Why Couples Therapists Fail Before They Get to the Main Course
Couples therapy may be the hardest work we do, and most of us were never trained to do it. William Doherty has written about this in several articles showing that roughly 80% of therapists in private practice see couples, yet only about 12% of practitioners are marriage and family therapists, and even they can be licensed without ever working with a couple under supervision. It is no accident that couples therapy was the one modality to earn low marks in the famous 1996 Consumer Reports survey of clients. Going in for couples work, Doherty says, can be like having your broken leg set by a doctor who skipped orthopedics.
Cognitive Load of Doing Couples Therapy
So the cognitive load of this work is both weighty and risky. We know from the Gottman research that distressed couples do not hold steady between sessions or on a waiting list: they actively deteriorate, because living inside a relational system under stress is hard to tolerate. We also know there is no simple dose-effect formula. Some couples do fine with a slow weekly re-patterning of friendship, conflict, and shared meaning; others need a much higher dose up front to produce relief and hope, then a tapering off so they can carry the learning home, a research finding called “massed sessions with fading.”
This is why couples therapists value the Gottman Method because this model takes the complexity seriously, offering a science-based protocol for assessment, a step-by-step approach to coaching communication, and a conceptual roadmap built on five decades of research. That research is world renowned and solid: across seven longitudinal studies, Gottman and Levenson predicted divorce with an average of over 90% accuracy, found that 69% of a couple’s problems are perpetual rather than solvable, and showed how far small moments travel. For example, they found that newlyweds who stayed married turned toward each other’s bids 86% of the time, while those who divorced did so only 33% of the time.
But couples therapy is not one-size-fits-all. Every couple or individual within a relational system is unique with specific histories, needs, and identity that interacts with their partner’s contribution.. This is where the art in couples therapy is critical; science can point the way, but what happens in that mutual dance decides whether the couple reaches their destination. No theory or technique substitutes for a relationally attuned therapist. This is where therapists can lose the thread before they ever get to the meat of the work.
We skip the evaluation and jump to advice.
Most couples arrive in distress: anxious, triggered, demoralized, and pushing for quick answers. They may put the therapist on the spot, asking for advice or recommendations before the relational system has been mapped. If we get recruited by that urgency or desperate need for answers, we make fast judgments and intervene in ways that aren’t customized to the layers underneath. As John Gottman used to say, you can get dramatic change in 30 minutes, but it will only last 30 minutes. Therapists are the pacer car that sets the speed of the race.
We move too fast from observation to certainty.
What looks familiar on the surface is almost always driven by unique, idiographic causes. If we jump to interpretation or conclusions based on first impressions, we risk creating the dynamic of good guys and bad guys, villain and victim, or normal and defective. The Gottmans call this the “Fundamental Attribution Error”: most partners will present the conflict as their partner’s fault. It is our job to show that both people make sense if we can map and understand their internal landscape. We also honor the Gottman research finding that most conflicts have hidden agendas. This is why our most powerful technique is called The Dreams Within the Conflict.
We get hooked by our egos
Therapists want to do well and achieve positive results. We believe in our method and have seen it work in many other couples. So when an individual or couple does not embrace the tools or resists our coaching, we can lose our grounding and ability to empower the relational system and instead become the authority figure in the room.
How we handle resistance
We may genuinely want to facilitate change and encourage positive behavior in session. But the push for change driven by a “power over” strategy may land as validating to one partner and misattuned with the other. A silent partner is sometimes the person in the room who is quietly deciding therapy is not working and may sabotage our efforts. Resistance in couples therapy is actually a gold mine: it shows where on the Sound Relationship House this person is blocked or struggling to change. For example, a block on Fondness and Admiration may reflect underlying resentment or unresolved injury. Inability to turn towards may suggest a trauma history or attentional problems.
We over-index on the structure and technique.
If we find ourselves in a power struggle or defensive argument with one partner, we have already lost the match. Therapists who let the technique or structure be the leader lose their focus on therapeutic healing and change. We can become too fixated on behavior change, cognitive restructuring, or too problem or solution oriented. Even if we succeed in our arguments, we may have shamed, nailed, or disempowered one partner to the detriment of the relationship.
Helping both people experience themselves in a safe nurturing container in which they can self-reflect, adopt or experiment with, and learn a new idea or way of interacting cannot be forced or orchestrated. When the therapist stays centered and focused on creating an organic, therapeutic, and healing space in which both partners are invited to try new behaviors, couples discover their own way to connection and intimacy. I might not get the credit for it, but the couple is in a happier state.
We embrace the medical model and lose the relational lens
The unfortunate result of embracing the insurance system is that we are all trained to judge, evaluate, diagnose, and treat problems. While this can be very useful when working with psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar, or PTSD, this approach can actually create unintended consequences in couples therapy. We can be drawn into focusing more on one partner in the room: the one with “problem” behaviors such as drinking, expressing anger, being too detached, etc.
Inevitably this leads to diagnosing, pathologizing, and treating one partner’s disorder and therefore reinforcing the fundamental attribution error. As Julie Gottman has said, we cannot teach a couple to communicate without the use of the four horsemen behaviors, especially criticism and contempt, if we are using that same tactic to challenge or confront one partner. We have to learn ways to model the behavior we want them to demonstrate towards each other.
Finally, the medical model creates an expectation of a cure or resolution of symptoms. The therapist is the one person in the room holding the hope and the knowledge that change is possible and our methods are proven. If we get impatient, exhausted, or demoralized, we can exercise our authority in the room in harmful ways. One, we can give up, feel hopeless and become passive in the session, allowing the couple’s interaction to spiral into negative escalation. Or we can give up and announce that therapy or the relationship is not sustainable and invite the couple to break up or start individual therapy.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, couples therapy is not for the faint-hearted. If you are trained in Gottman method couples therapy, you have been given a powerful and proven set of tools and you are likely already way ahead of the curve compared to most therapists in your market. However the tools come to life in your hands and with your help. Learn to embrace the relational complexities of this work, avoid working in isolation, get consultation often, become part of a community of Gottman trained therapists, and know that you are an ambassador for the Gottman philosophy of positivity, shared dreams, and lasting relationships.
