“What Are You Fighting for?” Working With Couples in Conflict

ABSTRACT

Couples in conflict often become trapped in recursive cycles of complaint and defensiveness, leading to demoralization and disconnection. This is a problem for the couple and the therapist. This paper offers the idea that when couples engage in conflict, it is often a response to not being able to connect or feel understood, empowered, and supported in their values. Couples' complaints show up directly and indirectly: they complain directly with words and indirectly with distressed emotion, behavior, and physiological dysregulation. To enable the therapist to help the couple interrupt the conflict and form a working alliance around a shared goal, we propose that therapist identify a relational need that resonates with each partner. The couple impasse creates urgency for these relational needs to be met, at the same time that it prevents the couple from meeting them. This paper offers a way to maintain engagement and direction when couple conflict threatens the couple bond and can disempower the therapist.