ABSTRACT

Therapists often have difficulty treating couples. For the previous generation the mystery was sex. The hope was that if we understood sex, marital discord would be ameliorated. Working with couples presents a particular challenge for a therapy that looks to perceive dysfunctional interactional patterns and then to change them in the therapy room. The couple must be able to forgive each other for the sins of the past. It is a kind of public ritual that will allow them to go on. In working with couples, the most powerful therapeutic technique is unbalancing—the differential use of the therapist's self to side with and take distance from different spousal members. Unbalancing creates a powerful experience when one spouse sees the other supported by the therapist. There were a number of potentially destabilizing developmental pressures in the system. There were important homeostatic-maintaining influences in the larger context.