This can be a challenging question. I’m in individual therapy and my counselor wants to meet my partner. What do I do? I’m in marriage counseling and my therapist suggests I get individual counseling, either with them or with another therapist. What do I do?
Individual versus joint therapy versus conjoint therapy can be confusing. What’s the difference? Which one is going to help me? Individual therapy is about helping you through personal struggles. But what if you can’t see your impact on others, or can’t adequately explain another’s impact on you? What if your therapist recognizes that a great deal of your current problems stem from your marital relationship? Including your partner can be a vital part of helping you work through your problems while strengthening the marital relationship.
Joint therapy is effective at strengthening marriages and helping them heal from past hurts, improve bonding, and improve communication. But what if there’s an underlying individual issue with one or both partners that is damaging the relationship or preventing true intimacy? Do you limit therapy to joint only or do you combine joint and individual therapy (conjoint therapy) or do you request a referral to a different individual therapist?
Conjoint therapy is the combination of individual and joint marriage therapy. In this Psychology Today article, Dr. Susan Heitler
In this excellent and well-researched article, Jon Hay and Amanda Cox, Licensed Psychotherapists of Auckland City Therapy in Auckland, Australia, provide an excellent discourse on the benefits and risks of choosing to combine individual and couple’s therapy or keep it separate.
In both articles and in other research I have done, the consistent message I received was this:
If both spouses attend individual therapy and not couple’s therapy, their marriage is likely to end.
Scary stuff to be sure! If you talk to ten different therapists you are likely to get ten different opinions on this. There are tricky confidentiality issues and relationship issues in conjoint therapy. I’m not a fan of secrets. I believe in transparency. I use both individual and joint therapy. This works for some and not for others. Before you make a decision about therapy, interview your therapist about what they believe is most effective. If you do work with someone who