Here Are Your Ultimate Couples Therapist's Toolkit Black Friday Bundle Digital Products
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6. Six Types of Confrontation and How the Cycle of Confrontation Unfolds
Confrontation skills did not come naturally to me. When I was growing up, if I had issues with my sister or my mother, my father sent me to my room saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
As a therapist, it took concerted effort for me to learn how to be nice and make effective confrontations at the same time. I had to learn how to make incisive confrontations or watch couples repeat the same negative patterns over and over.
To be effective, you must be able to hold up a mirror so that partners can see (and recognize non-defensively) what they are doing and how they are getting in their own way. And perhaps most important of all, you must induce the optimal level of anxiety into your confrontations so partners become motivated to change without even realizing you've confronted them.
So, as we begin our mini-workshop on confrontation, let’s define confrontation. I found my favorite definition of confrontation in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
Confrontation is a technique used in therapy to recognize shortcomings and their possible consequences.
In other words, in a confrontation you describe where each partner is stuck, showing them how they are preventing the growth of their relationship and then providing a way out.
Join me now and watch this 9-minute video to discover:
The 6 types of confrontation
The cycle of confrontation that takes place in almost every couples therapy session
