Does Couples Therapy Make Things Worse? A must-watch for couples!
Here's what usually happens when people go to couples counseling and there's an addiction involved. Naturally, the person with an addiction problem doesn't want to discuss it. They're incredibly defensive about it, and if you bring it up in a couple's counseling session, that person will feel very much ganged up on whether they are or not, they're going to feel backed into a corner. Guess what will happen? They're going to quit going, and the only other option would be not to bring up the person's addiction. In that case, why are we ignoring the big elephant in the room?
Suppose the counselor doesn't realize this vast giant addiction problem is happening. In that case, they're probably going to be giving lots of bad advice because they're going to be working on the wrong things, even though I don't think that traditional couples counseling is beneficial when it comes to one or more other partners having an addiction I am a big believer in the idea that the whole family system...
How To Talk Someone Into Making A Positive Change
If you want to learn how to communicate effectively with someone to motivate them to make a positive change, use these techniques:
- Let them bring up the problem first (change talk)
- Ask when they became aware there was an issue. Example: "What makes you think there's a problem? Or What happened to make you realize there's a problem? Or When did you become aware that this wasn't working for you?"
- Reflect on their issue with empathy.
- Ask for an example of the problem they're dealing with
- Validate their feelings with a reflection statement
- Ask what they're afraid might happen. (What's the roadblock?)
- Be relatable but don't steal the attention
- Say it before they think it
- Extract...
