Since a young age, I have always been interested in systems and relational dynamics. What does it mean to be in relation with another person? How am I when being with others? I’m pretty sure that you have read before that human beings are weird to be in connection. We are social creatures in constant interaction with the world and we get to know ourselves through relating with others.
My work with couples started a while ago when I was training in Argentina, and I have found this type of work particularly enriching and powerful. A couple is an intimate dyad that comes to the therapy room with a whole range of questions that trigger anxiety, shame, anger, guilt, amongst many emotions. And they are also having a new person in this dynamic. Who is this stranger? What would they say about me? Them? Or us? Would they tell us to break up? It makes sense why this type of therapy could be a scary place to go. However, the couples that come to the therapy room and start uncovering their deepest secrets have shown me the complexities that relationships carry with themselves.
It’s a humbling process where they are allowing me to see how it would look like being at home. This is different with individual therapy because couples may start an argument in the room which may be similar to the one that they may have at home, and that in itself is revealing for this stranger. It makes me feel closer to them but sometimes they would rather keep me at bay. A dance between being let in but also being scared of showing too much. Two people that were strangers at some point of their lives and now they are part of their most intimate system that they have. I look for what hasn’t been said, the patterns, their history and their own personal history. Couples work is like weaving this tapestry with two more people who know each other very well but their crises make them forget about each other. I observe the different roles that I take in this work and each couple teaches me something about relationships; the struggles, the pain, the love, the differences and the similarities but ultimately, their truth.
