How To Find A Good Couples Therapist

What a hard place to be in when your most important relationship in the world, your marriage, is not doing well and you decide to reach out for help. I know about this hard place. You want help now. You don’t want a series of missteps as you look for the right one. I have been there. I was a trained counselor and I found it incredible hard to find the right marriage counselor. I ended up spending $50,000 on therapy which was not helpful!  Now that I am a therapist who specializes in couples therapy and only works with couples, I want to share with you my insight on this challenge.

Many, many therapists advertise that they work with couples, but how do you really know if they are truly skilled at marriage counseling and they are really good at working with couples to resolve marital issues?

Here are my suggestions:

1.     Find a therapist who sees “attachment theory” as laying the foundation for their couples therapy work. What does this mean? This means that they believe that you and your partner are fundamentally wired for connection to your romantic partner. This is not “co-dependency” (A very misunderstood term originating from AA). This is healthy dependency and it ironically fosters independence and greater risk taking by each partner when they have it.

2.     Find a therapist who see the reactionary cycle that a couple gets into as the core issue that needs to be addressed in therapy. The therapist should view the first order of therapy as being to work with the actual cycle that you and your partner are currently living in and de-escalating it. What does de-escalating mean? It means to develop an awareness of what this enemy looks like and what it feels like when it shows up – this cycle that keeps bringing distance and disconnection. Developing an awareness of when it shows up and the ability to identify it to your partner and do something different together as a team. The majority of your time in therapy will be working on this.

3.     Find a therapist who is working with you experientially in session not someone who is lecturing you on the way it should be or what you are doing wrong. Do not work with a therapist who is giving you worksheets to take home and work on. You want to find a therapist who understands that a romantic relationship is at core an emotional bond and they will work with you to help develop your emotionally vulnerable muscle by exercising it in session. This means that you will experience emotion in session. The therapist will linger with you in that emotion to make sense of the emotion and help you flex your emotional muscle by bring that emotion to your partner in session.

4.     Find a therapist who is leading the session while carefully attuning to you the client. They are leading the session somewhere – that somewhere may be to shed a light on the reactionary cycle that you and your partner are caught in. The counselor is helping you see what is underneath your moves and your partners moves, or how you may be “working out“ your “vulnerability muscle.” You should always have a sense that your therapist is in charge and is taking you somewhere. 

5.     Dual empathy: Look for a therapist who gets both of you. It should never feel like there is a fundamental imbalance in your therapist’s understanding of either partner. Some session may focus more on one person than another – that is not a big deal. You should feel that your therapist really gets you and your moves in your relationship and why you do them, and ditto for your partner. If you are working with a therapist and feel this imbalance, tell them. They will likely appreciate the opportunity to do a course correction and get to the heart of you both.

You could also ask practical questions as you are looking - like how many years they have been doing couples therapy and how many couples they have worked with. You could ask them what modality of couples therapy they use and what level of training they have in that modality. Most importantly, ask them if they are certified by the body that oversees that modality. You don’t want a therapist who has had a little taste of this and that approach but who has not truly mastered any of them.

And the most important thing of all, is make sure you feel very comfortable with the therapist. Are they getting you? Are they truly present with you in the room, especially emotionally? Do you feel that they genuinely care about you and your relationship.  A good relationship like this is the most predictive aspect of a successful outcome to couples therapy. Make sure you have it or move on!