If I could recommend just one skill for you to develop to become a successful couples therapist, it would be leadership. Leadership is the number one skill that gets your work off to a strong start and allows you to manage almost anything in your office.

However, you can’t be a strong leader if you don’t know where you are going, and you are just reacting to your clients. There are so many things that can go haywire with two clients in the room and so much damage that can be done if things go badly.

Couples therapy requires a different level of leadership than individual therapy so I thought I’d share with you the 6 primary characteristics that the Developmental Model recommends for your leadership right from the beginning. Knowing these enables you to start from a strong position, quickly choose a direction, and then create momentum.

1. Diagnose the developmental stage of the relationship. When a couple presents with pain and disappointment, you don’t want to get caught in their content. Instead you want to have a roadmap that enables you to hone in on where they are stuck. Are you able to see where their development is arrested? How far off course are they from what you might expect based on their ages and the time they’ve been together?
2. Tailor your interventions to the specific impasse. Once you identify where the couple is stuck, you’ll be better equipped to choose appropriate interventions for working with the couple and each individual. For example, with symbiotic conflict-avoidant couples you’ll want to increase their tolerance for intensity, while hostile-fighting couples require you to de-escalate intensity.
3. Harness the developmental energy in each partner and in the system. It’s normal to move towards positive growth-promoting experiences. However, when couples have been together very long, they start to retrigger painful moments of hurt and disappointment. They begin to regress. You’ll want to stay steady and select interventions that support progression rather than regression. In this phase, it’s important to offer experiences between the two individuals that will facilitate the unfolding of normal growth-promoting energy. Here, you need to highlight each partner’s strengths and identify the areas where they are open to being pushed to grow. As therapists, we need to discern how we can take them to those places – especially when one partner is threatened by the other partner’s growth.
4. Help partners stop retriggering and retraumatizing each other. In order to repair ruptures within their relationship, couples need specific skills. Defusing hostility under stress is not easy. You’ll want to lead them through specific exercises to  help them repair and tolerate the anxiety of differentiation.
5. Identify internal conflicts that are interfering with the couple’s development. Recognize that change is stressful. Most partners have two polarities.  Another way to say this is, “What is each partner’s dilemma?” They may want to change and be afraid to change. For example, a wife might say that she wants more open communication with her spouse but she is very afraid and reactive when her partner expresses desires that are uncomfortable for her. Effective work takes uncovering the resistance to stretching and growing. Your job is to uncover these internal conflicts and stimulate motivation for change.
6. Facilitate learning-specific developmental capacities. Each partner will lack certain internal capacities that enable them to hold firm and be compassionate under stress. When you become skilled at seeing what is missing, you can set targeted goals and lead them along a path of progress.

When working with couples, it is so easy to see pathology. Partners are often at their worst in front of you. However, step back and ask yourself, “What is their developmental hurdle?

Can I be optimistic instead of pessimistic about their future?” Then set a tone from the very beginning that focuses on growth and success. Your style, your beliefs, and what you pay attention to will determine the direction of the therapy.

If you’re curious about how to do any of these 6 steps in more depth, they’re all skills I teach in my Developmental Model of Couples Therapy online training program.

You’ll learn how to diagnose couples stages and tailor your interventions to the appropriate stage. You learn skills to stop partners from traumatizing each other, and then learn to tease out motivation from each partner so you get out of the middle, and they are responsible for creating change.

This model works with all types of partners and issues from passive-aggression to narcissism, infidelity, and conflict-avoidant partners.

I look forward to helping you find ease and confidence in your work with couples.

For now, I’m wondering if you think it is useful to apply this framework in your practice – with either a new couple, or one you’ve been working with for a while. Please leave a comment below and share your insights.