Couples and Family Therapy, Divorce

Couples therapy and family therapy are widely used to treat relationship problems. They focus on improving relationships and communication between partners and within families.

Couples therapy

Couples therapy helps two people in a relationship work through the problems and difficulties between them. The therapist uses various techniques to understand the couple’s attitudes towards each other, their communication styles and their emotional reactions, and uses this to understand the causes of the problems and create a treatment plan tailored to the couple. The aim is to address communication issues, resolve conflicts and strengthen the relationship, helping partners develop communication and conflict-resolution skills. There are several forms, including marital therapy, premarital counselling and therapy around separation and divorce, each adapted to the couple’s needs. Premarital counselling, for example, addresses issues engaged couples face before marriage, while marital therapy addresses problems in an existing marriage.

Couples therapy has become as effective and acceptable a way of easing relationship distress as individual psychotherapy or medication. Many studies show there is no reason to consider it less effective than individual psychotherapy, and improvement can be expected for couples in conflict. It is particularly indicated when relationship distress is a significant problem for the couple or lowers the quality of the relationship. In recent years the need for marital and couples therapy has grown steadily, and it is now widely used and far more accessible.

Behavioural couples therapy

The cornerstone of behavioural couples therapy is to address problems in terms of how the relationship functions, helping the couple take a more objective view of their difficulties. Because discord can arise when the costs of a relationship outweigh its rewards, the focus is on helping the couple find new and more rewarding ways of communicating and interacting.

Cognitive couples therapy

Distorted beliefs between partners can lead to misunderstandings and to mutual anger and disappointment. Cognitive couples therapy is concerned with identifying and correcting these misunderstandings, helping couples think more clearly, strengthening communication and so preventing further difficulties. It is based on the general principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). As mentioned on our CBT page, the Association for Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies (KDTD) is a leading organisation in this field in Türkiye.

Psychodynamic couples therapy

A person’s choice of partner may be linked, unconsciously, to early “loved objects”. Psychodynamic couples therapy emphasises the presence of transference in all human relationships: early relational experiences create powerful potentials that shape later intimate relationships. It aims to provide a “safe enough environment” in which partners can understand the rejected or feared aspects of their personalities and the influence of their unconscious ties to earlier loved objects. Transference, meaning the transfer of strong feelings about important people from one’s past onto the current relationship, can be explored within the couple, so that decisions and needs in the relationship can be based on stronger, more developed conscious awareness.

Family therapy

Family therapy addresses problems within families. By working on communication problems, family dynamics and roles, it aims to improve how the family functions. The therapist uses different techniques to understand how family members interact, who takes on which role and what lies behind the problems, and creates a treatment plan suited to the family’s needs. Couples and family therapy can be delivered by one or two therapists and may involve two or more people in sessions. The main approaches include:

Bowenian family therapy

One of the earliest approaches in the field, developed by Murray Bowen in the 1950s. It explains relationships between family members through the interaction of each person’s characteristics and the differences between their relationships. It considers that conflict in families often stems from enmeshment, power struggles and unclear boundaries, and it helps family members manage themselves and relate to one another in a healthy way without intruding on each other’s lives. Its aims are to regulate relationships, work on conflicts and solutions, and help family members understand their own inner worlds better.

Structural family therapy

Developed to help families build a system that can solve problems and function according to its own characteristics. It looks at roles, boundaries and hierarchies within the family, regulates relationships, and strengthens family members’ ability to talk with each other and solve problems, helping them set boundaries and communicate openly.

Systemic family therapy

Focuses on the relationships, characteristics and interactions of family members. It explores the links between members’ behaviours, beliefs, values and interactions and how these affect problems, and it encourages members to see things through each other’s eyes so that they understand each other better and communicate more effectively.

Strategic family therapy

Addresses the reasons behind particular behaviours and interactions in the family and focuses on solving problems by deliberately changing patterns of interaction. It helps family members learn how to cope with problems and communicate in a healthy way.

All of these approaches help family members interact healthily and overcome their problems. By strengthening bonds, developing communication skills and resolving problems, family therapy helps families function in a healthier way. Any couple or family experiencing difficulties in their relationships can benefit from it.

Divorce

Counselling before and/or after divorce plays an important role in working through the emotional turmoil and confusion that such a profound change inevitably brings. Change, whether wanted or not, often creates fear, and divorce has a deep impact on the established order of people’s lives.

Whether divorce is wanted by one partner or both, a process of loss and grief begins for each of them. In this process, which often involves the partners’ families and close circles, parents caught up in difficult emotions often seek counselling to make the best decisions for their children. However, focusing all attention on the children, on the assumption that only they will be affected, can amount to denying one’s own feelings and need for help. Counselling or psychotherapy for each partner individually is just as important as support for the children in getting through the process in the healthiest possible way.