5 6 Communication between the partners
2) Improving communication between the partners
WCI5 helped the couple to improve their communication by telling them
about the different ways of communication. “I tell them about different ways of
communication.” Another approach was the ‘Five Love Languages’,4 the way they express their commitment, which could be learned or changed to be most effective
for both partners. Besides, it was important for them to learn about themselves. The
way they liked to express love to each other could have been saying words of
affirmation, spending quality time together, receiving a gift, doing a favour,
physical touch. Her curious approach helped the couple to explore.
“Curiosity, having a curious approach helps as well. Using solution-
focused brief therapy to find out what they would like to have happen, how they know when they have started what will have made a difference to them, what positive changes have happened since their last session. It is also asking them about scaling their relationship between one and ten and how they are going to make one higher next week [Appendix 16].”
WCI32 had different ways to help the couple to improve their
communication. She educated the couple in some counselling skills, such as
listening, reflecting back etc. She also explained why these were important.
“Certainly the basic is giving them the discipline of listening and
reflecting back exactly what they have heard. It is also eventually getting them to focus and know that they are actually listening to the whole context of what the other person has said rather than their own point of
4
Referring to Chapman in The Five Love Languages (1995), it is important for the spouse to be able to express love in a way that the other spouse can understand.He uses the five love languages to describe this kind of communication. Words of affirmation affirm how nice the spouse looks or how great the dinner tasted. They notice these things and do not take them for granted.Affirmation and appreciation are always positive. The partner has a good self image and a good sense of confidence. Quality time is time well spent together. For some partners, the best way to show love is to be together, to do things together and to have a period of time to give undivided attention to one another. If the partners want to have quality time, they need to turn off the TV or whatever else might infringe on their quality time.Receiving gifts is another expression of love and joy. It is a common universal practice to give gifts.The gift is a symbol of love. Even the smallest inexpensive gift conveys the expression of love, which is all that matters.If one of the partners forgets the other partner's birthday or anniversary, the forgotten partner will feel disappointed, neglected and unloved, especially if that partner enjoys gift giving.Acts of Service describe the ordinary simple everyday things one partner can do for the other as another gesture of love. Examples of these acts of service are vacuuming, planting a garden, mowing the lawn, putting out the trash, etc. When they are gladly done, they are perceived as a gift of love. Physical touch is another form of expressing love. It can vary from just stroking the partner's back to holding hands, to a peck on the cheek or to whatever else will fulfil this need.
view on it. So you do a bit of work around that and maybe send them away to do that. It is really like analyzing what we are actually saying. That is where TA technique comes in really well because it is interpreting what am I actually saying when I am saying something like this which seems quite an interesting comment. And certainly in the room you would be picking up what is just being said, how that is being said. ‘It is not your intention to be telling your partner what to do. Well no. That was how it revealed. Ah, right.’ So you would be giving them ways to unpick how they are actually talking to each other. It is good you have got the couple in the room to be able to watch the dynamics of that happening and then to be able to bring them to see what they are actually doing. It is ways and things like that that are helpful. Also identifying the ‘I’ statements rather than the blame statements, ‘You’.‘When you do that, this is how I felt.’ And getting them to really work on that is immensely rewarding [Appendix 10].”
WCI5 gave the couple homework to improve their communication. She
wove the homework into the session by talking over the importance of
communication and impressing upon the couple the roles of listening and reflecting
back.
“We talk about the importance of communication, listening and reflecting
back. I sometimes give them exercises to take home to practice. I say that checking homework is important if they want to come into counselling, since most of their work to restore communication is going to be done at home. This is just an hour. I only spend an hour with them. But they have got to put time aside to communicate. So I do say that this is standard. You can find one evening a week or at least one half an evening a week when I would like you to turn the television off and spend some time asking each other either these questions or just reflecting back, yes, and talking to each other meaningfully. So I check that homework and then I check whether they have done it [Appendix 16].”
WCI13 gave the couple homework to change the dynamic to something
more positive. She told them that it was standard practice to put time aside to
communicate.
“I would ask them each to do something nice for the other person,
something small like making a cup of tea, buying some flowers or something else. And each one has to do something for the other person but not tell them. When they come back the next week, they have to tell
me and tell each other what the nice thing was. For the whole week they are looking out for something nice the other one has done [Appendix 14].”
Like WCI13, WCI5 also gave homework to the couple as a listening
exercise.
“I asked them to do a listening exercise. I would ask them to set aside one
half hour a week. They take it in turns. One person of the couple talks for five minutes, but not on the subject they argue about. It could be something like a film they have seen or a book they have read or a movie they like and the other person has to say nothing but just listen for five minutes. At the end of the five minutes the person who was listening has to repeat back what they heard without being defensive. I give them the homework. I start it in the counselling room. The next week they come and tell me about it [Appendix 16].”
The feedback from the couple in the next session was that they were amazed at
how hard it was to listen.
“They usually find it very helpful and are quite surprised at how hard
they found it to listen. Sometimes couples cannot do it because it is too difficult [Appendix 16].”
MCP9 also gave homework to the couple to improve the quality of their
contact.
“I always joke about the concept of ‘couples homework’. There will be
no detention! If the homework is too difficult, I say it is my responsibility as I probably have not tuned into them sufficiently. I ask them not to be disheartened if the tasks seem hard. Even though they want to change, they must realise that everyone finds change difficult. The essence of my ‘homework’ is suggesting that they build in more contact, and improve the quality of their contact. I always check out if they feel they are spending enough quality time together; what they regard as ‘quality time’, how they could increase the amount of quality time they have together. If they have disputes about division of labour, I suggest they could set up weekly planning meetings, perhaps on a Sunday, when they could compare diaries, discuss what needs doing, and decide who is going to do what [Appendix 15].”
MCP9 gave listening exercise homework to improve the couple’s ability to communicate effectively. He gave an example of improving the couple’s
communication as homework.
“I suggest they set aside some time each day where there are no
distractions such as phones, TV or children. They give each other five minutes of uninterrupted time and then swap over. I don’t want them to interrupt as they risk taking over, or prejudging. Couples often find this helpful, but they also find it hard and certainly find it particularly difficult to sustain. But it can help them in a number of ways: thinking aloud’ helps them see things in perspective; listening to their partner helps them to listen, read and cue into their partner more effectively. When they start this exercise, clients usually focus on what they have done (e.g. I went to a meeting). I try and help them to become aware of the underlying feelings. 'It is true that George always seems to dominate. I do get angry when he tries to impose something on me that I know won't work. I feel hurt when he dismisses me with sarcastic comments.’ One of the partners often finds 'talking about their day' boring. But when they can process at the level of feelings, 'talking about their day' helps their mutual understanding, their ability to show vulnerability and their bonding [Appendix 15].”
Many couples have problems with their communication. Crowe & Ridley
(2000, p. 125) state:
Many couples come to therapy feeling completely overwhelmed with their inability to relate to each other sensitively and effectively. ‘I really don’t know what has gone wrong, We are constantly bickering, constantly upset with each other. We don’t know if anything can be done’ is a theme that often presented by couples where communication difficulties are paramount
This research reveals that the interviewees strive to help the couple to
improve their communication. Feeling so overwhelmed with their lack of skill in
relating to each other sensitively and effectively, many couples coming to therapy
say, “I just do not know what has gone amiss, we are all of the time squabbling and upset with each other. We do not know if it has gone beyond the stage that
anything can be done.” In couple therapy many couples present their communication problem. Improving communication in the couple is an important
task in working with couples. Why do the couple have communication problems? It
seems that men and women have different communication styles. In Vangekustu
and Banski’s (1993) 709 demographically diverse couples’ interviews, the discovery was made that women made a big distinction between listening and
talking to the extent that they were looking for equity in both listening time and
talking time. Men tended more to look upon conversation as an event in itself and
they were not concerned about having equal amounts of talking time and listening
time. The content of the conversation is also different for men and women. Women
like to elaborate on all the emotional, relational issues of the day and they go into
much more detail than men. Men prefer to talk about abstract, philosophical issues.
For example, Brenda and David are colleagues at the same office. When Brenda
goes home she talks about how hard it is to teach David to use Excel in the
computer and a lot of little things that he does during the day to upset her. David is
more likely to go home and tell his wife how frustrating it is to use Excel and that
he made a lot of mistakes making tables with Excel.
The dysfunctional pattern of couple communication for the most part is
exhibited in language like “I am right, you are wrong,” “self-justification” or “putting the blame on the partner.” The couples do not seem to make any allowance at all for the other partner’s good intentions when judging them. Rather,
they keep harping on about what they see as behaviour deficiencies and negative
intentions of their partner. Most of the couple therapists try to break this pattern of
interaction. By bringing the couples’ attention to the vicious circle of this type of
repetitive interaction, the therapists can enable the couple to see that both are right
and wrong at the same time.
The couple therapist encourages the couples to have good
communication (Gurman, 2008; Halford, 2003; Baucom et al., 2011). Firstly, the
counselling session (Chernin & Johnson, 2003; Young & Long, 1997). They bear
in mind the assumption that the couple’s way of communicating with each other in the session is much the same as what they normally do at home. Therefore, it is
essential for the therapist to notice whether the couple’s way of communicating might be improved. Accordingly, the priority for the therapist here is to make an
accurate observation of the way the couple communicate with each other, and what
is actually said falls into second place. Secondly, the therapist is wide awake to the
place of balance in his or her work with the partners (Gurman, 2008, p.83; Gurman,
2010, p. 409; Leavitt, 2009, p.24). The therapist distributes time and attention
evenly between the partners, avoids taking sides, refrains from making value
judgements about the choices made by the couple together, and is always on the
alert not to be dragged into anything where the counsellor does not belong.
Concretely speaking, if the counsellor invites the husband to say something
affirming to his wife, the latter is also invited to say something affirming to her
husband. Thirdly, as some interviewees mentioned, the therapist encourages the
partners to use ‘I’ messages (O’Farrell & Fals-Stewart, 2006, p. 129; Ingram, 2011, p.339). It is difficult for some couples to speak only for themselves. In this case
one partner speaks continuously for them both. For example, “We hate taking a walk in the park in the evening. We have always really disliked visiting her parent’s house.” In this example the other partner does not make any different comment. There is also the case of one partner speaking for the other as if this partner is not
in the room. For example, “Sue is always cross with her father; he never
understands how she feels about her work.” “Tony feels fed up with his boss at
work; he’s always picking on him and finding fault.” The weakness here is the lack of effort made either to invite the partner to speak for him or herself or to clarify
with the partner whether those are the actual feelings. Fourthly, the therapist helps
(Amatenstein, 2010). One partner is mind reading when he or she is speaking for
the feelings, motives or experiences of the other, without first checking out the
accuracy of what they are saying. This kind of lack of clarification with the other
partner distorts proper understanding and perception. Hence it is necessary for the
therapist to query mind-reading in the session. Lastly, the therapist tries to find
ways of increasing the level of positive interaction between couples (Gurman,
2008). The couple need to have the ability to improve their skills so as to be able to
change criticisms and complaints into simple and practical requests for alternative
positive behaviour.
The interviewees try to help the couples to improve their communication.
One interviewee tells the couple about the different ways of communication.
Another interviewee gives them the discipline of listening and of reflecting back
exactly what they have heard. Referring to Ridley (1999), the therapist becomes an
educationalist. Particularly, most of the interviewees give homework to improve
the couples’ communication because the therapist feels the need to encourage the couple to maintain and improve their communication outside the counselling
session. The couples are encouraged to set aside specific time to spend together
when they turn off the television, ask each other their homework questions or just
reflect back and talk to each other meaningfully. The couple set aside one half hour
a week, take it in turns, and each of them talks for five minutes on any subject
except the one they argue about. Some couples have a daily schedule including a
time free of all distractions, when they give each other five minutes of
uninterrupted time. However, some therapists have found that it is difficult for the
5. 7 Feelings
As with the notion of ‘relationship’ it is widely accepted that counselling
is centrally concerned with ‘feelings’. Significant themes that emerged from the data in this connection were that the interviewees had various ways of working
with feelings, and of helping the clients to do so. Then two more specific themes
emerged that are of especial relevance for my later study of focusing-oriented
therapy, namely, emotional flooding and over-intellectualisation. In focusing-
oriented terminology these would be understood, respectively, in terms of a client
being either ‘too close’ or ‘too distant’ from their experiencing.