Why I Start Couples Therapy by Asking About Joy | Brooklyn Therapies

Why We Start With Joy

When I meet a new couple, I never start with what the problems are, nor what they are looking for. Instead, I ask them to tell me about the joy of their relationship.

This is not a list of attributes of the other. This is not the love story of how they first met. It is what is joyful about this relationship, what is the good? This is where we orient.

Conflict resolution is important, of course. A fair distribution of labor in the relationship or in the family, better communication, better listening, better attention to one another, more appreciation: these are all essential things to work on in any relationship. Not to mention date nights, sex life, and fun: some of what I like to refer to as “blowing on the coals.”

So while we have, generally speaking, come together to solve problems and to work on the relationship, the core question is very simple: for what? What are we fighting for? Once the problematic layers we have been coated in are broken down, or peeled away, what is underneath?

That is the essence of what we are after in couples therapy. It is not about achieving love, or achieving joy, but revealing that which is already there, waiting to be rediscovered, waiting to be recognized again.

So that is where we orient. That is our north star. The joy of the relationship, the hearth we look to return to, again and again.