Couple Counseling

Why Couple Counseling?

Sustaining a couple relationship is a difficult endeavor because of the myriad adjustments that couples must make when beginning their life together. The realities of being in a couple relationship often conflict with the romanticism of fairy tales and movies. The first year is likely to be the most difficult year of the relationship as new couples adjust to being together. Even when couples come from similar backgrounds, the daily living habits they have developed in their family of origin may contribute to tension. They may have different expectations of the relationship and different values. These differences may be accentuated in cross-cultural couples. When the challenges of being in a relationship accumulate (in particular, when facing IPV), some couples seek professional help and consult a couple counselor.

Couple counseling is a type of short-term psychotherapy that focuses on interpersonal relationships, with problems related to the couple relationship becoming the central focus of treatment. There are many approaches to couple counseling, and its effectiveness varies as a function of the form of intervention.

Behavioral marital therapy, emotionally focused therapy, and integrative behavioral couple therapy have received the most research support. Cognitive-behavioral marital therapy, strategic therapy, and insight-oriented [Page 153]marital therapy are also somewhat effective, as are programs such as marital and premarital enrichment programs. Couple counseling has also been shown to be helpful in the treatment of mental health disorders co-occurring with relationship distress (for example, depression, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and substance abuse). Key to success in all of these approaches is interrupting cycles of negative emotion and rebuilding emotional connections.

The research is clear that not all couples do equally well in counseling. Most important, from the perspective of IPV, there is disagreement as to whether couple counseling is even appropriate for couples experiencing physical aggression.

Couple Counseling for Couples Experiencing IPV

One of the advantages of couple counseling for those experiencing IPV is that it may be possible for the counselor to get more accurate information about the violence when the couple presents together. When the partners are interviewed apart, the aggressor is likely to underrepresent the severity of the violence. Having both members of the couple in the counseling room at the same time also allows the two of them to get the same information at the same time about what is acceptable behavior, what constitutes violence, and how the counseling will proceed. Working together as a couple allows the individuals to postpone discussions about volatile or controversial issues until the next counseling session, thus decreasing the likelihood of escalating arguments at home. Proponents of couple counseling for those experiencing IPV contend that interrupting cycles of negative emotion and negative communication in counseling leads to a decrease in violence because it changes the patterns of interaction that lead to physical aggression in these couples. Because bidirectional violence is present in some of these couples, both partners can learn to control their use of physical aggression better when learning how to do this at the same time.

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