Combining Couples and Individual Therapy or Choosing Couples Therapy Over Individual Work — This Topic Raises Many Questions Among Practitioners.
For instance, some therapeutic approaches involve working with both the couple together and each partner individually in parallel. How is that even possible?
Another important question concerns client self-disclosure. On the one hand, collecting an attachment history in the presence of a partner can itself be therapeutic — self-disclosure may provide a corrective emotional experience and lead to a new perception of one’s partner.
On the other hand, a client may avoid sharing deeply personal or painful experiences in front of their partner — such as a history of abuse.
And these kinds of ambiguous, complex questions are far from rare