Crazy, Stupid, or Awful?!
The foundation of couples’ work is often training them to listen. And of course, listening is actually incredibly difficult and relatively complex. For example, it involves all those difficult skills like self-soothing, holding difficult emotions, making space for the other person, accurate empathy, maximizing the use of working memory, tolerance for ambiguity, etc. And that seems overwhelming even here on this therapy blog, and it’s certainly overwhelming in session. But here’s an idea I sometimes put out in session when things start spiraling:
You aren’t crazy, stupid, or awful and you probably didn’t marry someone who is crazy, stupid, or awful. So, there might be a misunderstanding in here somewhere. Let’s find it, shall we?
Clients are more than likely to agree with the idea that they themselves are not crazy, stupid, or awful (and it’s nice to validate them first, before going on to “defend” their partner). They also usually aren’t willing to say in therapy that their partner is one of those things. They at least don’t want to be married to (or in a relationship with) someone who is crazy, stupid, or awful.
This pause on our end often lets them pause on their end and create a little bit of space to hear their partner’s content differently. Yay!
Occasionally, they will say their partner is crazy, stupid, or awful. Ok, no problem – now we know we’re in a contempt-place (in the Gottman way), and we can change gears to a process-rather-than-content level.
Comment below: How do get couples to pause and refocus in session? Also, “QuotesFromSession” is a new tag – do you have any go-to session quotes that you often find useful?