Individual or couples therapy? When it makes more sense to start together or alone with marriage and relationship problems, and whether both can run together.
You know that something is not right in your marriage. Perhaps before every religious holiday the argument over "Whose family do we visit first?" grows into a silent standoff lasting days. Perhaps since a message you saw on your spouse's phone, nothing has been the same. Or perhaps there is no big crisis, but you live in the same house like two strangers. When you decide to seek support, the first question arises: individual or couples therapy? Should you go alone or together with your spouse? In this article we look at the difference between the two approaches, which one it may be more appropriate to start with in which situation, and the situations in which couples therapy is not recommended.
Individual or Couples Therapy: What Is the Basic Difference?
The most fundamental difference between the two forms of therapy is the focus.
In individual therapy the focus is on you: your thoughts, your feelings, your past experiences, the patterns that repeat in your relationships and the ways you cope with them. The problems in your marriage are discussed; but always from your point of view and in terms of what you can change. Your spouse is not in the room; the therapist knows about them only what you tell them.
In couples therapy, the "client" is not the two people themselves but the relationship between them. The therapist listens to both sides in the same room and focuses on the cycle that has formed between them: why does one withdraw when the other criticises? At what point does an argument get out of control? Who finds it hard to say what? The aim of couples therapy is not to find out who is right, but to see how the two people trigger each other and how this cycle can change.
Each approach has its own strengths and limitations. In individual therapy you can speak without censoring yourself at all; you can voice your most fragile feelings, your doubts and even your anger without thinking about your spouse's reaction. But the therapist sees the relationship only through your window. In couples therapy, by contrast, the therapist hears both partners' accounts and can observe the interaction between them live, within the session; on the other hand, some topics may take longer to raise in front of your spouse.
This difference is the first clue in working out which approach suits you better. If the problem lies mainly in the interaction between the two of you, couples therapy comes to the fore; if it lies mainly in your inner world or in another area of your life, individual therapy does. But in real life this distinction is not always so clear-cut; most of the time the two are intertwined.
When Is It Better to Start With Couples Therapy?
In the following situations, couples therapy may be a more suitable option to start with:
- If both partners are willing to work on the relationship. For couples therapy to work, it matters that both partners take part voluntarily. If one has been brought by force, the process becomes very difficult.
- If the same argument happens over and over. The topic may be money, housework, raising children or the older generation of the family; but if arguments always get stuck in the same place and end without anyone learning anything, seeing this cycle together is valuable.
- If communication has broken down completely. If staying silent instead of talking, arguing by text message or not speaking for days has become the norm.
- After an event that has shaken trust. After infidelity or a big lie has come to light, if both partners want to continue the relationship, rebuilding trust often requires joint work.
- During a major life transition. At times such as the birth of a baby, one partner losing their job, moving to another city, a mother-in-law moving into the home, or retirement, the relationship has to find a new balance.
- Before marriage. Joint sessions can also be useful for couples who want to discuss expectations, money management, family boundaries and their views on children before they marry.
Say you are newly married and in your first year almost every weekend turns into a crisis: one family is expecting you for Sunday breakfast, the other is inviting you to dinner, and you get squeezed between the two and snap at each other once you are home. The problem here is not a "fault" in either of you, but that you have not yet been able to set a shared family rule. In a picture like this, sitting down together and putting expectations on the table may produce results faster than work done alone.
You can find out in detail how couples therapy works in our article what is couples therapy.
When Is It Better to Start With Individual Therapy?
In some situations, starting alone first may make more sense:
- If your spouse does not want to come. This is the most common situation. Your spouse not taking part does not stop you getting support. As you change, the cycle in the relationship can change too.
- If a difficulty of your own is overshadowing the relationship. For example, panic attacks that have started in you, a long depressive period or an unresolved trauma may be the main source of tension in the relationship. In this case, addressing this difficulty first also eases the relationship.
- If you are undecided about whether to stay or go. If thoughts of separation are strong within you and you are not yet ready to share them with your spouse, first clarifying your own feelings and needs may be a more honest start. We look at this decision-making process in our article on the decision to divorce.
- If you keep reliving the same relationship patterns in different relationships. If you get stuck at a similar point in every relationship, exploring the roots of this pattern individually can be helpful.
- If there is an active addiction. If one partner has an ongoing problem with alcohol, substances or gambling, individual and specialised support aimed at this problem is usually needed first.
Say your spouse has been gambling online at night for some time and the household's savings are melting away. In this picture, starting couples therapy directly carries the risk of reducing the real problem to a "communication problem". A more realistic sequence is for support for the addiction to come first, and for you to get individual support so that you can carry your own load during this process.
If There Is Violence: Why Couples Therapy May Not Be Recommended
This point deserves special emphasis. If there is physical violence, threats, intense control or fear in the relationship, couples therapy is generally not recommended as a first step.
There are several reasons for this. Couples therapy rests on the assumption that both sides can speak openly in the session. But the partner who is experiencing violence may fear they will pay the price at home for what they say in the session. In addition, the "we both play a part" language of couples therapy may be perceived as wrongly sharing out responsibility for the violence. Violence is not a communication problem; it is a safety problem.
In this case, the priority is the safety of the person experiencing violence. Individual support, making a safety plan and learning about legal rights are more important at this stage. In any situation where your life is in danger, call 112 (emergency services). The ALO 183 line (Turkey's social support hotline) also provides information and support on this. You can find routes to support for women experiencing violence in our article on psychological support for women experiencing violence.
Couples therapy builds a ground on which two people can talk together; but the first condition of that ground is that everyone in the room feels safe.
Individual or Couples Therapy? Questions You Can Ask Yourself When Deciding
If you are still unsure, these questions can help you find your direction:
- What do I want to change? Is it a wish about the relationship, such as "I want my spouse to listen to me", or a wish about myself, such as "I don't want to be this anxious"?
- Does my spouse also see this problem as a problem? If you both accept that something needs to change, there is a basis for working together.
- Can I speak honestly in front of my spouse? If you feel you could not say what you want to say in front of your spouse, it is important to understand why: is it shame, fear, or feelings that have not yet become clear?
- Did these problems exist before this relationship too? If anxiety, anger or insecurity were in your life before the relationship, individual work may come to the fore.
- What reaction do I expect when I suggest to my spouse that we go together? If you think suggesting it will set off a big argument, preparing for this conversation individually first may make things easier.
- Do I want to continue the relationship? If your answer to this question is "I don't know", that too is an answer, and it may call for working on yourself first.
Writing your answers on a piece of paper and reading them again a few days later allows you to look more calmly at answers given in the first flush of anger or hurt. A person who says "This relationship is over" straight after an argument may give a very different answer to the same question a few days later.
The answers to these questions do not always point in one direction. What matters is not making the perfect choice, but starting somewhere. The first assessment session is also an opportunity to clarify together which path is more suitable.
Can the Two Be Carried Out Together?
Yes, in some situations individual and couples therapy can be carried out in the same period or one after the other. For example, while one partner continues individual therapy for depression, the couple can at the same time do joint work on the relationship. Or a difficulty may first be eased through individual work, after which the focus moves to the relationship as a couple.
Another common route is this: one partner starts individual therapy on their own, within a few months starts behaving differently in the relationship, and the spouse who sees this change becomes more open to the joint work they initially refused. In this respect, individual therapy sometimes serves as a preparation that opens the door to couples therapy.
In this case there are some points to bear in mind. Most specialists who have worked individually with one partner for a long time prefer not to carry out couples therapy with the same couple; the other partner may feel the therapist is closer to their spouse, and impartiality may be compromised. For this reason, individual and couples therapy are generally carried out with different specialists. In individual meetings held during couples therapy, a clear agreement about "secrets" is made from the start: if the therapist ends up having to hold an important piece of information that one partner is hiding from the other, this makes the couples work difficult.
How Is This Decision Addressed in Therapy?
Most of the time the decision is made together in the first assessment session. With clients who come as a couple, the therapist usually holds a joint meeting first and may then plan brief individual meetings with each partner. These individual meetings are so that both sides can comfortably share their expectations of the relationship, their own history and any safety concerns.
At the end of this assessment, the therapist makes a recommendation based on the picture they see: continuing directly with couples therapy, starting with individual work first, or running both approaches together with different specialists. In couples work based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, communication skills, problem solving and the couple's automatic thoughts about each other are worked on. How thoughts such as "They never change anyway" or "They don't care about me" fuel arguments is examined together.
For couples with children, this decision sometimes comes by a roundabout route. Families seek help for a child who is having problems at school or cannot sleep at night; during the assessment it emerges that a significant part of the child's distress is linked to tension at home. In such a situation, alongside support for the child, the parents may also need to look at their relationship as a couple. Here the question of individual or couples therapy widens to include a third option: a plan in which the needs of the child, the parents and the couple are considered together.
In Turkey, couple relationships are often not independent of the influence of the extended family. Topics such as the expectations of the mother-in-law and father-in-law, arguments over the wedding and wedding gold, and the older generation interfering in the marriage frequently appear on the agenda of couples therapy. You can find out how joint work on the relationship is planned on our couples therapy page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is couples therapy done to prevent divorce?
The aim of couples therapy is not to keep a relationship going at any cost. The aim is to help two people see their relationship more clearly and make a healthy decision. Some couples strengthen their relationship; others decide to separate with less damage and in a more respectful way.
Can unmarried couples also come to couples therapy?
Yes. Partners who are dating, engaged or living together can also benefit from couples therapy to work on their relationship. What matters is not an official status, but that both people are willing to work on the relationship together.
Can my individual therapist also be our couples therapist?
This is generally not recommended. A therapist who has worked individually with one partner for a long time may struggle to remain impartial in couples therapy, and the other partner may feel left out. For this reason, referral to a different specialist for the couples work is the more common practice.
In couples therapy, are partners also seen separately?
Some specialists hold brief individual meetings with partners during the assessment process or at times they consider necessary. How the information shared in these meetings will be reflected in joint sessions is discussed from the start, so that both partners feel safe.
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Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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