Personal Agendas Inside Couples Therapy

DC 2025 Personal Agendas Inside Couples Therapy

This lesson concludes the path three section by discussing how to integrate personal agendas for change into regular couples therapy using Bill’s approach to regular couples therapy, called The Doherty Approach. It emphasizes the importance of making personal agendas actionable and relevant throughout the therapeutic process.

DC Handout - Complete Guide to Path Three

Key Points:

Structuring Couples Therapy:

Bringing Issues to Work On: At each session, ask both partners to bring something they want to work on to move the relationship forward. This prevents one partner from hiding out and ensures both take responsibility for changing the relationship.
Interactional Terms: Encourage partners to bring up issues in interactional terms, focusing on how they can do something differently rather than just presenting a weekly complaint.

Tying Personal Agendas to Therapy:

Self-Reflection: Comment on partners' personal agendas for change, encouraging self-reflection around their vulnerabilities. This helps them connect their personal issues to the relationship dynamics.
Sceneing It: Use the "scene- it" technique to break down issues, asking for examples and exploring the context, first moves, and feelings at specific moments. This helps partners understand their psychological states and vulnerabilities during interactions.

Working Interactionally:

Stopping Action: Stop the action during discussions to ask how partners were feeling at specific moments, helping them connect their personal agendas to the interaction.
Pulling Apart Interactions: Help partners pull apart what happened in their interactions, exploring each person's part and coming up with things to work on to shift the dynamics in the future.

Deeper Dive for Chronic Issues:

Identifying Barriers: If a partner is chronically unable to make shifts, do a deeper dive to understand what is keeping them from making the desired changes.
Connecting to Personal Agendas: Ensure that the deeper dive connects to the personal agendas for change discussed in discernment counseling, focusing on enduring vulnerabilities that affect the couple.

Shared Understanding:

Agreed-Upon Things to Work On: Having a shared understanding of the personal agendas for change creates a smoother, quicker, and easier couples therapy process, as both partners and the therapist know what to work on.
No Surprises: The personal agendas for change should not be surprises in couples therapy. They should be enduring vulnerabilities that have been discussed and agreed upon in the discernment counseling process.

Conclusion:

Integrating personal agendas for change into couples therapy involves structuring sessions to encourage both partners to take responsibility for the relationship, tying personal agendas to interactional work, and ensuring a shared understanding of the issues to work on. By using techniques like "scene- it," stopping action, and doing deeper dives for chronic issues, therapists can help partners make meaningful shifts in their relationship dynamics.

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