Moment by Moment: 6 Developmental Assists to Support Your Work

Developmental Assist ​#​1: How to Sidestep Negativity When Couples Bring Up the Fight of the Week

​In this article we share our 4-step process to create positive dialogue in your next session!

How often do you work with couples that start sessions by launching into the fight of the week? They come in believing that solving the fight will get them where they want to go.

By the end of the session you’ve come to a micro resolution at best. At worst, another week has gone by where you feel ineffective and like your work is falling into the dark pit where couples create fights faster than you can keep up with them.

With these couples, it’s hard to know how to take charge.

Read the first article below for a common example to demonstrate how you can get back in the driver’s seat:

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Here in just a few minutes you have used Developmental Assist #1: Sidestep negativity when couples bring up the fight of the week.

1. You have started the session by immediately taking a leadership role. You refused to allow the session to begin with anger and hostility.
2. You did not get derailed by Jen’s reluctance or her negative innuendos. Instead you encouraged Jen to self-reflect much more completely than she ever would have done on her own.
3. You have uncovered what a positive behavior of Carlos’s symbolized to her.
4. And most importantly, you have communicated that positive feelings and anger can co-exist, and that anger does not need to have prominence.

All of this resulted from your commitment and ability to sidestep negativity quickly and immediately.

Many partners in hostile/angry relationships do not have sufficient object constancy to remember anything good about their partners when they are angry. By sidestepping the negative, you can bring to light what they would never remember or express without guidance.

If you were to take a “cheat sheet” into your next session with a hostile fighting couple, it might say something like this:

1. Start by getting partner A to appreciate something about partner B.
2. Don’t let Partner A include any negative commentary.
3. Have Partner B appreciate Partner A for their appreciation.
4. Then reverse roles by asking partner B to remember something positive that partner A did.

In my next article we’ll look at a developmental assist that you can use to help fragile connections grow or even bridge the gap when connection between partners seems lost. We’ll talk about micro-connections and describe how to find them and use them with your couples.