Paz Holguín: "More and more couples come to preventive therapy"

Although until a few decades ago it was taken for granted that psychotherapy was basically focused on addressing mental health problems, With the passage of time, another of the most important areas of intervention of psychologists has been gaining importance: the therapy of couple. Because much of the emotional well-being of people has to do with their ability to establish healthy loving relationships, either in courtships or in marriages, and Psychology can do a lot to help in this regard.

That is precisely what we will talk about in this interview with Paz Holguín, who has been working for years to help people through couples therapy processes adapted to the particularities of each relationship.

• Related article: "How do you know when to go to couples therapy? 5 compelling reasons"

Interview with Paz Holguín: what is the essence of couples therapy?

María Paz Holguín Pérez is a psychologist specializing in the cognitive-behavioral and systemic model, and she attends both online by video call and in her office located in Las Rozas de Madrid. In this interview, she tells us about one of the most important facets of her work: adult care in the context of couples therapy.

If you had to summarize the main objective of couples therapy in no more than ten words, how would you do it?

Help members look out for the relationship. Perhaps this would be my summary, the members of the couple tend to look at each other as separate individuals, but they forget that what unites them is the relationship and how, sometimes, individual dynamics harm or help the relationship they have created. The couple is like an exclusive club to which only the people who have created it belong, and both have the responsibility of taking care of it, what happens to it will affect us. I always say that in 1+1=3 couple relationships, there are the members and a third party, the couple, who also have to pay attention.

What are the biggest difficulties or problems that lead people to go to couples therapy?

Couple problems there are as many as couples and members within them. But usually, and much more after the passing of the pandemic, the problems are related to not being clear if they want to continue together or not, with difficulties to listen or understand each other, with power dynamics created between members that harm them and make them feel unvalued, infidelities, changes in myths foundational (what we call the what it is for couples), situations of change such as the birth of children or their leaving home, or noticing that the relationship is stop caring. There are also couples who arrive because they don't know how to separate without harming each other, even though they have already made the decision to do so.

How do you know when it is convenient to go to couples therapy?

It's hard to know when, there's no exact protocol. I always say that we must be in continuous supervision of the relationship so as not to damage it or ourselves in it, and If we feel that we do not have the tools to improve the relationship or what happens in it, we should go to a therapist couple.

In fact, today there is a very high percentage of couples who arrive late for therapy and are already broken. The ideal would be preventive work, but when there are difficulties or misunderstandings that are repeated over and over again, when there are changes in the stages of the life cycle, either of the members or of the same couple, are always good moments to adjust these changes in a way positive. In any case, each couple decides when it is time.

Are all married or dating people who attend couples therapy going through a crisis in their relationship? Or are there those who come simply to improve certain aspects that already work quite well on their own?

Most of them do, they come with current crises and dragged from the past that are deeply rooted and have been making a dent in the couple for a long time. There is little information about what couples therapy is and what works in it, and there are still many myths that make it a last resort for a solution. Many break before considering the therapy process.

As I have mentioned before, more and more couples are going to therapy in a preventive way, and some myths are already fading little by little. Most of these couples have already detected something that is not working in the relationship and that they would like to solve or because they know that future changes are coming, such as moving, the birth of children, or job or personal changes.

Sometimes it is said that Psychology is a discipline linked to History, because our needs and ways of conceiving happiness change with the passing of generations. Are there aspects of couple relationships that decades ago were considered positive and today we know that they are always negative?

Of course, relationships and the way of understanding and living them change in each culture and in each historical process. The couple has been, and is, one of the institutions that is most affected by these changes and what happens in it always has to do with what happens outside.

There are always aspects that are evolving, an example is the role of the female gender in heterosexual couples that is taking a role of equality against the male gender and there is not so much distinction in the functions that each member complies. Another aspect that I think is important to emphasize, no matter what relationship we are in, is jealousy, previously understood as a way of expressing love and now seen as a symptom of insecurity towards the relationship (we must not forget that trusting the other is always a decision of each member). Let's not talk about the appearance of polyamorous couples or homosexual or transsexual couples...

This type of couples have meant a revolution for the concept that society manages. But the reality is that we still continue to see aspects of culture that are anchored in the past. Generating change in people's ideals is not so easy or so fast, even though our world seems to change at a breakneck pace.

How do you think couple relationships will have changed 30 years from now?

This is a complex question because, as I said in the previous question, the couple has always been involved in the social context. I think that technological progress comes into play here, on the one hand, and the concept of free sexuality that is beginning to flourish now. Having relationships through the computer or mobile is starting to be something common and that future generations will handle with more skill than we have. On the other hand, there are already heteronormative and polyamorous ways of maintaining relationships and this will become normalized and vary over time.

In any case, I believe that the bases for maintaining a relationship, whether it be for 2, 3 or more people, will remain the same: respect, understanding, work in the relationship that each one wants to have and the freedom to choose the person or people with whom you want to get involved in a relationship.