Genoveva Navarro: couples therapy going deeper

There are many ways to understand couples therapy: as a place to establish honest dialogue, as a context in which to encourage behaviors in the relationship with the other, a space in which to leave behind the struggle of egos... Depending on our way of defining it, the objective of the psychologist's intervention will be different, even if only a little.

Here we will know a little about Genoveva Navarro's way of working, a psychoanalytically oriented psychologist who regularly helps people with problems in their love relationships.

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

Genoveva Navarro: couples therapy as a way to assume responsibilities

Genoveva Navarro Jimenez She is a psychoanalyst psychologist and treats patients of practically all ages in her practice in Malaga: TuDivan Psicoanálisis. With more than 15 years of experience offering professional support to people with emotional and behavioral problems of all kinds, this time he talks about couples therapy seen from the prism of psychoanalysis.

How are the first two or three couples therapy sessions?

With couples therapy, we mean that the person who consults suffers from some aspect of their relationship, their life as a couple makes them suffer. In other words, couples therapy addresses problems in relationships but not necessarily as a couple.

The first sessions are oriented towards seeing what the problem is about, because the conflict is not always where one thinks it is. It can be anything from a communication problem to something of your own character that is preventing you from enjoying the relationship as a couple. That is why in these first sessions you will see how it is advisable to work.

It is also necessary to see these first interviews what are the expectations of the person who consults and what they expect us to help them with. Because what many people are looking for is a battery of tools to change their partners, or someone to act as a judge and say who is doing it right and who is doing it wrong.

Couples therapy is not focused on changing the other, it is focused on being able to enjoy love, to improve the relationship with oneself and the bond with others. And in that process one also learns to think critically, resolve conflicts, and take care of what one wants.

What measures are important to take in these sessions to prevent patients from constantly arguing among themselves?

It must be made very clear that therapy is not to find guilty nor is the therapist a judge. It is very frequent that in the sessions the interested parties argue because it is still a repetition of the symptoms.

The best measure is usually that affective problems are dealt with individually, precisely so that the sessions are not a space for discussion. The problems that a person usually has have to do with the lack of tolerance towards diversity, because they have many expectations, for operating under ideals, for aspects that are overdetermining that person and happen to him unnoticed. This is an individual job, in which the couple does not need to be a witness.

Some people may use couples therapy as a moral alibi before deciding to break up for good. In these early stages of psychological intervention, is it frequent that both members of the couple committed to couples therapy, or you have to do everything possible to "convince" one or more of them. both?

Yes, there are couples who arrive in-extremis, when the relationship is already broken. And more than trying to resume the relationship, it is about being able to elaborate that break. People want miracles and also fast, if it can be something quick, easy and that you don't have to think about, the better.

When someone comes to therapy and it is not by their own decision, but because they have had to be convinced, the most normal thing is that this has a very short journey. Going to therapy is not about any formality. It is undoubtedly a very enriching experience that requires great commitment. More than being committed to therapy, it is about being committed to life. With life in the sense of vitality.

What do psychologists do to encourage patients to commit to therapy?

The first attempt to ask for help is not always effective. Because it's not that person's time, or because there is no good feeling with the therapist, or because they don't like that way of working.

In any case, the therapist, in this case the psychoanalyst psychologist, is in the best conditions to welcome the patient's words in a unique way, and this usually has an immediate effect, which does not leave the patient indifferent. patient.

What are the most difficult problems to recognize in couples therapy?

Undoubtedly our own, we already know: one sees the speck in another's eye before the beam in one's own.

Patients can spend sessions and sessions talking about what their partner does and says. For example, a lady complains that all men are the same and none wants commitment and she doesn't consider what will happen to her because she always looks at the same type of men. Or, for example, the man who constantly changes his partner because no woman satisfies him, and he does not consider what is happening to him in reference to satisfaction.

In general, everyone has a hard time tolerating differences. And if you rush me, it's even difficult to be different from yourself.

But precisely psychoanalytic therapy is focused on treating why and for what one does things. That is why approaching relationship problems from a psychoanalytic approach is not for everyone. It is for those who want to take responsibility.

And the problems for which most people go to couples therapy in general, what are they?

In order to change the couple, the constant discussions and the environment of constant frizz, jealousy, boredom, due to problems with sexual relations (frequency, premature ejaculation, impotence), emotional dependence, due to the rarefaction of the couple after the birth of a child, communication problems, distance, differences with the families of origin, how to manage household chores, etc

And from your point of view as a professional, do you think couples therapy is more satisfying than sessions with a single patient?

For couples who want to go to couples therapy, what I usually recommend, if despite the difficulties they still want to be together, is that in instead of having the space of therapy as a common activity, that they reserve that time to have a couples date, that they have fun, that they enjoy themselves, that talk. And that is living life from the side of love.

And better to do a good personal job, and accept that no matter how good communication there is, men and women will always be different. And that one and the other will never fully understand each other. But this, far from being a problem, is a reality, and it can also be enriching.