Year: 2013

Doubling is the premier way to accomplish the principal task of Collaborative Couple Therapy, which is to turn arguments into conversations and disengagement into engagement. When I double, I kneel next to one of the partners and speak as if I were that person talking to the other partner. I translate that person’s angry, defensive, […]

The task in Collaborative Couple Therapy is to create intimate moments by confiding feelings that induce an intensified sense of connection. Such moments occur when both partners confide the main thing on their minds—what’s alive for them at the moment, as Marshall Rosenberg puts it—and feel the other person understands. Sally: I love the wonderful […]

When you double in Collaborative Couple Therapy, you speak as if you were one of the partners talking to the other. “Okay, Joe, so you’re saying to Felicia, ‘When we fight, I feel very alone.’” You become the partner you’re speaking for. Use of the pronoun “I” collapses the space between you and that person. […]

One of the ways couple therapists try to deepen the therapeutic conversation is to ask, “What do you think about what happened” or “How do you feel about what your partner just said?” If a client answers, “I don’t know,” I ask, “What’s your best guess?” or “This is a trick question but, if you […]

In an earlier newsletter, I gave the following example of the kind of intimate conversation that I try to help partners have. Brad: I’m embarrassed to say this but sometimes—maybe more than sometimes—I worry that you’re more important to me than I am to you. Lisa (genuinely surprised): That’s amazing to me. You wouldn’t believe […]

The problem with these rules is that you can’t use any of them when you’re angry—which, of course, is when you most need them. Communication skills trainers are sad about it and I’m sad about it, too. You can’t use any of them when you’re angry because they’re telling you in essence, “Don’t be angry.” […]

Collaborative Couple Therapy consists of a theory (solving the moment), a technique (speaking for partners), and a sensibility (monitoring the therapist’s slippage from listening to judging). I came to this realization while writing my chapter for Case Studies in Couples Therapy edited by David Carson and Monterrat Casado-Kehoe and published in 2011. The following is […]