If they don t, inquire about the therapist s training. This information may be included in the therapist s office policy statement. Once into a therapeutic relationship, many clients are confused about the rules governing whether they should be seeing their couples therapist for individual meetings as well. The particular way a therapist makes these decisions has to do with her theoretical orientation, how she perceives what is happening with the couple, and, sometimes, pure instinct. Each of these bears closer examination.
Theoretical orientation is perhaps the most concrete.
Many family therapists, who are likely to perceive the couple as a system of interacting parts, believe it detracts from effectively correcting the system to work on any of its parts separately. Indeed, they may fear that pulling the intimacy out of the couple and into the intense therapy relationship may further warp the system. Then there is the question of what is going on with the couple. The wife might want to tell the therapist what s really going on. Again, different therapists regard this differently.