Couples counseling is NOT the same as individual. Whether you're a client or a therapist, there are some key considerations to keep in mind. In this transcribed episode of the Shrink Think Podcast, Nathan and Aaron discuss the main differences between individual and couples counseling and how to get the most out of your sessions.
Aaron Potratz:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Shrink Think podcast. I'm trying to use different intonation. Hey everyone, welcome to the Shrink Think podcast. Let's
Nathan Hawkins:
Stop there.
Aaron Potratz:
I need to work on it sounding more natural and turning it off. I don't know why this episode didn't get any listens beyond 10 seconds because they did not want to listen. Oh, the whole for the RAs of the time. Exactly. And if you're just listening, you have to watch the video. Go to our YouTube channel and watch the video of Nathan saying that it was good. It's worth it. Well, okay, so we are going to talk today about couples counseling. Many of you may know that this is the Shrink Think podcast. If you don't, how in the world did you find us Shrink Think podcast, somebody else put it in your phone. That sounds good. Beep. You were at work and you found your phone and you're like, what's this? Somebody put in Shrink Think podcasts. Okay, I guess I'll listen.
Nathan Hawkins:
I think that actually has happened to some people
Aaron Potratz:
Probably. And you know what? If it hasn't one of those people, try it out. Grab somebody's phone, search up the Shrink Think podcast and just subscribe on their phone please.
Nathan Hawkins:
They'll love you for it.
Aaron Potratz:
Exactly.
Nathan Hawkins:
Probably not true. Then listen to our episode on remorse.
Aaron Potratz:
Exactly.
So I'm bringing up the Shrink Think podcast because we also have this service, this other company that's called Shrink Think, right? Shrink think.com/podcast. But shrink think is our educational videos service that we have that we sell to therapists and we want clients to watch all these videos to essentially learn how to orient to therapy. And so today we're actually talking about orienting couples to counseling because it's one thing if you're an individual to go to therapy, it's like, well, what do we talk about? How do you know what to say? All that kind of stuff. And we've broken that down on this podcast before, and I think we've talked about couples counseling on some level, but not a ton. This is actually orienting you to couples counseling. What do I need to know going in? And I think you said originally, which I really liked. It's like, yeah, this is why we need to talk about it. It's not just one person multiplied or copied and pasted and it's like, okay, just do that twice. It's a lot more complex than that individual
Nathan Hawkins:
Counseling times two.
Aaron Potratz:
It is not that. So this is actually, if you're a listener and you're just a client, maybe you're going to couples counseling or considering going absolutely, this is for you. And if you're a therapist listening, this is absolutely for you as well because these are things that if you haven't done couples counseling before, these are things that are great for you to know. Or if you have done it, then maybe these are good reminders of things that maybe you've forgotten or just maybe it's just validation for things that you're already doing.
Nathan Hawkins:
So there's a substantial difference as a therapist between couples counseling and individual counseling. Most therapists and I tell clients about this when they go like, Hey, I think I'm going to go to couples counseling. Do they have a recommendation? And I'm like, I do have a couple. But the reality is there's a couple of key differences right up the bat. A
Aaron Potratz:
Couple of key differences with
Nathan Hawkins:
Couples
Aaron Potratz:
Counseling.
Nathan Hawkins:
See what I did there? Anyway, one of those is that a lot of therapists are very intimidated by couples counseling. They don't want to do it. So it really is a niche because therapists come, I'm not doing that. I'm going to have more than one person in the room. I don't know what to do with that. And then on the other side, there's this little thing called insurance, which there is a debate I think in therapy land around how to bill, what to bill and all that kind of, there is a specific way to do it. We don't necessarily need to get into all that, but that's the other side of the coin.
Aaron Potratz:
And just the bottom line I think with insurance is insurance does not cover couples counseling, insurance. If you have a relationship and you're like, we have relationship issues and we want to bill for the relationship or whatever, insurance does not typically cover that specifically, but if you're trying to go and bring your partner in to deal with some other issues, you can definitely talk to a therapist about it. We're not going to get into the nuances of it, but that's just the bottom line that everyone needs to know is you can't bill for relationship counseling.
Nathan Hawkins:
Think of it like this too is you can bill because you got a broken leg, it's your broken leg, you can't bill because your family's stressed out about the broken leg, right? Mike can we have a lot of stress in our family, so we would like that to be paid for by the broken leg insurance. No, I just wanted to clarify the relationship component. They have to do specific issues, but with couples counseling as a therapist, it is different work. You are way more active. So therapists for example, that like to do triage, they have worked maybe in an emergency situation and working with psychological issues that are on the fly. Those therapists, if they haven't considered it, I would say you probably would dig couples counseling because popcorn's around quite a bit. I mean you are managing a lot that's in the room
Aaron Potratz:
And that's what you're used to doing in the ER or those urgent care situations.
Nathan Hawkins:
And on the other side, some therapists, there is a more full perspective with couples counseling. It's interesting because when you get to where you're the couples counselor and then these people have two individual counselors and those individual counselors are calling you and saying, well, this really needs to happen because of blah, blah, blah. And you're in your mind going like, okay, well number one, first of all, you do have to get permission from your entire couple from both people to talk to one person's individual therapist because there's no way you can have that conversation. Actually, it can be done, but it's difficult
Aaron Potratz:
Because essentially what you're doing is if client is, we're talking about Bill and Sally here and we're going to talk to Bill's individual therapist. You can't release Sally's private information or anything that Sally has said in this session without Sally's permission, even though you're talking about Bill's individual therapy and vice versa. If we're talking to Sally and her therapist, then we can't release anything about Bill to Sally's therapist unless both have consented.
Nathan Hawkins:
So where I was going with that, and even as it's funny, as we do this, we're going to run into this, oh yeah, there is this one more thing couples counseling. But the interesting thing is as a therapist with an individual client, which we've done a gajillion times ourselves, there is one perspective, just one that you're hearing, and it can be entirely different. I'll give you one example, and this doesn't happen in every single, I don't do couples counseling the same way all the time. I just don't do it that way at some kind of program or whatever. So sometimes I'll bring one person in for one or two sessions or what will happen is a person will come and they will want couples counseling and they will say, okay, I'd want to see if this is going to work or not. I will tell them, that's fine, but I can't see you more than a couple times without this other person coming in because it's no longer going to work. They're going to think that you and I are in cahoots and now we've got a big thing against them and whatever.
Aaron Potratz:
This whole alliance, therapeutic alliance balance that we're trying to hold at all times, if you have too much contact experience, whatever, too many sessions with one person that gets imbalanced towards that one person. And it's not necessarily that we as the couples counselors are on anybody's side. It's not like we're intentionally choosing that. We just have had more experience with that person. We know you better and we have more comfort. We've worked together more and that is going to be felt.
Nathan Hawkins:
And then in my example, the first person that comes in is the husband
Aaron Potratz:
And no, never didn't happen. Sorry, that's a not realistic example.
Nathan Hawkins:
Well, in this situation,
Aaron Potratz:
I just am so concerned about my marriage. My wife doesn't want to come to counseling. I really want to work on us. I believe in our relationship.
Nathan Hawkins:
Well, that's true, but you've had this happen where the wife did find me in this scenario, but it was never going to work unless the husband felt like it was okay and get on board. So he basically went like, okay, I'll go first, because he was going to be the X factor. So he gets on, he's explaining stuff and as he's explaining things and how the different emotional emotionality going on, I actually came to the conclusion after the second time I met with him. I'm like, man, his wife actually might have borderline personality disorder in my mind because there were certain things that he was saying that I was like, there's simply no way that, I mean, he's not making this up. He doesn't even know that what he's saying sounds like this other disorder. It's not like he's trying to characterize her in a certain way and secretly get me to on board. And so anyways, this goes down and I'm like, no, Nate, don't buy. Don't buy in anything. You've done this long enough. And so she comes in and at first for the first half hour I'm like, man, it still could be there. But after a while, it came to basically what she's a person who wears all her emotions on her sleeve just out there with everything. And it's just a personality thing. It had nothing to do with anything other than just being her personality type. It's not
Aaron Potratz:
A personality disorder thing, it's just a personality.
Nathan Hawkins:
That's it. And she only has one, which is going to be
Aaron Potratz:
Not a multiple personality
Nathan Hawkins:
Thing. So I give the example because I'm telling you, if you haven't done couples counseling, and one of the things that can happen is when you see that separation and they come in, it's like you are in, it hurts your brain because everything that you thought is not happening all of a sudden.
Aaron Potratz:
Well, okay, and I'll just give this another little flavor of an example. You and I have actually worked with I think maybe just one if not a couple of clients where you were seeing one individual. I was seeing the other individual, and then we came together, the four of us, because they each wanted their individual therapist to be in the session to be like, Hey, my partner is triggering me and I need your help to help me when I'm interacting with this person. And I will never forget. It's like you see one version of the person individually, and then the partner is in the room and all of a sudden you're looking at a completely different person. You're like, whoa, the partner just brings out a completely different side of this individual that you thought you knew that is just very, very different that you just don't see. And they don't see it. They might know that they're a little bit activated or we get into more heated than I normally would or whatever. But it's like if you are that individual person in the relationship, it's like you can't see objectively, you can't see outside yourself, and then you can't describe what that is like. But if you're the couples counselor, you're seeing it and you're like, wow, okay, this is very different. So I think this is what you're referring to is that couples can be very different from the individual sessions.
Nathan Hawkins:
I will do couples counseling when I say this, I mean triage in situations where I've worked with the individual for a long time and they have some major blowup. Usually it's like an affair or something like that. I have to bring him on just for one. I just need to be able to say these things. I can't do it without, can't do it by myself. He's not going to listen, whatever. But I'd been working with a person for years, knew this person super well. You thought you knew that. And very reflective, super mental health forward, very understanding of themselves. You challenge like, yep, I totally do that. This person gets on the phone. And it was like somebody went game on and it was like, what? I mean they went off. It turned into this whole melee and I'm sitting there going, wait, wait, wait. I don't even know who you are. So the reason I'm bringing all this up is because couples counseling is not individual times two.
Aaron Potratz:
And this is why you're saying you need to be more active or be more directive because that kind of stuff can go down. And it's not necessarily, I mean, you don't want that to happen if you are the couple's counselor, your job is to maintain a sense of safety in the room for everybody, everybody to share what they need to share, but also safe feeling what they feel. And if there are these melee attacks where things are getting out of hand, it's your job to step in and say, okay, hold on. Time out. Which does right. Couples can get into it or somebody can start just really jabbing at the other person. You're like, okay, this is not okay.
Nathan Hawkins:
Yeah, I've sent people out of the room.
Aaron Potratz:
Exactly. If you cannot continue to communicate in a respectful way towards your partner, then we need to break this up and you need to get out of the room. And then we need to talk about later on how to do this moving forward in a way that can be safe for everybody. So you've got this job as a couple's counselor that's an individual comes into the room. Obviously everybody is like, I'm going to create a safe, warm, loving, non-judgmental space for you where you can share all them things. That's easy. But when it's a couple, it's not just, oh, I want to create a safe warm space. It's like, okay, everybody, you go to your corner, you go to your corner and I will dinging the bell when it's safe to, you do sometimes need to be a lot more structured with that. And that's not to say that you need to be that structured, but sometimes you need to be able to and ready to do that.
Because here's the other thing with couples counseling, you're not just looking at the individual times two, you're looking at two individuals and the dynamic between them. And so as a couple's counselor or if you, you're part of the couple, the counselor is looking at each person, okay, what are you trying to say? What might you be feeling? What is it that you're trying to get from? What's your emotional need going on here? And then they're trying to assess that for both partners, but then they're also looking and observing at how the other person is responding to those bids. And that's a whole dynamic that's not just about the one individual.
Nathan Hawkins:
Yep. It's the other side of that where I think some of what you're going, at least you've set me up T-ball, is we're also trying to consider whether or not the other person can receive what it is that they're saying. So it might be frustrating for you as a client sometimes thinking, why can't I just say whatever this happens to be? Because your therapist is resisting that a little bit. And the resistance is probably, and I would say only coming from the perspective of your partner probably is not in a place to be able to receive that yet. There's more work to be done in order for you to actually be heard.
Aaron Potratz:
And so if you were the person that's speaking, you might have the experience where you're trying to talk, but you're being stopped or stifled or shut down by the therapist, the couple's counselor. Because what you're saying, Nate, is maybe your partner can't receive it. And if you keep going, I always like to say you can't convince somebody of something they don't want to be convinced about. But if you continue to try to convince them, it's just going to push them away and cause them to shut down more. And so your couples counselor may actually be stopping that before it gets too late.
Nathan Hawkins:
And there are situations with my own stuff, I'll tell people I literally said stuff that one person will understand and the other person won't care or will say something like, I understand where you're going right now
Aaron Potratz:
And it's important.
Nathan Hawkins:
Yep. It's an important place to be. And I agree with you, it needs to come out of there. You need to say it and it's probably, I'm going to need you to be more patient because it's going to be a different timeframe than you would. It's just going to be, but I'm not going to necessarily say in that situation because he can't handle it. I'm not going to say that exactly,
Aaron Potratz:
But that's kind of what's happening. Right?
Nathan Hawkins:
Right. So couples counseling, again, we've talked about it, not the same. So the other component for you as a couple, when you're deciding whether or not you want to do couples counseling, it does matter the vibe of the therapist and whether or not they can quite frankly vibe with you. I mean, there are strong personalities sometimes and there's strong personalities as couples. I mean, I feel like the few couples, it's like the microphone came down out of the ceiling and it was like, let's good Rudy to rumble. And I'm like, wait, no, we're not doing the game here. And you have to step in. And I think a lot of therapists do understand that being that assertive and confident does matter. And if you're a therapist with a lot of imposter syndrome, you're not going to want to do couples
Aaron Potratz:
Counseling. It's going to feel like you're just completely exposed. These people are going at it and they know that I'm not capable. And in a certain sense, that's kind of what's happening. It doesn't mean you're not capable, it just means you're not stepping into that confidence. Right.
Nathan Hawkins:
Yeah. I would say this on a simplicity scale though, just from both the therapists and both also to couples, is that in reality, you're really just looking at a very potentially superficial dynamic. If you can actually just make a difference in communication where communication happens and you really, even if you just slow things down,
Aaron Potratz:
Which it needs to happen a lot in couples counseling, it's a
Nathan Hawkins:
Huge component. And teaching that type of way to communicate a lot happens in couples counseling very quickly. That does not happen in individual therapy, which is why a lot of you, couples counselors dig it and those couple counselors that are true blue are like, man, individual therapy just takes too long. And it's not exciting. Couples counseling is like, boom, we get stuff done. So that's kind of why it's kind super interesting and different.
Aaron Potratz:
So a couple things I want to kind of expand on just as we close out the episode here. You said you need to slow things down in couples counseling. On the one hand, it is very exciting because it is very dynamic. There's a lot happening. One person says one thing and then the other person can immediately have a big reaction or have a response that has all kinds of history that's going to it. And then the first person can then respond again and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And this is just in a matter of seconds. So in a sense, a lot can happen, but you need to be directive in the sense that when you're slowing it down, you might have to say, wait, what do you mean when you say that? Or you said this and your partner responded this way. What did you hear them say?
Right. This is just literally one little exchange that you might need to slow down and that can feel frustrating if you're the couple, but it's because you've just sort of taken for granted that the way you communicate is the way you communicate and that might actually need to change. So that's one thing. And then the other thing I want to also say that's very different is a lot of the time couples will want to speak to the couple's counselor and kind of like when you're like, let's get ready to rumble. It's kind of like, your honor,
My defendant, me did this. The plaintiff over there is the one that whatever. It's like, we're not the judge here. We're not the one that's deciding. I mean, yes, we step in and we can validate certain things obviously, but it's really important for you as the couple to communicate with each other because otherwise then you're against each other looking to us, the couple's counselor, to sort of solve your problems. And again, there might need to be some structure that gets put in place there, some kind of parsing through stuff, but ultimately it's your relationship and you too need to work on communicating with each other, responding to each other because when you're at home and you're talking to each other, there ain't no therapist there. I mean, I've tried to figure out a way to be on call so I can be in your ear. Well, that's easy
Nathan Hawkins:
Just by
Aaron Potratz:
The phone number, those spy sort of movies or whatever. But it, it's not going to happen. You need to be able to know how to speak for yourself to your partner when you're activated.
Nathan Hawkins:
One unabashed plug, I know we're running a little short on time, but I do want to say there's a couple of times where a couples therapy is probably not for you, and the biggest one is domestic violence. If you have active domestic violence in the relationship, couples therapy is not where you are going. You are to individual therapy. And for couples counselors out there, counselors that maybe don't think them themselves as couples counselors, but they see couples go to shrink think.com. Unabashed plug, I believe, did a great job orienting couples with our videos to therapy. We do a lot for you. So your couple is ready to come in and get to work, and they understand what couples therapy is way more than what we've talked about today.
Aaron Potratz:
Oh yeah. We took everything we talked about in this 20 minutes and we expanded it into an hour, like multiple videos, multiple different modules about it. Yeah,
Nathan Hawkins:
I am really proud of it, honestly. So with that little campers 90 night, have a great day.
Aaron Potratz:
Thanks for listening to our show. Don't forget to head over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast, to leave us a review and subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also visit our website at https://www.shrinkthink.com/email-course-signup and sign up for our free email course, nine Ways to Overcome Fear and Self-Doubt. You'll get nine weeks worth of customized, practical strategies you can use to get past the fear that's holding you back in your life. Thanks again for listening.
