Why Does Couples Therapy Work?

Gottman Method Couples Therapy, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy, Relational Life Therapy, Intimacy From the Inside Out Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy, Imago Relationship Therapy, Psychodynamic Couples Therapy…

The list goes on and on. It can be challenging to choose a method of couples therapy when there are so many to pick from. Each method has its own theory of change, goals, interventions, and training programs and, in several cases, its own body of research backing up its efficacy for improving relationships.

What may surprise you is that many of these methods have a lot in common. In fact, Sprenkle, Davis, and Lebow reviewed the research on relationship therapy methods and discovered that there were common factors that, across modalities, explained what works in couples therapy to improve relationships (what we call “mechanisms of change”). Their comprehensive research outlines three of the change agents in couples therapy, across couples therapy methods:

1. Helping Clients Team Up Against the Real Enemy: The Interactional Pattern

In couples therapy, partners begin to team up against the negative interaction pattern in which they are caught, instead of fighting each other. Across couples therapy modalities, difficulties are conceptualized in relational terms. This means that rather than focusing on any one person in the relationship, clients begin to understand…