Often when clients find us to be a good fit for them, they later ask us to play an additional role. They may have first come to know us as their individual therapist and now wish to address some challenges they are facing in an intimate relationship. They think that their partner would also like us and ask if the couple can become our client as well. Or they started in couples counseling and then found they would like to address some individual concerns, and they ask if they can become our individual client.
In either case, shifting to another role feels like a smart move to them. We know that client-therapist fit is the strongest predictor of progress in counseling, so they aren’t wrong in wanting to maximize the match they have found. Starting over and trying to find another therapist that they will fit with is going to be time consuming and somewhat challenging – like deciding to get back into dating when you already have found a great match.
They also know that there could be some efficiencies in sticking with the same therapist. They already spent significant time teaching this therapist about their history, their values and their idiosyncrasies. Having to walk a new therapist through all of that is going to be time consuming and possibly costly in out-of-pocket fees. So, the client appears to be simply proposing an efficient and emotionally safe path forward.
Why does the therapist so quickly nip this idea in the bud? We know that the therapist provides both services (individual and couples). If they do those services for others, why couldn’t they do them for you?
It is because your therapist has good boundaries and they recognize that changing their role will break the good fit that currently exists. Clinicians have a responsibility to act in accordance with their client’s interest. Clinicians are loyal to their client’s interest. If you are my individual client, I will be loyal to you and your interests forever. Unless I am in some forensic role, your view of your world is the only view and your goals and interests are my goals and interests. When the client is a couple, we are likewise aligned with the corporate interests that are shared by the couple, or that are some blend of each partner’s interests and goals. That entity (the couple) is not either of the partners, or the sum of their interests, but a third entity in the counseling process. We are loyal to that entity.
If I am your individual therapist and I were to become your couple’s counselor, you would lose my single-minded loyalty to your interests and goals. My data would forever be changed once I hear stories about you from your partner from their worldview. I also will have to spend extraordinary energy trying to remember if I am referencing information from the couple’s session (shared knowledge) or information that you previously told me in confidence. You would lose me as your single-minded ally as I would begin to incorporate the other’s world view and try to distill the goals and interests of the other party, and most importantly, the third party, the couple. Of course, my previous experience as your individual therapist also damages the experience for the other partner before their relationship with me ever begins. The second party into the room might always think of themselves as the third wheel and wonder if the therapist is taking the side of their partner when the couple is struggling to resolve different views.
These issues of fidelity and integrity are also in play if we were to move from couples to individual therapist. You don’t want your couple’s therapist to be your individual therapist because you the therapist already knows too much. You won’t have control over your story the way you should when you first start with an individual therapist. The therapist might skip essential processes at the beginning of your work because they believe they already know you. They might make assumptions because they have previous experience with you as a member of the couple. You might always wonder if their reflections or comments to you originated in knowledge and opinions they developed as they observed your behaviors in your couple’s relationship, or if the therapist’s views have been swayed by their time with the couple’s client.
So, your therapist, who has good boundaries, is going to tell you that they also think the therapist-client fit is a good one and decline to take an action that might risk losing that good fit.
Steven “Jake” Jacobson, LCSW-S is either an individual or a couples therapist (depending upon who you ask) in our Denton office.
