Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

What To Expect From Couples Counselling

By

what to expect from couples counselling in ManchesterMany people are unsure of what to expect when they come for couples counselling.  In this post I will outline what you can expect if you work with me at Manchester Psychotherapy.  I use Imago Relationship Therapy in all my sessions.  Imago Relationship Therapy presumes that you are both OK, you both have needs that you are trying to get met, and that you are both well matched to help your partner get their needs met.

One thing I will not be doing is allowing you to come and spend time arguing.  You probably do lots of that at home and there is no point paying me to watch you do it!  The vast majority of the time you will be in dialogue with each other and I will be guiding you.

A typical session will look like this:

Arrival – focusing on getting you grounded and ready to listen to your partner.

Intentions – What do you want to achieve from this session?  How do you need to be to achieve it?

Dialogue – One partner will talk (we call this sending) and the other will listen (we call this receiving).  The receiver will mirror what the sender has said back to them, validate and empathise.  Can you imagine what that feels like?  Your partner will be listening to every word you say and mirroring it back – demonstrating that they really were listening.  Contrast this with the diatribe that usually happens in a relationship where one person talks then the other person talks back, usually invalidating what their partner has just said. Being listened to, validated and understood feels fantastic! Once the sender has finished sending the roles are swapped and the receiver now sends, often responding to what they have just heard from their partner.

When sending the focus is on owning feelings, staying away from blame and keeping your partner safe.  Senders use “I feel” statements or “the story I’m telling myself..” sentences to do this.  It’s my job as the therapist to make sure both partners do not feel attacked or criticised.

Towards the end of the session couples will move into appreciation dialogues – what they like about their partner either during the session or out of it.  This brings the positive into your awareness and reminds the couple of why they are together in the first place.

If you are in couples therapy then about 90% of what you have in your relationship is likely to be working.  The trouble is that we often can only see the 10% that’s not, just like a sore toe can make our whole body feel rotten.  Imago Relationship Therapy aims to bring that 90% back into your awareness.

So how do couples resolve disagreements in Imago Relationship Therapy?  When partners have things they want their other half to change the dialogue process will focus on “behaviour change requests”.  This is a way of dialoguing about something that you want done differently in your relationship and explaining what feelings go on for you when your partner behaves in that way.  These feelings are often linked to childhood and so there is some exploration of that area too.  Once the information about the issue has been sent the sender will also suggest ways in which their partner can do things differently. The receiver gets to choose which ones they may be able to “stretch into”.  If the receiver can’t see any other way of doing things then they couple will dialogue about that.

I’m sure you appreciate that this post can only cover the bare bones of what happens in a session. Imago Relationship Therapy provides an effective way of structuring couples therapy and keeps the process safe for both partners.  It’s about healing the wounds and bringing you together.  There is no sitting around slagging your partner off to the therapist or wallowing in all the bad things that have happened between you.  The aim is for you to be leaving the session feeling more positive about your relationship than when you came.  There will be times when you want to dialogue about painful events in your relationship and this will be done in a way that your partner can really listen, stay safe and avoid defensiveness.  By doing this wounds start to heal and the couple learn that their partner is an essential key to their own growth and happiness.

I’m going to finish this article by stating that I love doing Couples counselling, I feel passionate about it.  I think the Imago Relationship Therapy model I use is beautiful and I love seeing the couples I work with connecting with each other on a deep level whilst using it.  If your relationship is under pressure then I would love to work with you to help you realise the great relationship you could have too.

Imago Relationship Therapy – Empathy

By

relationship therapy in ManchesterIn this series of article I have been discussing my view of the Imago Relationship Therapy Dialogue process. This process forms the core of all Imago work and the first thing I will teach when couples counselling. The framework is there to provide safety for both members of the couple. When we feel safe within our relationship we have full access to all parts of our brains land we are less likely to revert back to survival behaviour such as shouting (fight), withdrawing (flight) or stonewalling (freeze).

I have explained each stage of the process in detail in previous articles but as a quick recap they are;

Making an appointment

Sticking to your role, either sender or receiver

When the sender has finished a send, the receiver mirrors and checks the mirror using “I heard you say”, “did I get you?” and “is there more?” questions

When the sender has finished the send the receiver summarises, validates and empathises.

This last article in the series is about empathising with your partner. Once more in the dialogue process you will be doing something the opposite way to how you usually behave in an argument. Usually it’s all about how you feel, how you are angry, sad, disappointed etc. Your partner will also be focusing on how they feel. In Imago terms you are both on your own Island and there is a huge gulf between you. With imago when you empathise with your partner you are going over to their island and checking out how they might be feeling. You are moving over to their world and this encourages connection.

How might this look? Well imagine your partner has just sent that they are annoyed at your constant lateness. You have summarised and validated their feelings. The empathy stage is to simply have a guess at how they might be feeling “I guess you might be feeling frustrated, is that how you feel?” You may or may not choose the correct feeling and as long as you have had a serious attempt at empathising with them it doesn’t really matter whether you have guessed correctly or not.

The sender will then agree or clarify what feelings are happening for them. This stage also encourages you both to talk about your feelings. If I’m going to point the finger I would have to say that us men are pretty rubbish about discussing feelings and that makes sense given that we have covert and sometimes overt messages as we grow up from numerous sources that we should “be strong” and not tell people how we feel. The empathy stage of the dialogue process encourages sharing of feelings and breaks this pattern.

Once all stages have been completed then the couple swap roles, the sender becomes the receiver and vice versa. You may think that this is a slow way to have a conversation but I disagree. If you take into account the several hours of bad feeling, sulking and withdrawing that often results from a badly ending argument done without using the imago dialogue process then the imago way looks positively sprightly. Discuss, move closer, understand each other and built a stronger relationship.

Read the book: Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix explains the Imago relationship theory in full.  It’s an easy read and will help you understand how to move from the power struggle to a conscious relationship.

“I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You” Explained

By

I love you but im not in love with you“I love you but I’m not in love with you” is a common phrase that I hear from couples contemplating coming into couples counselling with me. It’s a phrase that I hear so often I feel compelled to write a post about it. The aim of this post is to shed some light on what this phrase probably means and to help you to understand how this is normal. I will also give some suggestions on what you can do about these feelings within your relationship.

Let’s break down the phrase a little. “I love you” indicates that you have strong feelings and feel close and at home in your partners company. It sounds as if there is real potential within the relationship if only you knew how to free the energy from the stuck place it seems trapped in. The second part of the phrase “but I’m not in love with you” initially suggests that there is something wrong with the relationship and the love that you have for your partner is not enough. I disagree. I would like to translate this phrase for you as I see it.

The phrase to me indicates that the initial phase of the relationship has come to an end. In Imago Relationship therapy terms we call this the romantic phase. This is where you meet your partner and think that they are the most wonderful person on the entire planet! It’s characterised by the following key features:

Familiarity and timelessness:

You meet your partner and it’s as if you have known them forever! “Haven’t we met before?” you may ask. The answer in many ways to this question is yes, and no! You may not have met this individual before but you will most probably be very familiar with lots of their traits and characteristics because this person will fit with your imago. Your imago is the image of the person you need to be with to resolve your unmet childhood needs. It will be constructed from the good parts, and the bad parts of your parents, caregivers and significant people as you grew up. Yup, you fancy your Mum and Dad and with good reason (shudder at the thought)!!

Completion:

With your new partner you feel complete. They are your true “other half”. Again, this is kind of true according to Imago Relationship Therapy Theory. If you are quiet, you are likely to be attracted to someone who is a bit of a shouter, if you are a “feelings” person, you may well connect yourself up to a “thinker”. The theory states that we choose a partner that will offer us the most opportunity for growth.

Necessity:

This is the feeling that if your partner were to leave or be beamed up by aliens that happened to be passing by, you would simply collapse into a pile of useless Jelly on the floor. It’s as if you suddenly cannot comprehend your partner not being there.

Love drugs

Added to these four key parts of the romantic stage of the relationship is a heady cocktail of drugs. You are literally high as a kite, stoned on love. Your brain is pumping out endorphins, dopamine and other chemicals that are triggered even if you just think about your new love. No wonder we love love, we are off our face on love drugs!

I’m sorry to say, you know what’s coming next….the crash. When you have been in the romantic phase for long enough to form a strong bond with your partner you will enter the next phase, the power struggle. The drugs cannot be pumped out forever (shame as it may be) and you start to notice that other side of your Imago that you are not so keen on – all of those issues that you have with your caregivers that you need to resolve.

Common responses to the power struggle

It makes sense for you to try to recapture that love that you had in the romantic phase of the relationship and so that throws up a few choices for you. You can:

Bully your partner into being the perfect individual you saw them as when you chose them – bring on the arguments;

Dump your partner and go get another one – getting to go through the romantic phase all over again (I bet you know some serial monogamists who have a series of partners but never seem to make any relationship last?)

Have an affair – research has shown that the chemical buzz from the endorphins and other love drugs is enhanced by perceived risk;

For any of the above options you may find yourself saying “I love you, I’m just not in love with you”.

A different way

All of these choices are pretty rubbish and are unlikely to get your needs met,  they are also likely to bring with them a great deal of pain and upset for you and your partner. But there is another way. Commit. Commit to your relationship and work towards deep love with your partner.  Have a conscious relationship. By doing this the childhood wounds you set out to heal with your partner can be healed. You can grow and you can enable the growth of your partner too. But how do you do this?

The “how”

I guess the easiest way is to work with an Imago Relationship Therapist to guide you in the process but I think you can do it without this help, although it may be a little harder.

It’s about talking to each other in a straight way, asking for what you want and sharing your feelings with your partner. Staying away from the four horsemen of divorce and keeping your mouth shut at times when you really want to give your other half a good dressing down. It’s about seeing your partner as another wounded individual who is also just doing their best to heal and get their needs met.

I would also recommend that you read about Imago theory.  I have a fair few posts on Imago so you can read me for free or you can buy the ultimate guide, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix, the brains behind Imago Relationship Therapy.

“I love you, I’m just not in love with you” is a sign post. It says the easy stuff is over and now the more difficult and more rewarding journey has begun. The journey to deeper love.

Read the book!  I Love You But I’m Not in Love with You: Seven Steps to Saving Your Relationship Click on the (affiliate) link to be taken to Amazon.