Overview of Developmental Model

I would shift attention to his anxiety and work with it either by helping him calm down before we continue (so he doesn't become disregulated) or using a mindfulness
approach to move more deeply into his experience of fear.

It seems that your empathic comment “And when you feel as frightened as you do right now, you aren’t able to get to know your wife better” freed up the husband a bit and allowed him to be curious about his wife. he was able to ask questions about her experience of being on her own. I think it would depend on how he responded to your comment “Your wife seems to want some time off, some relaxed time.” if he pulled back, I might stop and check in with him to see how he was feeling and try to explore his fear. If he continued to be curious about his wife's need for time off, I would continue down that path.

i would offer the husband a positive comment in reference to his asking his wife “Would you want to go to an expensive restaurant?”
Evidently, he is “catching on” somewhat to what it means to inquire about his wife's thinking. I would try and build on that small bit and encourage that kind of inquiry from him.
His fears, I think, may be calmed a bit by experiecing his wife's responses.
They have had a different vision of marriage, maybe for a long time. At some point, I would explore that and see what the similarities and differences are and what that means in terms of how they might structure their relationship.
I am concerned that the communication may need to precede the “deeper” emotional connection. Seems to me like the emotional connection follows the communication. Of course, that may not be true for all couples and I would have to find out how that has worked for them.

I have no idea how that “face” got in my comment! It has no meaning, I assure you.
And, Ellyn, I also like your comment about the husband's
being frightened “right now” and how that affects him.
I would think that those comments help to build trust with him.
The wife, of course, needs help in being more clear about her feelings. They trip all over each other not to run into conflict and so they must end up “conflicted” and uneasy and not knowing each other.

I think if there were time in the session I would encourage the husband to stay with his fear (with his permission), allow it to intensify by exploring the wife's desires and access deeper emotional responses with a view to facilitating partners' greater understanding and empathy for the other.

I would absolutely take the opportunity to stay with the husband's fears and help him to explore early experiences that may be driving his adult reactions. Perhaps in doing so he can learn to tolerate his wife's expression of herself and not view them as threatening.

This couple strikes me as more enmeshed than disengaged…severely lacking self-differentiation. I see major developmental deficits in the interchange. Husband cannot tolerate the idea of a separate self in his wife, and is threatened by anything that would suggest this: her wanting time off, wanting to be with friends rather than with him, her even having needs outside the marriage/family or expressing them. He seems to suffer from a deep sense of self-invalidation, and any hint of his wife being separate or different seems to heighten this insecurity. I see him “outsourcing” a vital ego function (self-validation) to the relationship/wife, looking to the outside for the missing validation. When that outside resource does not mirror him adequately, that is devastating, even terrifying to him. Small wonder he is so fearful!

As for the wife, it's hard to tell at this juncture whether she herself lacks a sense of identity or is in touch with her needs, or has learned to hide it, fearing her husband's insecure response, which has already surfaced abundantly in the I-I dialogue. Can she be reproached for her timidity which has ample justification based on his fear-based responses? She may be asphyxiated by this need-to-merge relationship, but may not possess any more self-differentiaion (or self-validation) than her spouse. It has been observed that individuals tend to choose a partner at the same level of self-differentiation.

This situation strikes me as intrapsychic (individual) issues/deficits seeking a relational solution. It never works when the solution is sought in the wrong domain.

As far as interventions, I would explore for negative self-cognitions that fuel their insecurities, making the unconscious assumptions conscious. In addition to teaching how to recognize and counter negative self beliefs, I would help them learn to self-validate (I'm borrowing from Schnarch here) as well as validate each other. Once they acquire a stronger sense of self (not mainly dependent on being mirrored), the next major task is for the couple to learn to stay connected even while experiencing differences…in other words, learn differentiation. The I-I dialogue is a great venue to achieve this.

I am excited by the various interventions I have read in the comments to date. And each has sound thinking behind it. I feel like each of you has contributed to my thinking from more angles than I would alone.

As I try to imagine myself with this couple, my inclination would be to acknowledge and honor the husband's shift to exploring his wife's feelings, and encourage him by commenting on how what he is doing is one of the most difficult things to do in a relationship–and also how it is crucial to growing closeness and emotional intimacy. I would name what he is doing–holding his feelings separate enough to be curious about his wife's experience—and encourage him to inquire a bit further. And then, monitoring his fear, checking in with him, before he might become overwhelmed, I would ask his wife how it feels to have her husband asking her about her feelings and exhibiting interest in her experience—Depending on what is happening then, how open they each are, I would share my excitement at their having been able to communicate VS defend their territory. I might summarize toward the end of the session, that we can explore underneath each of their protective patterns, to better understand what triggers his fear of abandonment and her sense of feeling engulfed.

Hi,
I would be interested to see if hearing his wife's answers as well as your normalizing comment of “your wife seems to want some time off” calmed him. If it had a soothing affect I might continue another few minutes with helping him being curious about his wife's need for freedom. Perhaps prompting him to ask her why having freedom to just relax is so valuable to her. This might help him feel less anxious about this trip.
If he seemed still very anxious than I would move to try to help him. This help would have to be in a form that calmed him. Maybe ask him what he hears his wife saying (a re-cap). I found your statement interesting about not letting his fears be crippling. I think it would be key to keep this going,so he could feel in the session how to begin to manage his fears better.
Janae

Hello! Have any of you ever attended couples counseling? Would you mind talking about it? It's for an article on taking couples counseling while dating. If so, please respond to this comment. Thanks!

experience speaks volume here: both are illustrating the same and the solution is evident.
The cause of the symptom which is so pervasive and disguises its' true self as fear and doubt, close cousins, fright, afraid, conflict, rebellion, resistance, not to be forgotten the Grand-daddy of them all anxiety, as well as so many other faces.
Simple solution; only requires both to make a fundamental shift from their emotional attachments to their self interests to an understanding of how to(look/see here – listen/hear now)give and forgive, the learned response of operating from a place of love within the heart.
Unless they get centred; get out of their heads; find one something to agree on which will have them facing the same direction; there is power in agreement, here now they can begin operating from a place of peace. Otherwise their outcome is easily predictable; and it is not pretty.
“Love and PEACE are not emotions, rather the way of life.” Bill

I would want to help him stay with his wife’s experience a little more. Even if he doesn't completely succeed, it would create a little “milestone experience” to which we could go back in future sessions. I think it would be good for both of them to experience a little of the differentiation stress in the protected therapy setting. I think interspersing comments and questions about his fear when he gets disregulated could help him to stay engaged longer with the Inquirer role. We would go back and forth (from wife's experience to his own fears)

Hi Ellyn,
Thanks a lot for sharing this transcript of yours. I loved it.
The husband seems to be in pursuit of a symbiotic relationship, whereas the woman has some individuation needs separate from the relationship. I very much liked how you dealed with the husband's fear in a progressive way rather than regressively, or to quote from you, refusing to allow it to be crippling.
I would first stroke the husband by pointing out that he stepped out of his safety zone in spite of his fears of rejection and loss. I would say something like that he is beginning to have a glance at his wife's needs which are different than his. I would also add that this is entirely normal, that partners in an intimate relationship inevitably begin to experience their differences sooner or later, that he shouldn't take what she says personally (as I learned from you in the training course). Then I would also stroke the wife as she also stepped out of her safety zone by beginning to verbalize her desires. After giving the message that what happens here is perfectly normal and developmentally necessary for their relationship, I would inquire about their reactions. If they seem to connect with what I say, I might say, let's continue a bit more with getting into your wife's world and then we'll recap and discuss what has happened here.
Ümit

Wow, so good to read. I think I often take direct communication for granted and think of it as being so easy. so when I’m in session I may sometimes assume people can communicate in ways that they have never done before. Good self awareness for me.

In reading this I see the wife so afraid to express her desires b/c of husbands need to mask differences. The wife is trying to differentiate and this is threatening to the husband who is trying to maintain a symbiotic relationship.

Wife avoids expressing feelings and desires to avoid conflict with husband and withdraws from the relationship possibly from built up anger and resentment.

The husband needs to figure out how to maintain self even when wife is away and wants to pursue her own interests. And also begin to define himself, his own thoughts, desires and interests. Husband has difficulty managing time apart which indicates a low level of differentiation.

Hi Ellyn
The wife would like to differentiate but she seems frightened of her husband's responses and his possible tendency to interpret her request as a sign of rejection. The initiator inquirer model could work well to perhaps promote empathy.
Ellyn, I so admire the way you work. Your skills show so much in this one.
I have just completed my second year and plan to continue.
Cheers
Bev

After 11 years of raising kids their relationship seems to be shifting…the husband sounds passsive, oral, enmeshed …the wife might fear she might hurt him by rejection, doesn't really sound like trauma fear on her part…would work to help him be more assertive, to work on self esteem…he could be anxious preoccuppied having trouble understanding wife's assertion, which could be framed as a great wake-up for the relationship. Hard to say without more info…
Let's see where this goes Ellen.
Michael

What I notice is how hard it is for the husband to put himself in the inquirer mode, and I see this a lot with couples. He very much wants to problem-solve and fix the situation. In this sense the I-I process has been so helpful for me to use with couples because it creates an entirely different way for them to experience each other–just learning to empathize, and to manage their anxiety about differentiating in the process.
For him to begin to hear her feelings without taking it personally is so difficult. Developmentally, he needs to be able to tolerate his anxiety when she talks about her feelings, and learn that being empathic can create a new level of richness in their marriage.
And she would benefit by developing a clearer sense of her own feelings, and then be able to feel safe expressing them, which is another great outcome that the I-I can lead to.

It seems both are afraid. He of losing the symbiosis with her and she at hurting or receiving criticism from him. This makes their communication VERY passive and limited. I like how you kept asking the wife deeper questions Ellyn, so that the husband could hear (and possibly) understand.

This couple both have fears of expressing their needs & desires. It sounds as if the wife doesn't want to appear as if she wants too much (ex: craving as a corrected feeling, making too many lists at home, taking up space with too much talking, etc)….maybe she fears her husband's anger in regards to wanting something more that he can't provide (freedom & fun). The husband expresses being fearful of rejection. I wonder where else in the relationship he feels rejected. (Fear of not being enough for her). They each fear losing the symbiosis. I wonder what it would mean to acknowledge that the relationship can't always meet all of their needs and that time apart could be as nourishing as time spent together. This would be the beginning of moving in the direction of differentiation.

The central dynamics seem to me to be; the wife is having some thoughts of wanting to differentiate as demonstrated by her bringing up the trip but is very timid about asserting her thoughts to husband. The husband admitted he sees her request as a rejection of him which leads me to think he is symbiotic and feels a threat at wife's attempts to differentiate. She commented on how she was afraid he would get mad if she continued to talk about it which may be true or it may be a projection on her part of her anxiety about differentiating. I would want to check this out more. Also husband's ending commenting about how much fun they have at home clearly was expressing his desire she not leave/differentiate.
They appear to be a symbiotic/symbiotic couple with her attempting to differentiate.
Looking forward to more!
Janae

I agree with what others have said about the symbiosis of the couple at this stage- avoiding conflict as if hurting the other person is equal to hurting themself.
I am aware for my own part of how easy it would be for me to follow the husband's ‘reasonable' request and miss the opportunity to help the couple communicate at a deeper level.

In addition to many observations made by folks above, I am immediately wondering about family of origin issues for each of them. Off-the-cuff guesses might be an enmeshed parent for her and a critical parent for him? Not sure, of course, but I'm interested to know when/if you might investigate family of origin with them, and how to help them discover the links for themselves. A growth edge for me is definitely learning a more subtle art of leading them to self-discovery versus a heavier emphasis on presenting them with alternatives.

Looking forward to seeing more!

I am happy to see you thinking and writing responses. I especially like comments like Jim's about the “reasonable request”. I believe it is so important for us to continually ask ourselves how we can facilitate our clients going to those places that scare them, but help them reorganize at a higher level of differentiation.
Keep those comments coming-
Ellyn

I'm kind of new to this approach. I appreciate getting the chance to be part of this. I noticed Jim's comment as well. In my mind i see the husband as being a good “guilter”, to keep his wife where he's comfortable. I would have done the opposite of Jim, and wondered how he views a dinner with the family as equivalent to a few days away with friends?

I am also new to this approach and agree with most about the couple's individual stages, he is still in symbiotic stage, she wants to differentiate. Is this, however, a main problem in this relationship? In the hx above is stated ” they have no emotional or sexual intimacy.” From this point of view husband's timid request for a trip together makes more sense; build the emotional closeness first before fixing communication. Does anyone remember Leo Buscalia and his approach to teaching “LOVE”? I feel that the husband is rightfully threatened by his wife's request for differentiation if there is no emotional closeness. Also his feelings are not being recognized as if his feelings were wrong and her's were right by default. ????

Thank you Ellyn for posting this transcript: I always learn so much when I “see” your interventions.

Some capacities that might help this couple would be:

Wife: She could learn to accept/feel more comfortable with the fact that her husband feels threatened, rejected, angry.. and keep expressing her needs/desires despite her own anxiety.

Husband: He could learn to tolerate more his own discomfort so he can introspect and understand better what it means about himself and his needs.

I agree that both partners at the symbiosis stage of development with the wife struggling to move on to differentiation. After this many years of being together, I'd like to explore what is going on with the husband that he's not yet moved on to differentiation. In what ways has she been enabling him to stay stuck? With just this much dialog, I hear fear under his controlling and inability to hear her. I think I'd want to do some individual work with him to help bring to light what may be deeper issues that's preventing him from being supportive of her attempts towards differentiation.

I would throw that question to the couple. What could they do to build a closer emotional closeness?
Giving each the chance to express emotional desires and what would block each from providing those needs. Initially this would provide an opportunity for each to be heard and we would work on having each feel understood.

It's great being able to read others responses. At this point, I would likely shift to focusing on the husband's experience of what is happening for him as his wife describes her vacation. If he can tune into his fear and connect it to something familiar in his past this could be the beginning of him recognizing why he becomes so triggered when his wife expresses a want or need different from his. In this way he would gain a visceral understanding of his reaction that can help him in future discussions/confrontations with his wife. Recognizing the feeling in his body can help him “remember” how to respond more effectively when next he gets triggered (because he surely will!)

“Often your expectations are rooted in how you saw your parents do things or what you experienced in a previous relationship”.

And from what you learned watching Friends.

was wondering how you would handle a response that sounds like,” I don't want it to become my desire, I want it to become my spouses desire!!”?

I love that reframing of the client's expectation into a desire. For me, where this gets particularly challenging is with particularly undifferentiated couples (symbiotic/symbiotic), where they both carry high expectation for their needs being met by the other yet are terrified to rock the boat by addressing how that pressure feels to each other.

Could you elaborate on your comment where you said ” yet are terrified to rock the boat….”

Hi -it's Pete with a strange login name.
Handling a response like – “I want my partner to want xxx”
this is not a simple intervention because you are going to deflate some serious symbiotic expectations. And most of the time they will resist having those expectations deflated and will also resist getting out of the passivity that drives the expectation.

A beginning statement to the passive person, could be something like, “Wouldn't relationships be so much easier if our partner simply wanted what we want them to do? We make a request and the partner readily agrees. Would that be relationship heaven or what? But alas, humans seem not to be wired that way. Apparently relationships take more effort than we make a request and they respond with some degree of enthusiasm.

However there is a way that you might be able to influence your partner. Take a moment or two and think of how you could make your request that motivates your partner to want to respond to you with desire-energy or passion. You will need to make some effort to think about their interests, values, concerns, desires, hopes, fears, or insecurities.

Then you can approach your partner and say, Honey, I'm not one of those people who just make a wish, request or demand and then sit back and wait for the miracle. No sir, I'm not that passive. So here's the deal. I would like you to be enthusiastic about doing xxxx and to sweeten the deal, here is why you just might be interested in doing xxxx with high motivation…….”

this is an indirect but pretty strong confrontation of the passivity and symbiotic wish for partner change.

hope this helps
Pete

I use a similar intervention with very angry women and men who give up because “People don't change”. They often respond, surprised, with statements such as: “Dah, I was acting as if I didn't realize that just because I want something it doesn't mean he/she will deliver!” Or, “It does not mean he/she can know without me being clear about what I want”.

It is interesting that I used a related idea with a very conflictual couple today. I challenged them – after a ratherbitter confrontation to consider if at least part of their anger related to the fact that they each had such strong hopes and expectations of being cared for by the other person (and had experienced some part of this positive nurturance at some time in the relationship)that they could not understand why the other person could not “go the rest of the way”.

I guess there is an important piece here about unspoken promises and hopes.

Dear Ellyn,

I am so glad you got to see David Whyte. What a privilege, he has such an amazing presence.

David gave the keynote address at a conference for cancer survivorship I attended in Dublin last Spring and gave a mesmerising talk on questions around existence, particularly those that arise when someone is diagnosed with cancer.

I was entranced as he repeated lines over and over from his own poetry, and that of Mary Oliver, allowing the full meaning of his words to sink in. There's really good clips of David Whyte on YouTube.

I'd love if you could develop a little more on what David said about romance being the precursor to unilateral disarmament and also about the importance of the memory of the vow in marriage.

Warmly,
Nancy St John

Hi Ellyn,
I recently read the article you and Pete had written for the Psychotherapy Networker and loved what you wrote about the risks you took in doing couples work. I too have my fears about creating conflict situations in session. I had talked to a psychiatrist consultant about how to make therapy less volatile and conflict driven as it seemed that I was losing track of the sessions. His comment to me was to forget avoiding conflict because the conflict is there whether I am in the room or not. It was about my fears of how to manage seeing people argue and then feeling responsible to do something about it. I also had a fear of “doing more harm” as our professional code of ethics blatantly states that our duty is to “do no harm”. I did come to understand that if the couple is behaving in harmful ways in session, they are doing the same if not worse to each other when a therapist is not in the room to witness it. I took some training in conflict resolution and mediation process which helped me see conflict in a different light and which also gave me some tools to “sit” with the conflict rather than trying to solve it too quickly……I still struggle with this at times!

Hi Ellyn,
As you said in one of your clinical calls, clients coming in for individual therapy already display some ownership of the problem, while in couples therapy they are interested in fixing the other partner. This is one of the big challenges of couples therapy where our first task is to shift the couple from that position of lack of accountability. As we, therapists, usually like working with clients who are eager to look into themselves, it is understandable why we avoid doing couples therapy.
I loved your article for it is written in a so humble and transparent way, and it increases my awareness of the many reasons for the tendency to avoid couples therapy. Couples therapy means immediate vulnerability, immediate conflict, hostility, bitterness, pain, and hopelessness as shown succinctly by your case examples. When in couples therapy, we cannot escape from witnessing and experiencing these difficult emotions, while simultaneously trying to maintain our nonjudgmental attitude in the midst of it all and to decide on a direction. Sometimes, there seems no way out. Personally, I find it especially hard when one of the partners wants to get out of the marriage and the other does not want. Also, I used to feel uncomfortable with hostile couples, but have overcome it to some extent under the guidance of your training.
I understand from your article that it is our responsibility to invite more couples into our offices. The very structure of couples therapy gets directly into the heart of the relational problem, and helps people develop the necessary skills to meet the challenges of an intimate relationship in a relatively short time compared to individual therapy. Moreover, they get to know each other more completely in addition to going deeper into their true feelings.
Thanks Ellyn and Pete,
Ümit

Hi Ellyn,
Thank you once more for your newsletters, so enriching.
I many times came across the fear with fighting couples. Two reasons : (1) Transference : As a little boy I was terrified when my parents fought as I did not know what to do, because they had never resolved their conflicts, but rather covered these up. (2) Ignorance : as a little boy, I never witnessed any grown-up couples resolving their conflicts.
Today, I sit back, relax, and use in succession compassion and humor, back and forth. My strongest remedy : I keep telling myself that I do not have to stop them fighting. And I tell them so, also suggesting that the fight is more about testing the rope that unites them than about the stated reasons. If that gets their curiosity, we can move on. One of my dreams : Had I known this when I was a kid, no, nonono, I would not have tried that on them. Let their souls rest in peace. Thank you for your suggestion to remain calm, and to only do what can be done, when it appears possible.
Love to both of you,
With warm memories from your Sorrento workshop,
Salomon.

Ellen-

As a new participant in your training program, this email both challenged and thrilled me. I, too, find it challenging to bring my global consciousness (albeit limited I suspect)into the micro setting of my therapy office. I look forward to learning from you.

Safe travels.

Jane Mayer

I have thought about this issue often and reflect on my own life when thinking about it. The more comfortable our lives are, the more we pick at the “little” things as being uncomfortable. When our lives are full of suffering (I use this term in the existential sense), we appreciate the “little” things so much more. To have a pedicure when your life is so full of suffering, it is a huge, joyful experience. But when your lifestyle permits you to have pedicures every 2 to 4 wks, its no big deal. You lose your lust for life or as you describe, joy, resilience, and gratitude. I teach my clients about this, and lately, the ones I will call “existentially depressed,” I have been teaching them about the opposing forces and finding balance. You can't experience joy without suffering. They think they are suffering all the time. But getting out of bed or off the couch to do your chores, exercise, look for a job and other things that are not so pleasurable will make the laying on the couch or sleeping late so much more enjoyable. We'll see what they do with this.
Thanks for sharing. Always a pleasure to hear what you have been thinking about lately.
Regards, Elisa Linscott

Hi Ellyn,

What a beautiful story that has moved me deeply. Thank you for sharing and for being a person who can make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate. You inspire me to think bigger and to be better. Sue

Thank you for this post! I visited Kenya about 20 years ago and my mother was just in the Congo two weeks ago. You never forget the poverty nor the gratefulness for any kind of help you can offer. Your post is a good reminder of that and of working towards love and appreciation in relationships/couples therapy as well.

Elisa, Sue, Jane and Elizabeth-
Thanks so much. I'm glad to have some kindred spirits out there. And you will hear more, because I intend to stay involved and continue making a difference in this small part of the world where my small contributions(financially and practically) go a long way!
Ellyn

Thank you for sharing your inspiring experience. Upon reading it, I thought about how resilience can be cultivated. Cythia's touching story reminded me of Victor Frankl who wrote that he had survived the concentration camp through finding out / constructing meaning in his suffering. Actively looking for higher meanings and interpretations for a given life situation is one of the factors to enhance our resilience. Similarly, Baumeister points out, in Meanings of Life, the necessity to plan for an entire life so as to construct a coherent life story to transcend the immediate situation. To adapt it to couples therapy, our vision of our ideal marriage and of ourselves as ideal partners (which you taught us to talk with clients initially as part of goal setting) will encourage our building up resilience when facing the inevitable disappointments in relationships.
Ümit

Dear Ellyn,
I have just joined the training (2 days ago) and, to be honest, I decided to do it after reading your beautiful words, so true and so touching. Thanks so much for sharing your experience: it would be nice if you could could keep us informed about how your project is going on.
Thanks again for giving me inspired and motivated me to do my job better, anywhere in the world.
Best wishes to all participants.
Michela

Interesting reading and extremely complex arguments. It would be helpful if the experts could debate some of their beliefs , Thanks for posting,

I will check it out, Thank you ! I hope to come to one of your workshops one day and meet you in person! I'm still reaching and stretching !!
Jon STL Mo.

All these viewpoints are very interesting and thought provoking. I especially liked what Schnarch said. His viewpoint encourages and challenges one to discover and stretch oneself through differentiation. Yet, differentiation is not a simple process. I mean, one needs to be aware enough of one's own processes and needs to convey one's messages in a congruent way_with nonverbal signals_ in order to clearly communicate. It requires continuous conscious effort including owning one's shadow self among others. Difficult work, indeed.
Ümit