23/10/2025
Everyone can benefit from therapy, and I think 90% of the global population has some form of childhood trauma or attachment wounding. I tend to not believe people when they tell me their childhood was great, yet they can't manage full intimacy and effective conflict in relationships.
Perhaps the most frustrating scenario as a therapist, and I think other therapists would agree, is the client asking for help in trying to get their partner to look at their own issues and either go to individual or couple's or something - anything.
What is it like for one person doing the work?
*noticing your partner's reactions and stuck places for them
*advising on their issues when it gets bad for them, but still no changes
*codependently trying to get them to read the books, watch the vids
*trying to improve better parenting of children, but in a silo (no team)
*navigating sticky family or social situations FOR the partner such as MIL, siblings, FIL
*holding all the emotional space
Many things are true at the same time in these examples, and the person doing the work is usually codependent and overstepping and the person NOT doing the work is both allowing for that and benefiting in some way.
And yes, sometimes the person going to therapy can be triggered, controlling and acting out by projecting family stuff onto the partner, but that tends to be a TINY minority of couple presentations.
But again, the majority is one person is putting in effort and half of that is the energy keeping the stuck partner/relationship going.
At worst, the partner is highly dismissive of problems and will never go/do something. At best, they need boundaries, a hitting of a bottom of sorts or deal breaking conversations to wake up.
My most successful couples both did work individually and collectively, and were aware of their childhoods.
