Interview with Javier Álvarez: what is couple therapy based on?

Psychologist Javier Álvarez talks about couple therapy from his professional experience.

Couples therapy is not simply a chat with a psychologist in the middle; it is, among other things, a type of experience in which a readjustment is sought, both emotionally and in terms of the way in which the two people communicate with each other and live together.

However, this is a complex process. It is not by chance that in order to perform couple therapy effectively as professionals, one needs several years of training, study and practical experience treating several cases of patients. To better understand the psychological dynamics that take place in couple therapy, we interviewed an expert in the field of couple therapy. we interviewed an expert on the subject, Javier Álvarez Cáceres..

Interview with Javier Álvarez Cáceres: what is couple therapy built on?

Javier Álvarez Cáceres is a General Health Psychologist and expert in couple therapy. He has more than 15 years of experience treating adults with different types of emotional, relational or behavioral problems, and currently works in his office located in Malaga. In this interview he talks to us about the psychological factors that come into play in couples therapy.

Is it usual that we are more competent at detecting failures in other people's relationships than in our own?

Absolutely, we could say that we are more generous with ourselves, with our relationship, than with that of others.

As a result of this "generosity" it is not that we do not detect more failures in other people's relationships, possibly we also detect them in our own, but in our experience we justify and understand why we do a certain action. When faced with other people's relationships, whether we want to or not, we end up judging.

A typical example is when we see a couple talking and the child with a cell phone, what do we think? Without realizing that we were doing it yesterday.

What are the aspects of love and living with a partner that can lead us to overlook warning signs about the state of the relationship?

The main aspect is the lack of enthusiasm, reluctance, when we look for excuses to come home late, when we notice and feel that something is not going as it should, but we are too lazy to see what is happening.

A sign that does not usually fail is the lack of communication, I do not feel like telling my partner about certain things, or I prefer to tell them first to a friend or a colleague. If we are sincere and coherent with ourselves, our emotions do not stop sending us messages of what is going on in our head. Our behavior is the result of what we think and what we feel.

Once you are aware that you have a problem in the relationship... is it common not to dare to say it out loud, and talk about it with the other person to go to couples therapy or at least try to change some habits?

We tend to minimize it, we tell ourselves things like it's a bad patch, it will pass, and thoughts like. "We kick and kick the ball forward".

• Unfortunately we don't usually verbalize it until the level of discomfort is very high. Most couples come to couple's therapy at a very high level of conflict, so that what at first could be changing some habits or improving communication has become a major couple's crisis.

In your professional experience, have you come across many cases of people who come to couples therapy having a very wrong idea about the root of their problem?

There are couples in which one of the partners did not even know they had problems, and there are couples who are very aware of what has led them to the current situation.

In my professional experience, the most common misconception is the idea that it is the other person who has to change for this to go well, when in reality we do not realize that we are a system, and that if I change, the other part of the system will have no choice but to change.

It is easier for me to treat someone well so that they treat me well, than for them to treat me well so that I treat them well.

Another example would be communication, let's initiate a conversation ourselves instead of waiting for my partner to come to me and tell me something... It is about taking responsibility, having an active and not a passive attitude to achieve a change in the type of relationship.

How do you try to ensure that couples therapy sessions do not become a battle of egos to see who is right?

Couples therapy is a structured intervention in which objectives are set according to the demand made by the couple. It is the psychologist's job to maintain order, so that this battle of egos does not turn the session into a copy of the discussions held in the private sphere, "the office is not a ring".

Personally, I tell couples that therapy is not a tennis match in which balls are thrown and the psychologist is the chair umpire to see who makes a point (who is right). Therapy is an intervention aimed at reducing the couple's discomfort, provoking and producing change in those behaviors that are eroding the relationship.

And in your opinion, what are the most useful therapeutic tools to help couples in therapy?

The therapeutic tools vary greatly depending on what it is that has caused a couple to come to therapy. Broadly speaking, three areas are worked on: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. Depending on which area is more deteriorated, the intervention is focused in one way or another.

At first it is important to "create a team", to show that there is no good or bad, that we have a problem that affects both and that between the two we have to solve it.

Couples therapy is a very dynamic intervention, where the couple and the psychologist "roll up their sleeves" and start working giving 200x100%, even if it is unwillingly. Without desire because if the relationship is very deteriorated there is no desire, the desire will come as the therapy progresses, because we will go out to look for them.

As the therapy progresses, we incorporate tools aimed at improving coexistence and communication with the objective of decreasing coexistence and increasing emotional well-being.