If your therapist is taking sides, that’s a problem. A real problem. And I want you to trust that instinct you have, because it’s telling you something important.
Here’s what I know from 16 years of doing this work: the moment I walk into a room with a couple, I have one client. Not the person who called me first. Not the person who seems more reasonable. Not the person who’s crying more. The relationship is my client. Both people, together.
What that means in practice is I have to be genuinely on both sides at the same time, all the time. That’s the job. That’s what makes couples therapy so different from individual therapy. I’m actively managing two nervous systems simultaneously. I’m validating one person’s pain and then turning around and validating the other person’s completely different pain. And I mean it both times.
It’s not a strategy or a device. I genuinely step into each person’s world and feel how their experience makes total sense. There isn’t a human being alive who doesn’t deserve love and empathy and care. If I can’t find that for both people in the room, that’s on me as the therapist.
Here’s the thing I want you to hear: bad couples therapy, therapy where someone feels shamed or ganged up on or like “the problem,” isn’t just unhelpful. It can actually make things worse.
When a therapist starts doing behavior change work, essentially telling one person “you need to stop doing that,” the primary message landing inside that person is “you are not acceptable here.” And once someone feels that, they shut down. They protect. And then nothing real can happen.
I see this a lot. One partner gets labeled as the angry one, the avoidant one, the problem. Meanwhile, the other partner starts feeling vindicated, like they’ve finally found an ally. But what we’ve actually created is two people on one side and one person on the other. That’s not therapy. That’s an intervention.
So if you’re sitting in sessions feeling like the therapist has decided who the bad guy is, trust that feeling. You deserve a therapist who makes you both feel like they genuinely get you. Both of you.
Because here’s what real couples therapy looks like: it’s messy and uncomfortable for everyone. Both people should be squirming a little, having their assumptions challenged, feeling seen but also stretched. If only one person is doing the emotional heavy lifting, something’s off.
The best thing about good couples therapy? Nobody gets to be the victim or the villain. You’re both just humans trying to figure out how to love each other better.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: What to Expect in Your First Couples Therapy Session
