Relationship breakup: how is it treated in therapy?

Many of the people who come to psychotherapy do so due to experiences that have left a very painful emotional mark. in his memory: a psychological mark that conditions in a harmful way his way of behaving, thinking and feeling about present.

The fact of having gone through a breakup is often what triggers these forms of discomfort. Luckily, psychologists have spent decades developing methods to overcome these alterations linked to the emotional. Let's see what it consists of through a summary about How are the consequences of couple breakups addressed in psychotherapy?.

• Related article: "The 8 psychological pillars to overcome a breakup"

What is done in psychotherapy to help overcome a breakup?

Here we will see what are the most important processes that take place throughout psychological therapy sessions when you want to help someone who is suffering from a breakup. Yes indeed, not all of these therapeutic resources are used in all casessince each patient is unique.

1. Self-knowledge exercises

Especially in the first sessions, it is essential to explore the main causes of the patient's discomfort. This usually requests an appointment for the first meeting with the psychologist having a vague idea about what is happening to him, but it is necessary that he get to see her. in a clearer way and even detecting aspects of his initial experience that were misleading him about the root of his discomfort.

And it is that the fact of feeling in our own flesh an emotional alteration does not automatically make us aware of what is the real problem that generates this psychological phenomenon. For this, among other things, the figure of the psychologist, who helps to understand the logic by which this discomfort is maintained and emerges in certain day-to-day situations.

How do you get patients to understand which are the aspects of the breakup that hurt them the most? Training them in exercises of Emotional Intelligence and self-awareness.

Most of these have to do with writing down in a kind of personal diary (or self-registration) what they feel at key moments, as well as what they were doing just before, during, and after those experiences. Going creating this routine allows us to have a global vision of the emotional maladjustment and to detect common patterns in most of them.

In any case, it is the psychotherapist who gives the instructions to apply this exercise on a daily basis, depending on the particularities of the patient and her life context.

2. Discomfort management exercises

One of the key aspects of psychotherapy applied to cases of discomfort due to breakup has to do with teach the patient to manage the unpleasant and emotionally painful sensations that he feels. This happens to avoid falling into very frequent traps, such as trying to completely "block" certain thoughts and feelings that cause discomfort. Trying to keep this kind of content out of consciousness only gives it more power over us.

Therefore, in psychotherapy exercises to manage anxiety and intrusive thoughts are carried out, which include principles of acceptance of a certain degree of discomfort.

3. Mindfulness Training

In people who suffer due to the end of a love relationship, it is common to feel an affective ambivalence that is painful: melancholy and the desire to return to the happy moments spent in the company of that person, on the one hand, and the resentment and frustration for what triggered the breakup, on the other. other.

Therefore, it is important learn to keep these emotional lurches at bay and not give in to Manichean interpretations of what happened, which lead us to see everything in black and white and to look for absolute culprits and absolute victims. In other words, one must be able to see the situation from a perspective that does not always seek to issue very clear moral judgments, but rather to describe and adopt a constructive perspective.

To achieve this, there are different techniques and strategies, and one of the most prominent is Full Attention, or Mindfulness. It is a set of attentional state management practices that lead to valuing experiences as they come to us, without prejudice or interest that they fit into a specific narrative.

• You may be interested in: "What is Mindfulness? The 7 answers to your questions"

4. Questioning of dysfunctional beliefs

A good part of the discomfort caused by a breakup comes to us from a series of inadequate beliefs that we have been clinging to for a long time. An example of this kind of belief is the myth of the better half.: the idea that we are incomplete if we are missing that special someone.

In therapy, to achieve this, what is known as cognitive restructuring is applied.

5. Promotion of a personal development program and closure of the cycle

The breakup of a couple is, in many ways, a kind of psychological mourning, like the one we suffer when a loved one dies. That's why You have to know how to resignify the memories in which that person appears and know how to close them, without trying to keep clinging to a world with that person who exists only in our memory, for better or for worse.

And it is that part of the pain from a breakup usually comes from the contradictions that we experience when focusing our attention on that that we can no longer do, since we still have as our main reference what we did when we were with that person in a relationship loving. You have to know how to let go of that day-to-day organizing reference and welcome new ones, and this is achieved by looking for new exciting life projects, and creating stimulating routines that we had either put aside or never dared to explore.

5. Maintenance of habits that promote mental health

In addition to the therapeutic resources used to treat the specific problem of the consequences of a breakup, they also adopt measures to ensure that the patient follows a lifestyle that includes habits to prevent psychological problems in general.

This is important, because neglecting makes it easier for disorders of this type to arise, and once a psychopathology has begun to develop, it is easier for others to also appear, since they reinforce each other.

In this way, therapy sessions help patients to be informed about what these habits are, and it is easier for them to incorporate these into their day to day, so that everything does not remain in good intentions and nothing further.

Are you interested in attending psychotherapy and receiving help?

If you are thinking of seeking professional help from psychologists, we invite you to contact us. In Advance Psychologists We have been offering psychotherapy services for 20 years, and today we have a complete team of mental health experts who covers all areas of emotional well-being: individual therapy for people of all ages, couples therapy, family therapy, sexology, etc You can find us at our center located in Madrid, or you can arrange online sessions by video call. In this page You will find our contact information and more information about our way of working.

Bibliographic references:

• Aragon, R.S. and Cruz, R.M. (2014). Causes and characterization of the stages of romantic mourning. Psychological Research Act, 4(1): pp. 1329 - 1343.
• Campuzo Montoya, M. (2002). Human couple: Their psychology, their conflicts, their treatment. Mexico: AMPAG.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (2006) On mourning and pain. Firefly Editions. Barcelona.
• Lopez-Cantero, E. (2018). The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations. Philosophia (Ramat Gan), 46(3): pp. 689 - 703.
• Martel, C. et al.(2010). Behavioral activation for depression. The Guilford Press.
• Verhallen, A.M. et. to the. (2019). Romantic relationship breakup: An experimental model to study effects of stress on depression (-like) symptoms. PLoS One, 14(5): e0217320.