Image by Candida Performa on Flickr
Given that I work with individuals most of the time and my work tends to involve a massage table and touch, it’s probably hard to imagine how I work with couples or groups. But given that I also sometimes work with sexuality, I do sometimes have the occasion to work with couples who need help sorting out their relationships.
If there’s one thing I’ve observed about relationships, it’s the same thing I’ve learned about individuals: awareness heals. When a person becomes aware of one’s own habits – not just intellectually, in that “Yeah, I know I do that…” kind of way, but in a visceral, slowed-down, embodied way that allows them to notice it as it is happening, that is what can effect real change. When a person can feel a familiar emotion arising, and begins to ready the familiar reaction: the snipe in anger at your partner’s comment, the defensive posture, the eyeroll of contempt – and stop, feel the emotion move through, breathe, and make a different choice…that’s when true communication can occur.
Another thing I’ve learned from the training and used since: change happens in the relationship. What does this mean? Simply that what was wounded between two people, can only be healed in a relational context. Neither wounding nor healing happens in a vacuum. Sometimes, the wound has to be healed with a surrogate, like a therapist or other healer, or a friend, or another partner. If a relationship is abusive, for example, the abused partner will need to seek healing elsewhere than in that relationship. But it is still most likely that healing will occur with the help of another person, just as repeated wounding will often happen when an abused person enters another relationship. Those wounds happened in relationship, and express themselves again in relationship.
The best-case scenario is when the wounds incurred during a relationship can be healed within that same relationship, bringing wholeness and depth to that relationship’s story. When I work with couples, this is what I endeavor to do. As with all of my work, I help them tune in to their bodies: their posture, their breath, their physical sensations. I help them locate their feelings in their bodies, and often, this brings emotions to the surface, allowing them some release. I notice their gestural language, how they sit in the room, how they look or don’t look at each other. If and when it seems appropriate, I help them use touch to make contact with each other, to talk openly, to invite vulnerability. Most of all, I want to help them become aware of the patterns that have gotten to this place, find them in their bodies, and find a way to move out of them into something unfamiliar, unhabituated. To get in touch with each other in a new way, the way that is about what is true now, and what is possible, rather than about how they hurt each other in the past.
If traditional couples therapy hasn’t been working for you, please feel free to contact me, and dare to find a new relationship with someone you’ve known for years.
