When the couple is in pain and cannot cope on their own, couple therapy can be of great help, provided that both members of the couple agree to give themselves up to a neutral third party. In what situations should you consider couples therapy? What are the missions of the couple therapist? What is the goal of couples therapy? Answers with Sophie Touttée Henrotte, couple therapist.

Several situations reflect difficulties in the couple. When communication is broken, the desire does not exist or the urge to plan with the other has disappeared, couples therapy should be considered. “When we are no longer able to tell each other what is wrong and we go to talk to other people to alleviate our pain, it is a bad sign. The other is no longer our confidant ”, explains Sophie Touttée Henrotte. The couple then find themselves in a conflictual relationship or on the contrary in a monotonous and boring relationship. Couples therapy can be a way to save the relationship, as long as both people want to get out of the pain.

In a couple, moments of crisis are inevitable. A number of events can put him in difficulty:

• Sexual disorders (lack of desire, absence of sex…);
• Infidelity;
• A family life which takes up too much space and which shatters the “couple” unit;
• Financial problems;
• The loss of a job;
• A dominant / dominated relationship.

“All these elements can contribute to a breakdown in dialogue or to aggressive exchanges”, indicates the couple therapist.

The couple therapist plays the role of mediator. “I make sure that couples manage to talk to and listen to each other without there being any conflict”, develops the specialist. How? ‘Or’ What ? The first step is to contextualize the situation. The couple therapist asks one and the other to tell in what state of mind he is, to explain his daily life and to take stock of all the subjects that complicate the couple and which they dare not do not talk. “Each one speaks without the other intervening and at the same time. I question them and also push them to reformulate their words or I reformulate them myself if the other has not understood them well ”, details Sophie Touttée Henrotte. For the specialist, couples therapy is an opportunity to address several subjects:

• What do they blame themselves for?
• Where are they in their sexuality?
• How do they feel for one or the other?
• How has their relationship evolved?
• What do they share?
• What do they expect from each other?
• What do they like about the other?

“These speeches in a limited time and guided by a neutral third party allow us to bring out what the partners do not know how to say to each other or no longer say to each other”.

In addition to listening and rephrasing, the couple therapist may ask couples to do exercises at home to practice their desire to improve the relationship. “For example, if I am a couple whose family life has taken over, I ask them to give each other an evening each week. One week it’s the one who organizes this romantic date, the other week, it’s the other who sticks to it. I also force them to take at least 15 minutes a day together to tell each other about their day, tell the other that we love him, look at him, touch him, hug him, etc. If I accompany a couple who can no longer communicate without a fight, I force them to give each other time to talk to each other without the other intervening, the presence of an hourglass can also to help. For couples facing sexual difficulties, I help them regain a taste for touch without necessarily going through sex. I encourage them to massage each other or to take showers together for example ”, details the couple therapist.

Couples therapy promotes questioning. It also gives the two partners the opportunity to get closer, to be more tactile, to find each other. It is a favorable moment for the liberation of the word in a serene atmosphere. The goals of couples therapy are multiple: “Doing couples therapy is ‘re-meeting’ the other, bringing out their needs, which have often been overlooked for a long time. The awareness of simple things reproduced for years allows to find solutions, openings, understandings with a new perspective. The couple can thus move forward with innovative keys ”, concludes Sophie Touttée Henrotte.