Amber Hollingsworth explains why couples counseling fails when addiction is involved: the addicted partner feels ganged up on and drops out. Her model assigns separate counselors to each person, who coordinate and sometimes meet together as a four-person team to have safer conversations.
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Here's what usually happens when people go to couples counseling and there's an addiction involved. Naturally, the person who has an addiction problem doesn't want to talk about it. They're extremely defensive about it. They're extremely sensitive about it. And if you bring it up in a couples counseling session, that person is going to feel very much ganged up on. Whether they are or not, that's the way they're gonna feel. And if that's what gets talked about every time you go to couples counseling, they're gonna feel backed into a corner. It's gonna feel more like they're getting in trouble. They're in the principal's office, and guess what's gon. They're going to quit going. And the only other option would be to not bring up the person's addiction. And in that case, what's the point? We're ignoring the big elephant in the room. And if the counselor doesn't realize that there's this huge, giant addiction problem going on, they're probably going to be given lots of bad advice because they're going to be working on the wrong things. Now, even though I don't think that traditional couples counseling is very helpful, when it comes to one or more of the partners having an addiction, I am a big believer in the idea that the whole family system needs to work on it all at the same time. This whole issue is actually how I came up with the Hope for Families model. In our office, what we do is we give the person who has an addiction, or at least who's being accused of having an addiction. They get a counselor, and the family member gets a counselor, all within the same office, so that the two counselors can communicate with each other, so that everybody's on the same page, and we're not pulling people in separate directions or anything like that. We're trying to bring people together, but it gives each side the place to talk about what's going on without feeling like they're going to start an argument or they're going to be in trouble or getting all defensive. It's sort of the best of both worlds. It's kind of like a mediation type situation. In fact, sometimes we call it lawyering. We say everybody gets their own advocate and your counselor, the ones assigned to you. It's their job to see your side of the situation, to have your back. And so both people feel like they have someone in their corner, someone who understands them. And then the two counselors can work together to help the couple resolve the issues. Sometimes we actually do get in the same room together, but when that happens, all four people come in. That way, nobody feels like ganged up on and you can actually have a productive conversation. Now, if you have a loved one struggling with an addiction and you're just not sure what kind of help is right for you, you can actually schedule a consultation with one of our family recovery counselors. So before you talk your loved one going to counseling or couples counseling or treatment, make sure that that's the right direction for your situation and that you're getting good, sound, objective advice from someone who understands not just addiction, but addiction in the context of a family system. I'll put a link to those consultations in the description below, but up next, I want you to watch this video titled stop telling your addicted loved one to go to counseling, because that might even be worse than if you guys go to couples counseling.
