Couples Therapy or Relationship Counselling

Couples Therapy, Relationship Counselling, Marriage Counselling…there is now such a range of help available to sort out “problems at home” it’s difficult to know who to see and what they do. 

There is a wonderful, much overlooked phenomenon called “The Theory of Non Specifics”. This simple idea states that it doesn’t matter two figs what therapeutic approach you receive; whether you go for the well-established Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the flavour of the month Narrative Therapy or plump for Couples Therapy…what really matters is who is delivering it.

Apparently, according to a whole bundle of research that seems to have been going on since I was gnawing on Farley’s Rusk’s, the magical, curative powers of all therapies are not, in fact, what the therapy is all about, (so you can throw all that “identifying core belief” nonsense and skills training right out the window) but something a lot more simple. In short, all the little “non specific” things that can’t be measured by scientists, such as whether you like your therapist.

When I first put down my Rusk’s at university and started noticing such research I thought it a load of nonsense. How could the mighty Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the Manchester United of therapies, just boil down to whether you had a bit of a laugh with your therapist? It takes between 2 and 4 years to become proficient at most therapeutic approaches worth their salt, and a lifetime to become confident and expert in truly helping others…surely this can’t all be a waste of time; or can it?

Many years ago, when I trained with the now legendary Dr Bill Miller, who created, almost all by himself, a completely new counselling approach, (only one of two in the last hundred years) the first exercise he gave all us young fledgling therapists was to look back and think about our best teacher at school and the qualities they had which made them stand out in our minds (a wonderfully simple yet helpful exercise). He went onto say that until we possessed the same qualities we were unlikely to be able to help people, no matter how good we became at his new, all singing all dancing counselling approach. It was sobering stuff, yet felt as true as the counselling training was long. I looked down at the list of words that described Mr Bennet our English teacher and re-read them slowly to myself… “a sense of humour, interested in me and what I thought, kind and re-assuring, reads poetry, supports Arsenal FC, confident, inspirational and not afraid to be honest, is a drummer in a rock band and works behind the bar in a pub.”

So my advice regarding whether to choose Couples Counselling or any one of the other approaches is to get to know your therapist/ counsellor a little bit before you commit. They don’t have to work in a pub or play in a rock band but you do have to like them and get on with them (and it’s always good if they support Arsenal FC). If you don’t get on with them, if you don’t like the first session, or the emails or the chat on the phone, make your excuses and move on. It will save you many frustrated hours and an awful lot of money.