What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You!
When you start working with couples you don’t know, what you don’t know. I don’t like this statement any more than you do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I was not impressed when my supervisor said it to me, but I wouldn’t have helped couples the way I did if he hadn’t. So at the risk of offending you, I’m making the same bold statement to you today. As a couple therapy supervisor myself now, it’s my turn to help you the way my supervisor helped me.
Like you, I did everything I knew I should do before I started working with couples, but there were things I didn’t do. The reason I didn’t do them? I didn’t know what I didn’t know and you don’t either, nobody does. That’s just the way it is when you start seeing couples. But when YOU KNOW your experience of “not knowing” is normal, you realize you will “not know” again. And it gets a bit easier after that.
I’ve helped therapists who were convinced they didn’t have what it takes to do couples work because they didn’t know…you get the point. BUT when they learned what I’m going to introduce you to today, they became highly recommended couple therapists.
Not Knowing CAN Hurt You
In this article, I introduce you to three unknowns that make for a rocky beginning. These unknowns can prematurely end what could have been a fulfilling career as a couple therapist. Knowing how often this happens, prompted me to do something about it. This article is a step in that direction. I hope you will read it and realize your experience of not knowing is normal.
If I’m being really honest, I want you to contact me. I would like to help you through the rocky beginning and set up a foundational framework with you. So you can be confident that you know what to do is session, while you’re learning how to do it. If you’re eager to get started, schedule a no charge consultation with me.
Three Unknowns
The three unknowns that make for a rocky beginning are experiential learning, minimal outcome planning and limited couple therapy training and supervision. If you’re thinking, “I already know this. What’s the big deal?” I get it. You may have heard about them, but you don’t know what you don’t know about them and that’s the whole point of the article.
These unknowns are the main contributors accounting for low client retention rates and low success rates. They’re what causes the bad experiences couples have in therapy. Experiences that make them and everyone they talk to about their experience, skeptical about couple therapy. In fact, they have within them the seeds of your destruction as a couple therapist if you don’t acknowledge and address them. Dramatic? Yes, but devastating if you dismiss them. I can’t do justice to these issues in a brief article, but I have given it my best shot. And I hope you will contact me after you read it to get set up for success as a couple therapist.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
You can only learn “how to do” couple therapy by doing couple therapy. You learn “what to do” in theory and then through experience with couples in session, you figure out “how to do” it. The same thing happens when you learn how to drive a car. You pass the written test when your results show you know “what to do” but then you get behind the wheel and realize you don’t know “how to do it.” Why? Because you didn’t know what you didn’t know. You only pass the road test when you’ve had enough experience behind the wheel to demonstrate you know “how to do it.” Knowing “what to do” is not enough. You only know “how to” drive and you only know “how to” do couple therapy by doing it – through the process of experiential learning.
Your Experience Is Normal, Predictable Even
The thing about experiential learning is you don’t know it’s going to be like this when you start seeing couples. You don’t know how hard it is to put theory into practice. Especially with a distressed couple sitting across from you. So when you try to join with one partner for example, you succeed only to find out you alienated the other one in the process. And because you didn’t know that was going to happen, you think what you did doesn’t work. So you don’t try it again. If you don’t get regular supervision you don’t know your experience is normal, predictable even. And when you don’t get feedback on your attempt to join with a partner, or direction on what you could do differently next time, you don’t figure out how to join with both partners in a balanced way.
Now compare your experience to the therapist who knows about experiential learning. That therapist is not better, smarter or more suited to the work than you are. They just know what you don’t yet know. They attend couple therapy training and supervision regularly so they are prepared for the relational dynamics that get in your way. And they have feedback and support while they are learning how to manage the dynamics session by session.
When you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re isolated and alone in your experience. You don’t have a way to make sense of what’s happening in your couple therapy sessions. And most of the conclusions you come to, like this couple is resistant or I’ll follow their lead, stay neutral etc. only make the situation worse for you and increasingly hopeless for the couples sitting across from you. Proving the point, that what you don’t know, CAN hurt you!
MINIMAL OUTCOME PLANNING
Outcome planning is about more than the outcome. I’m focusing on outcome planning here because it’s so common for therapists to start working with couples, and not identify an outcome or have a clear goal that organizes their work. In other words, they don’t know where they’re going, because they don’t know how important outcome planning is. Please bear with me for a minute here as I try to explain this point better.
What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You
In the beginning, most therapists are eager to help. They know what they want to do, but like you read in the experiential learning section, they don’t know how hard it is to put theory into practice. They get pulled into the couples distress. And they forget what they were planning to do and end up following the drama. They start subsequent session by asking how it’s been between them since they were together last. Then spend the rest of the session trying to solve the problem of the week. And before long this becomes their “way of being” as a couple therapist.
When You Know, You Know
In the beginning I did this too, until my supervisor said, “you don’t know…” Okay, okay, I won’t say it again. But I will tell you about the next thing he said because it changed everything. He said, “Couple therapy is a relationship improvement journey and YOU are the driver.“
The Real Problem
It’s rare for couples to go to therapy the first time they talk about going. They only do it when their attempts at “fixing it” on their own feel worse than it does to go to couple therapy. When they sit across from you for the first time, they use endless examples to explain what’s going on. And you have to figure out what happened to get their frustrated butts in the seats across from you. By that point you’ve no doubt gotten pulled into the dynamic between them. So there’s a pretty good chance you’ll miss the real problem. The real problem is, they can’t get where they want to go, they can’t “fix it” and get to a better place in their relationship on their own.
Content Versus Process
The examples where they couldn’t “fix it” are the topics (the content) that prompt the real problem (the process). The real problem, the whole reason they’re doing this incredibly vulnerable thing, is they can’t resolve anything anymore. They’re stuck and they desperately want to get to a better place. It’s your job to get them there, but you’ll only be able to do it if you know where you’re going and if you work on the real problem throughout the journey.
The real problem is a process problem. It’s what happens between the partners when they talk about one of those topics (the content). If you didn’t do outcome planning designed to alter the real problem, because you don’t know how important it is, then what you don’t know CAN AND IS hurting you.
A Relationship Improvement Journey
Couple therapy is a relationship improvement journey and YOU are the driver. When you don’t prepare and follow an outcome plan you don’t know where you’re going. Without a plan that focuses on altering the real problem, you’re not going to get very far in the journey. Couples are on autopilot in session, but you can not be. If you let them get behind the wheel, they will take their habitual detours and they will get lost. Or, they will go around in circles, stuck in their habitual loop until they run out of gas and end up further away from the better place than they were when they got behind the wheel (ouch, sorry, I’ve done it too).
YOU Are The Driver
Couples don’t talk about it in these terms, but they’re with you because they can’t get where they want to go when they’re in the driver’s seat. When you agree to do the relationship improvement journey with them, you must do it from the driver’s seat. You prepare and follow your outcome plan, it’s your map. The map starts with the process problem and moves methodically toward the relationship improvement goal. Decreasing relational distress and enhancing relationship satisfaction as you go. That is what couples are paying you for. Regardless of what they think the problem is. And regardless of what they want you to do. Because if they were right about that, they would have fixed the problem already and they wouldn’t be sitting with you. Make no mistake, when you get them to their better place, they will be so delighted they won’t care how you did it.
LIMITED COUPLE THERAPY TRAINING & SUPERVISION
When you do your couple therapy training and supervision with me it’s like you’re in driver’s ed. for therapists, minus the cars. I teach you about outcome planning using the map I developed over two decades in my work with couples. The map gives you confidence that you know what to do, while you are learning how to do it with instruction, feedback and encouragement from me. And from your place in the driver’s seat, informed by your preferred model-specific theory, you make steady progress toward that better place.
Couple therapy is a relationship improvement journey and YOU are the driver. If you remember nothing else from this article, please etch this statement into your memory. Write it on a sticky note and put it where you can see it when you’re in session. This work is as challenging as it is rewarding and I hope you’ll stick with it long enough to reap the rewards. Like I said earlier, I can’t do justice to these topics in a brief article, but I’ve introduced you to the concepts. When you contact me I will help you navigate the experiential learning process. And in a Theory to Practice Group I will guide and encourage you as you develop your own “way of being” as a couple therapist. REMEMBER: When it comes to couple therapy practice, what you don’t know CAN hurt you!
Take your place in the driver’s seat now and book a no charge 30 minute consult with me.
Until next time, Buckle Up!
