23 Therapists Reveal the Shocking Signs They Knew Their Relationships Were Doomed—and How They Handled It
Though these professionals help many of their clients, some of them seem nearly beyond their aid. Bored Panda has collected some of the most open and honest therapists’ posts on Reddit about how they handle cases when couples have deeply troubled relationships that they might feel won’t last. Scroll down for their stories.
I would note that in my training we are taught that it is unethical to continue couple’s therapy with a relationship where one partner is abusing the other. My SIL and her former husband were in this situation (he was/is abusive) – their therapist basically told her that he couldn’t continue working with them because her husband was abusive and she should leave him. I give a lot of props to that therapist since this was in a highly conservative/religious area where divorce is really frowned upon, and this was a specifically religious therapist.
Not a therapist here, but training to be one.
My professor was a couples therapist for 25 years. She said on the first session she would take each person in her office separately and ask them “on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want to work on this relationship and stay together?”
She said that she could construct a treatment plan based on where the numbers were relative to each other. So her plan would look different if a couple answered like 8&9 than if they looked like 1&2. She said the saddest were when it was like 1&10 because then it was more about helping that person who was a 10 slowly accept that things weren’t going to work out.
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