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JULY 29, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Dr. Deb
Couples Therapy – Separately By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
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n theory, I should not do couples therapy separately. When one person in a couple goes to individual therapy, the divorce rate goes up. Why would that be? Because the individual therapist is not a “couples” therapist. That is, a person trained in systems thinking understands that when it comes to “what really happened” there is absolutely no way to access “the truth.” There is only each person’s version. That systemic training means the therapist is interested in hearing both sides, takes no sides, but has her own view of how to possibly help the “system.” Where I depart from my systemic colleagues is that I purposely begin with seeing each person separately (after the initial meeting together). More on that below. But without a systemic orientation, when someone goes to an individual therapist and describes the horrible things that the other person did, it is only natural and human for a non-systemic therapist to be shocked and horrified by those stories – and to encourage divorce. I’ve had many, many couples come to me saying they were told to get a divorce without even meeting the other person! This is both shocking and grossly bad practice. Here is just a tiny bit of the fallout of divorce: • Children who feel their loyalties are divided. • Children who don’t have the benefit of the full attention of the parent they’re with because his or her attention is distracted by pain, anger, and confusion, not to mention lawsuits. • Children who don’t believe that conflicts can be repaired or even should be.
• A legacy, therefore, running through the subsequent generations, of avoiding marriage. and then getting divorced if they made the “mistake” of getting married. • Possible other forms of escapism in the parents and children – such as drinking. • A lowered standard of living for each part of the family. • Higher mental health issues for each member of the family. But the worst eventuality is that the people involved miss the opportunity to heal. Healing cannot fully take place in a ruptured marriage: The best healing is to witness the huge – and positive – changes that a partner makes in greater sensitivity, awareness, vulnerability, and kindness. Add to that an apology following the Rambam’s recommendations, and the feeling is good. What the non-systemic therapist (and the majority of systemic therapists) don’t realize (according to Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems) is that who we seem to be when parts of us feel under
threat by the other person is not who we really are. The good person that people fell in love with is locked safely inside while our protectors fight with their protectors. In other words, protective parts will become activated to the slightest indication of attack of any kind and that, of course, will lead the other person to react protectively as well. That means that the horrible behavior we see is a measure of how threatened and frightened the other person feels, not who they are. That is why a systemically trained therapist is not particularly ready to pass judgment on the misbehavior of couples whose marriages are rocky. Why would psychologists caution against one therapist seeing each person separately? When I divide up the couple, I violate some of the rules imposed by psychologists which Marriage & Family Therapists see the opposite way. One rule that psychologists have is that it could be a conflict of interest for a therapist to see both people in a couple separately, especially if the therapy relationship had begun with
one person and was going for a while before the other person started. The systemic therapist sees it differently. They recognize tremendous value to learning how the heart and soul of each person “takes” things that are said by the other party. What I’ve heard is that the therapist may become too biased in seeing things the way the client they started with sees them to be fair to the other person. They don’t realize that this bad behavior is only a defense mechanism and not the real person. Systemic therapists, on the other hand, are always wondering how the other person sees things. That kind of curiosity initially prevents the bias. The job of such therapists, especially IFS specialists, is to figure out how to make the person’s Self feel comfortable enough to assert leadership over these parts (defense mechanisms) that want to take over and so often do. In fact, people don’t even need the other person to make a faux pas in order to react; protective parts do their job very well and will generally warn the person in advance not to trust their mate. “After all,” they will argue, “she or he has hurt you before.” Which means that there are not two adults in the room at all. Instead, there are child parts of each trying valiantly to protect the person. And because they’re children, the discomfort or fighting or misunderstanding or numbness only escalates. Therapists – even systemically trained ones – don’t realize this. OK, so what is the gain in starting each person separately? Well, here are all the advantages: • Each person can fully express themselves and be heard. • Each person needs space to explore their feelings and triggers, as well as learn the tools of mindfulness, affirmation, and separating out Self from parts
