapist an adequately full picture of the marital interactions, nor adequate leverage to help both participants to symmetrically address their contributions to the problem. In general, because problems tend to be interactive, for one partner to make lasting changes for the better, both parties need to make changes.

In the second, “conjoint couples therapy,” both spouses are treated at the same time by a single therapist or team of co-therapists. Again, this form of treatment does not enable the therapist to see and therefore accurately diagnose the couple’s interactive patterns. Anyone can look good in individual treatment. Whole additional aspects of couples’ functioning appear once they are interacting with their partners around emotionally sensitive issues, and these are generally the issues that couples need help addressing.

[fat_widget_relationships_left]The third structure for couple treatment, “combined couples therapy,” refers to the combination of conjoint sessions that both partners attend together with ongoing or occasional individual therapy sessions for one or both spouses. That is, the therapist interweaves individual and couple sessions in a design that most meets the needs of this specific couple. “The combined treatment,” the textbook explains, “has the advantage of allowing the use of fantasies in individual sessions while providing easy access to transactional and communicational patterns” in joint sessions. Conflict resolution treatment generally employs the third of these “most common types of couples therapy.”

As described more fully in a recent article in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy currently available on the website of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, such combined treatment offers important benefits:

One professional is in a better position to recognize, define, and point out [and thereby ameliorate] the intrapsychic and interpersonal dimensions of the symptom-problem, to be aware of the two-way street effects of one process on the other, to know areas in either process that are being avoided and impulses that are being “acted out” rather than confronted. He [or she] is able to appreciate the subtleties of the resistances and transferences and to form an integrated concept of where the individual client and the marriage is and what the client and marriage is doing in each phase of help even though each process may be conducted according to the techniques of that particular modality…

Conversely, when a person is in individual therapy with one professional and in marriage counseling with another, the two processes may go off in opposite directions. Also, resistances may go unnoticed, the transferences may become more split or diluted, and the continuity of the person’s emotional flow and life processes may become more compartmentalized.

For these reasons, conflict resolution treatment recommends the practice of asking people being treated to take a break from any prior individual therapists if they are going to enter into treatment with a conflict resolution therapist. At the same time, the therapist explains that s/he will be available at any time for either spouse to schedule individual sessions as they feel the need. I explain that in general if I am seeing one spouse individually, I like to keep things symmetrical and work also with the other; and at the same time if this is not possible for financial or other reasons, I can be flexible. I add finally that the individual sessions may be occasional, suggested by either one of the spouses or by me, and/or may be part of an ongoing weekly pattern of treatment. For people dealing with specific difficulties—for instance, when one spouse has a borderline personality pattern or is dealing with chronic depression—as many as three sessions a week, with one couple session and one individual session for each spouse, can be ideal, finances and time permitting.

Multiple research studies have demonstrated that individual therapy for a spouse in a distressed marriage may make a couple’s conflict worse, making divorce more likely. These concerns, and their import for practice, are explained in a chapter of the 2008 Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy, as follows:

“Because we take a systems perspective and view the couple as the client, we have found that individual therapy may interfere with our couple work. We also tell clients that research indicates that the chance of divorce is greater if clients engage in individual therapy rather than couple therapy (Bray & Jouriles 1995). Therefore, we request that partners stop individual therapy during our couple treatment. There is a greater chance of dysfunctional triangulating when another therapist is involved” (p. 504).

Conflict resolution treatment recommends this same policy, that is, flexible inclusion of individual and couple sessions within an overall couple treatment format with one therapist handling all the treatment components. The one exception to the one therapist rule for couples is for treatment of problems that lie outside the therapist’s areas of competence. Referral for additional specialized treatments such as neuropsychological exams, medication treatment, or addiction cessation would always be appropriate, provided the couple therapist and the additional treatment professional agree on a clear division of labor between the therapists.

What is essential however with a protocol that includes both individual and couple treatment formats is explicit confidentiality procedures. Conflict resolution therapists are encouraged to explain at the outset of treatment their policies with regard to confidentiality. Will information disclosed in one spouse’s individual session become the property of the couple? If so, then is it appropriate for the therapist to share individuals’ communications to the therapist with the other spouse? I believe not. Information shared by the couple in the presence of the couple of course is bounded by confidentiality vis-a-vis anyone other than the couple. Information shared with the therapist by one spouse must remain similarly bound by confidentiality to remain with the therapist.

With these principles, one spouse who may be having an affair is able to work on how to disentangle from the affair. The individual sessions enable the straying spouse to utilize the therapist’s in order to extricate from what can be a difficult situation. This option increases the likelihood of a positive marital outcome.

At the same time, if one spouse is having an affair, the therapist has a responsibility to clarify when the affair is revealed that affairs are a violation of the marriage contract. It is ethically important for a therapist to clarify to an unfaithful spouse that continuing to conduct therapy with a secret partner on the side is not an ethical endeavor or an option. However a therapist can help a partner who is engaged in an affair to settle their internal conflict, that is, to choose either to stay in the marriage or to leave it for the new partner.

I have found that this dilemma of having to hold confidential information with regards to an affair is a situation that does occur, but rarely. In most instances, holding individual spouses’ confidential information in confidence is relatively easy and greatly benefits both spouses. They can then enjoy the gains of both individual and couple treatment, with both aspects of this integrated treatment enhancing each other.

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