Movies and television “taught” us that couple therapy it’s almost like a theatrical performance, a dramatic culmination of the breaking point that relationships have reached in every story we see on screen, often accompanied by verbal attacks, crying, and sudden exits from the session.

We have such images from “Marriage Story” or “The Sopranos”, of course we rarely hear a “real” couple next to us choose knock on the psychotherapist’s door, with sobriety and realism so that he can discuss what excites him and overcome any spies that inevitably come with time and relationship friction.

However, even those who choose individual psychotherapy often bring relationship problems to their sessions. When the psychologist Anna Tatsaki noticed that this began to happen more and more often with her clients, she decided to train in couple therapy, which he practiced for a while decade. The next method comes from Canada and puts emotions at the center of treatment.

What every person needs, regardless of latitude and longitude, is to feel security and love. In the context of comradely relations, this is expressed in the feeling that we are for another. a priority, what we precious and that’s important another one for us.

And then, relationships, in addition to feelings, also mean symbiosis, so the main request of all couples is to have good and functional daily life. This smoothness, as is well known, is in many cases hampered by frequent quarrels and tensions.

Couples of all ages come to Anna Tatsaka’s office, but mostly those who around 40 although there are cases of finding partners in my 60s and decide that they want to maintain their relationship in the best possible way.

As the therapist notes from her experience, despite the individual problems that each partner has to face, there are three main reasons that lead to it most couples: appearance of a child which often highlights issues that previously remained in the shadows, financial management And… extended family and the way she gets involved in the innermost parts of the relationship, a “Greek” or even “Mediterranean” phenomenon. “Certainly, in fact, all these are just cases that reveal some unmet emotional needs that exist behind. notes the therapist.

My love, today we have a cure

Zoya is 33 years old and Antonis is 35 years old. They recently got married five years, while a year ago they also purchased one baby. Of these five years of their relationship, two were essentially in quarantine, because at that time the couple lived abroad, in a city with very intense rhythms and rather small apartments. Now they are in Greece.

Zoe did individual psychotherapy even before she met her husband, while Antonis consulted a psychologist in the past when certain incidents happened in his life, as well as some time during the coronovirus period. About four months ago they started couples therapy.

“We are both children of divorced parents, and this saddens us a little, fear of how we will be able to establish normal communication, ”admits Zoe. “Fearing that both of their parents might be the reason they didn’t stay together, we looked for ways to avoid that as much as possible,” he explains.

So thinks a 33-year-old man. Everyone decides for himself what success in a relationship means. However, what she agreed with her husband on was that they sometimes found it difficult meaningful and honest communication between them.

Antonis, again, although he felt that the quarantine brought them closer together, it was also a period that created for each of them individually various individual loads this was left unresolved and eventually each led them into a relationship.

“First of all, there was our desire to find a solution. We did not become disillusioned in this relationship and did not move away from each other, even if we temporarily moved away from each other. We didn’t want to settle for anything less than being healthy and being happy together.” says a 35-year-old man.

Given that arrival of the child changed priorities, realized that suddenly there was a greater responsibility in relation to the child. “We couldn’t fight over stupid things anymore,” Zoe admits. It was then that she took the initiative to suggest that her husband try family therapy. Antonis quickly became convinced that they needed a safe place to help them communicate better.

Communication problems

Poor communication or lack thereof is a problem that too many couples suffer from. As Anna Tatsaki notes from her experience, relationships often lack the ability to each member to communicate their needs.

And then, “sometimes when one thinks he is conveying what he feels, he is actually blaming the other.” And then he reacts with anger to what the other person has made him feel. “Most of the time, the other person will not say, “I was hurt,” but, “You are like that, you are different.” And since no one sweetly responds to the accusation, the nervous system automatically pushes you to the defense. And you start to defend yourself and make excuses. At best, you will say: “This is not so,” at worst, you will start blaming the other person, ”explains the psychologist.

When this is repeated, a vicious circle is created, which is shown in the figure: “As much as I try to get close to you to feel safe, I actually blame you and you pull away. And the further, the more I worry.

Therefore, for a couple who decide to work together on their problems, it is very important that each of them see his own needs, but also his relationship with himself. Something that Zoe finds quite acceptable: “Daily life is a difficult thing, and therefore it is inevitable that we lose touch with ourselves and with our center. If I don’t know what I want, and my partner doesn’t either, and we start to get stressed out about procedural things, we can’t have meaningful communication, toxicity sets in, and everyone doesn’t develop as individuals.”

Antonis believes that he and his wife in general very good communication and that “Even when it gets ‘bad’, we still communicate. We don’t hide much from each other.” However, upon starting couples therapy, he realized that the problem with their relationship was that although he expressed his care and love through actions in his relationship, he often found it difficult or neglected to do this in words: “When I realized how much I took things for granted and that I ended up becoming cold, I realized that this does not help either the relationship or me.” And so the biggest gamble for him in this process was to gain access to his own emotions.

Safe space for everyone

The first thing Anna Tatsaki asks each couple in their first session is: if he feels comfortable. For many, psychotherapy is something very personal and intimate, which can become more challenging for someone when asked to share thoughts and feelings both in front of their partner and in front of a third party.

However, according to the therapist, it was very rare for anyone to tell her that she felt uncomfortable. After all, the main task of this type of psychotherapy is people to feel comfortable and talk about their real needs. “So the other person is also helped. When the frame is opened and the other person sees the whole picture, now the whole feeling changes,” he explains. When this is established in the first sessions, then it will be easy for everyone to gradually sink into deeper things.

“We all develop mechanisms that either “close”, lowering the blinds, or push to solve the problem here and now. This is what we call “fight or flight”.“, – continues the psychologist. “We develop some kind of mechanism, through which we survive in adulthood, but in relationships this can create some kind of problem. If someone has mastered the first mechanism better, he will need a little more help to open up. The other one is more open. Usually women, not being the norm,” he says.

Each couple is, of course, still a unique case. Anna Tatsaki recalls an incident with a couple, when one of them was there…under threat: “If you don’t come, we will part ways. Along the way, of course, the one who walked “by force” became the biggest proponent of the cure.

There is no doubt that each of us has some smaller or larger problems, and that “it hurts, they hurt.” In light of this, even a couple who seems to be doing well can benefit greatly from family therapy, rather than seeing therapy as the last step “before the lawyer.”

“Each couple should do this as a gift to themselves because it will save them a lot of pain,” advises Anna Tatsaki. After all, “when you learn to recognize what your emotional need is going unmet and causing a reaction, and you know how to communicate it, you won’t get hurt or hurt.”

Zoe and Antonis believe that family therapy is something that every couple should have access to, not a “luxury”. As the therapist will say very simply, “Life is too short to dwell on pain and suffering.”