Individual Couples Adjustment Therapy (ICAPT): a new resource for couples in conflict

A new methodology helps to improve couple relationships. What does it consist of?

Individual Couples Adjustment Therapy is an additional tool in the treatment of problems related to life as a couple. The assumptions on which the IAPT approach is based are as follows

1. Couple conflicts as such do not exist. The problems of each person as an individual exist.

2. A couple is the sum of two radically different individuals, with a singular and unique history.The couple is the sum of two radically different individuals, with a singular and unique history, with a family, ties, environment, principles, values, education, experiences and big or small traumas, which give rise to two forcibly different personalities, no matter how great the affection and attraction towards each other may be.

3. Therefore, the problems are not of the couple as such, but the product of the internal mobilization of past conflicts (of a whole life) of each of its components when they collide with those of the other. (of a whole life) of each of its components when clashing with those of the other, and the consequent hatching that occurs when trying to make life compatible with a person who brings, equally, a baggage of values, but also of deficient, immature, when not manifestly pathological aspects.

Characteristics of TIAP

Except for what happens in the initial interview, in Individual Couples Adjustment Therapy, instead of working together with the two components of the couple (as is usual in most modalities of couple therapy), the intervention is developed on an individual basis, the intervention is developed on an individualized basis. Each member of the couple will undergo an apparently individual psychotherapy, on days and hours different from those of his/her partner.

The practical characteristic that defines this type of therapy is that the therapist will work with a double objective:

1. Greater self-awareness, maturity, development and assumption of personal resources.The acceptance of limits, and suppression of projections and introjections of relevant figures.

2. At the same time, as the therapist knows the strengths and weaknesses of both components, the practice of behaviors that will facilitate self-awareness in both components can be promoted.The therapy is based on the following aspects: knowledge of the other, knowledge of others, knowledge in general, overcoming the usual amounts of aggressiveness and resentment, the result of a frustrated and frustrating common life experience (at least in certain aspects), the management of tolerance to frustration, and the deidealization of unrealistic expectations, which generate so many sexual conflicts, and which are nothing more than somatizations; that is, the expression through the body (in this case the sexual organs) of unresolved emotional or affective conflicts.

Setting of the Individual Couples Adjustment Therapy

The members of the couple may not comment on the content of the individual sessions in their private or social life, as is the case in the components of the individual sessions.The couple may not comment on the content of the individual sessions in their private or social life, as is the case in the components of any group psychotherapy. However, the effects of these sessions must be recognized by both oneself and one's partner in order for the therapy to be considered successful.

Advantages of TAPT

The TIAP constitutes a field of individual progress that joins, in parallel, with the evolution of the other, advancing in time the possibility that these individual advances are reflected in their coexistence, in their verbal, affective and sexual communication.

This parallel and complementary enrichment allows that, from the first sessions, both members of the couple begin to perceive important benefits for the relationship, only through the portion of empathy and psycho-affective knowledge of the other, often obtained in only two or three sessions.

The fact of working exclusively with the therapist, without the presence of the other member in the consultation room, allows the free expression of opinions, values and feelings, allows the free expression of opinions, evaluations and feelings.This is sometimes not possible with the partner in front of the patient because of embarrassment, grief or aggressiveness.

There are many who, when working with the traditional methodology, do not go beyond the first session, or, at most, and with heroic efforts, endure a few sessions, clearly insufficient, abandoning the therapeutic work with the aggravating factor of having poured in the joint sessions opinions and feelings that will condition the rest of their potential coexistence.

Requirements for implementing IAPT

In order to be able to carry out the Individual Couples Adjustment Therapy with guarantees it is necessary that a series of requirements are given:

• That none of the members of the couple present mental disorders of such severity that make it impossible for them to live together. of such severity that make the process impossible.

• The total conscience by both parts of that not only the other one has problems, deficiencies, defects, traumas, etc.The total conscience by both parts that not only the other has problems, lacks, defects, traumas or unresolved conflicts.

• It is desirable that the therapy is carried out with the total conviction of its necessity by both parties, as well as with absolute freedom.and with absolute freedom, without pressure of any kind, even if well-intentioned.