Transcript:
Hey guys this is Mike Kosim counselor in edina near southfield mall I got asked this recently by somebody so i wanted to make a quick video. They said,” how do i find a good couples counselor?”
I think that's a great question. There are a few things i tell people to look for. The number one thing though is “interventional.” Is the couple's counselor interventional in the sessions? What does that mean? It means that if your session is run like an individual session but with an extra person, then what can happen is somebody vents then the other person gets hurt and vents back and the other person vents and gets back vents and hits back then eventually you guys spiral upwards and it pops. That’s just called a fight — that's not called counseling. So what you want instead is a couples counselor that intervenes. So as somebody tries to do that the, couple's counselor stops the session and says,”whoa whoa whoa what's going on?”
And starts getting to the bottom of what's causing the anger, so that's a really transformative piece —when somebody can get below the anger and start talking about their hurt or their fear or their pain instead of just talking about anger or how the other person is doing something wrong. (that’s an attack)
So that's the number one thing look for (in a couples counselor). Somebody who's interventional.
Ask for a — you know oftentimes therapists will have (free) 15-minute consultation sessions. Take advantage of that. Get a feel for them over video get a feel for them over phone and you'll get a sense for how it is they're going to proceed when things do get heated.
So you know somebody can come in with anger— In my sessions, you know people oftentimes come in with anger. They'll come in with anger and they'll say something like,”she didn't again she couldn't squeeze out the sponge! She just left it there and it was moldy and it was. . . “
I say,”Whoa whoa whoa whoa! What's going on? You're so angry right now about a sponge? what's going on? Well, it feels like like she either like can't hear me or doesn't care.”
“Oh! ‘doesn't care’. It feels like your wife doesn't care.”
“Yeah, it feels like she doesn't care or like like i don't matter!”
“Oh! you feel like you don't matter to your wife and that's why you're angry? Yeah okay now we're somewhere.”
So when this person starts off with anger, the counselor gets an opportunity to help guide them into something that feels more connected with what the injury is. So for that person the injury had nothing to do with the sponge.That's what they were going to yell at their wife for, but the hurt was actually (about) feeling like they didn't matter. When you can get to that point in your couple session then things can start to change and that's what you want your therapist to enable. You want them to be interventional — stop the angry stop the angry lobbing at each other and then start to wonder about what's underneath.
Okay so that's the number one thing I tell people — look for an interventional counselor. Take good care!
** Watch the video for the bloopers! (there’s always PLENTY of them when I make these)