Individual or Couples Therapy? What Works Best for Relational Distress
If you and your partner are experiencing relational distress and are contemplating therapy, you may find yourselves asking, “Should we go together or individually?”
It can be extremely beneficial for a therapist to engage with both partners together. This couples therapy approach increases the effectiveness of conceptualization, diagnosis, and treatment. Many relational concerns aren’t able to be treated without the participation of both partners.
If only one partner is present, only half of the relationship is being addressed.
Some research proposes decreased relational and marital success with couples that seek individual therapy alone for relational concerns.
Why Couples Therapy?
Here are a few reasons why you should address relational concerns as a couple:
Couples therapy offers an intimate look into the interactions and underlying experiences of the individuals involved. This offers a more holistic approach to address how each individual functions and contributes within the relationship.
Individuals can bring anxiety, depression, past trauma, and other mental health concerns into a relationship. Addressing these aspects within couples therapy can increase emotional intimacy and understanding while decreasing barriers and conflict within the relationship.
It is rarely and almost never just one partner’s issue. There is always room for both individuals to improve, learn, and grow.
Healthy intimate relationships have been tied to increased ability to handle distress in daily life.
Couples therapy aims to improve not only the relationship, but also the overall functioning of the individual.
Here are just a few areas that specifically benefit from couples therapy:
Communication
Desire or need for increased emotional intimacy
Desire or need for increased sexual satisfaction
Infidelity
Stress management
Conflict resolution
Effective parenting or co-parenting
Other underlying conditions that create situational or perpetual issues within the relationship
Disclaimer
Couples therapy is not advised in situations of physical abuse, ongoing infidelity, severe substance abuse, or when other impairing behaviors are present that decrease or eliminate the potential of healthy interaction. There are exceptions that may require assessment by a therapist to discern appropriateness.
Why Individual Therapy?
Written By Kimberly Keiser
Contemplating the need for individual therapy while participating in couples therapy?
Another question couples frequently have is whether to see the same therapist for couples and individual sessions.
There can be benefit of individual therapy alongside couples therapy. This can be a collaborative approach with another therapist or integrated into the existing therapy with the same therapist, depending on clinical considerations and recommendations as well as the preference of the clients.
In our experience at Kimberly Keiser & Associates, we often find that if both individuals are ready to be completely honest and transparent, utilizing the same therapist for individual and couples therapy can expedite progress. This requires greater skill and management of potential triangulation on behalf of the therapist, but, if done appropriately, the same therapist hearing different points of view can help build emotional intimacy and friendship between the couple by co-creating one narrative, and often serve in a mediating role.
In addition, many individual interventions conducted in couples sessions, such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) or Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), can rapidly shift perceptions as the partner observes what is motivating problematic behaviors that would typically be the brunt of resentments or triggers. Deep empathy and friendship develops with more velocity.
Find the Right Therapy Path for You and Your Partner
Therapy is not “one size fits all,” especially when a partner is involved.
For more information about what services are right for you, please contact our team. We would love to hear your concerns and recommend a path that makes sense for you and your relationship.