ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on concepts and interventions that demonstrate a counselor’s ability to hold a couple’s struggle and set a systemic tone for change. The ability to set boundaries around and within the session demonstrates a strength that emboldens a couple’s trust in the counselor’s ability to hold their struggle and direct a course toward change. Couples are constantly making bids for coalition and alliance with counselors and consistently focusing on their partners as the sole root of the problem at hand. Instead of negotiating blame, counselors can help couples externalize problems and define them systemically. Externalizing problems also has the effect of uniting couples. As couples disclose difficulties and work to move through processes of change, they need a container for direct and heated work. Without compassion for the couple, the art of relationship building will be lost; leaving the counselor in a sea of unresponsive words and recommendations that fosters disconnection from the couple.
