Strengths-Based Couples Therapy: Focusing on the hopes rather than the hurts
Since its inception in the 1940s, the field of Couples Therapy has generated many different approaches. In the beginning, very many of these theories (just as all theories at that time) viewed people and relationships has broken and in need of fixing. The therapist would seek to identify the problem areas within the relationship and help the couples to fix that by changing or modifying how they were interacting. To this day, there are still very many people who conceptualize Couples Therapy in this way.
These old theories essentially saw the relationship as broken and to be fixed.
This approach, while very well intended, can lead to a lot of unwanted consequences:
Can lead people to feel fearful about beginning Couples Therapy because they don’t want their flaws or brokenness to be pointed out.
It can cause members of the couple to blame each other for the ways that the relationship is “broken”.
It can lead to hopelessness when the “fixes” the therapist brings to the table don’t work for every client
For these reasons, a different approach emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
This approach is called the Strengths-Based Lens.
Instead of focusing only on the problems, where a couple is broken, the main point of these conversations are the strengths, where the couple is doing things well already.
The majority of the time most couples have at least some parts of the relationship that are functioning quite well. We are able to look at that part that is functioning really well and from there delineate a plan of how to expand that well-functioning.
We don’t ignore the problems, but we do allow space for the strengths to emerge. Even in the most painful parts of relationships (experiencing an infidelity, after a job loss, in the midst of huge life transitions), there are really amazing things that happen within relationships.
We focus not on “where it went wrong” be but instead on “how we want it to be.”
To summarize the Strengths-Based Approach to couples therapy:
Together with the therapist, the couple examines their relationship for where things are going well already.
While they do not ignore the problem, they use the strengths pre-existing within the relationship in order to help navigate the changes that they want
The focus of the therapy is not on placing blame or judgment on either party after relationship, but rather holding them to the higher standard that they each they bring to the table
The goals are set not in terms of what needs to stop in the relationship, but rather in terms of what the hopes of the couple
The goals for therapy are customized to fit that relationship and therapy is guided by the virtues and values that the partners each hold
If you (or someone you know) would benefit from a Strengths-Based Approach to Couples Therapy, give me a call. If I’m not a good fit, I’ll help you find someone who is!
Phone: 713-291-9553
I am only available to serve clients in Texas