Bart and Susan: (Second Interview - Part1) How does a couples therapist help a couple to find each other in the void?

A NOTE FROM JASON:

Hello and thanks for listening.  So far this season we met our first couple, Bart and Susan, and then listened in on my consultation session with Hans Stahlschmidt. 

It’s now time to hear a follow up session with Bart and Susan.  

In the first interview with Bart and Susan, we heard the couple describe the very different ways they manage emotions and how this was keeping them from being able to build a solid foundation for a future together.  They used a metaphor of boxes and how Bart puts emotional overwhelm into boxes and Susan has no boxes at all.  They described how this leads to arguments, shutdowns and hurt feelings that keep big things like “money, work and time” from ever being figured out.  

In consultation, Hans helped me to see that they were describing ways that they both feel alone during times of great stress, how these are likely patterns developed in their early childhoods and how this leaves them vulnerable to feeling inadequate in their current relationship.  He then helped me to think through ways that couple therapy could help them to learn to undo old patterns and dare to risk trusting deeply in each other.

In this second interview, that process of undoing old patterns and learning to deepen trust has progressed, however, it is not easy going.  As Bart learns to open boxes, he becomes more hopeful that he can change.  As Susan puts her feelings into boxes she begins to feel hopeless that things are going to change enough to satisfy both of their needs.  Susan waits for Bart to change with worries about a void between them and the question of will they be able to find each other quickly enough to stay together becomes the focus of the couple's clinical interview.

That should give you some context for the first half of the second couple clinical with Bart and Susan. The next three episodes are going to consultation interviews that wrap up my work with Bart and Susan.

ABOUT SEASON 2 of HUMAN NURTURE:

Hosted by Jason Brand, LCSW a practicing couples therapist in Berkeley, California.  

In Season 2 of Human Nurture we will cover PACT in Training.  PACT stands for a Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy and has a reputation for effectively helping the most challenging situations that come up between couples.  

This season, we will answer the question, "How does a couples therapist learn to help with THAT?!?"  

"THAT?!?" could be any challenge that a couple brings into counseling-- from infidelity, to arguments about money, to processing past trauma, to decisions about the health and well being of a child. 

This season gives an insider's view to the world of couples therapy through interviews with actual couples and consultation interviews with other expert PACT therapists.  If you are a couples therapist looking to sharpen your skills, or if you are just curious about how couples therapists learn to do their job, tune into this season of Human Nurture.