ABSTRACT
Couples therapy can be messy because intimate relationships are messy. Couples therapy is not totally predictable. Sometimes the developing work is trouble. For example, if the wife of a sex addict feels further traumatized by new revelations of the husband's acting-out behavior, the couples therapy is adding to the lack of safety and trust she needs in order to engage in the therapy. When a couples therapist makes a misjudgment about the unfolding of the direction of a session, he/she needs to know how to pull out of it, salvage the session and help the partners. Schlanger (2011) describes the therapist's difficult role in problem-solving therapy. The therapist is functioning at many levels at the same time, all in an effort to fine tune and move toward promoting active change, and all this while seeming to not be working too hard.
