Couples usually come to therapy because something isn’t working. There are arguments that keep coming back, a sense of distance, or a quiet dissatisfaction that never quite goes away. Very often each person feels that the other is the problem, or at least that things would be better if the other person were different.
Non-dual couples therapy starts from a different place. It still takes these difficulties seriously, but it looks beneath them, at where they come from in the first place.
Where the problems begin
From a non-dual perspective, the problems couples face come from the belief in separation. As soon as there is a sense of “me” and “you” as separate selves, there is ego, and it is only the ego, the conceptual identity, that feels separate. From there come comparison, defensiveness, the need to be right and the feeling that the other person is standing in the way of our happiness.
This understanding is the bedrock of how I work with couples. As in individual therapy, we look at thought patterns, at different sides of each person and at the identities they hold, so that each person identifies with them less strongly. But most importantly, the work leads towards seeing that there is no separation between the two people in the room. When a couple reaches this understanding, it brings complete love, tolerance and acceptance of whatever is, for each other. With no separation, there is no “what’s best for them” set against “what’s best for me”. They are one, and that is a really beautiful place to work from.
Two layers of the work
The work happens on two levels: together, and individually.
When I work with a couple together, the main thing is for both people to feel truly understood. This is the foundation. In my experience, when someone feels deeply understood, the problems they arrived with often fade quite quickly. Real empathy and understanding bring a sense of unity, connection and oneness, and the surface issues tend to dissolve with it. So much of the joint work is about each person really feeling and understanding where the other is coming from.
Individual sessions are just as important. From a non-dual perspective, the purpose of a relationship is to bring us closer to the truth, and the truth is that there is no separate, conceptual self. In the same way, there is no conceptual relationship. “The relationship” as an idea exists only in the mind.
So individually, we look at each person’s own ego and their own challenges with this. A common example is the belief that I would be happier if my partner changed: if they behaved differently, said different things or were more of this and less of that. We examine that belief and the truth in it. Nothing outside us can make us lastingly happy. The ego is always looking for something to attach to that will bring it peace and contentment, and a relationship is very often what it chooses. But when we relate to our partner through that idea, we aren’t meeting them in the present as they actually are.
Working individually in this way lets each person’s own spiritual process continue, and that has the best possible effect on all of their relationships, not just this one.
What if only one of you is drawn to this?
It’s very common for one partner to be interested in the non-dual side while the other simply wants things to be better. That’s fine. Wanting things to be better is a perfectly good place to start.
But the two aren’t really separate. Part of the work is asking what “better” actually means. Usually it means closer to an imagined relationship that exists in the mind, the way things are supposed to be. That picture is the ego trying to fulfil itself, and it never brings lasting happiness, however close we get to it. When we start to look at it honestly, wanting things to be better leads naturally into the same inquiry.
Both of you have to want it
Couples therapy only works if both people genuinely want to take part. Nobody can be coerced into it. That is true of all therapy: it can’t be mandated, which is something I’ve written about elsewhere. If one person is only there because they’ve been pushed, the work can’t really begin.
Is the aim to stay together?
Not as such. From a non-dual perspective there is no set outcome. Unlike some philosophies or traditions, non-duality doesn’t require that a relationship be preserved at all costs.
What we’re looking for is for both people to come closer and closer to the truth. As someone begins to live from that place of being, from spaciousness rather than ego, everyone around them benefits. They act less from separation and lack, and more from connection, peace, contentment and love. In that sense it is an individual journey, the same process of seeing through the self that anyone might go through, but undertaken as a couple.
That asks for some trust in the process. It is the ego that clings and fears, and these reactions too can be seen through.
What changes
People know it’s working because there is more contentment and peace, more acceptance and more understanding.
Someone might arrive feeling constantly dissatisfied in their relationship, always wanting a little more. Often that dissatisfaction is a state within them that is being projected onto their partner. As they let go of those egoic ideas, what grows in its place is acceptance, appreciation and love: for their partner, and for the people around them too. Gratitude and understanding grow with it.
I’ve written more about how this plays out between two people in Non-Duality, Love and Relationships.
Practical details
Couples sessions are online, by video or telephone, and last 80 minutes. That is half an hour longer than an individual session, which gives more time and space when there are two people in the room. Alongside joint sessions, I also see each partner individually, so the work is usually a mixture of the two.
If you’d like to find out more, visit my psychotherapy page.
Further reading
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