How the Wrong Individual Therapist Can Damage Your Marriage: Why Relational Empowerment Matters More Than Individual Empowerment
Your marriage is struggling, and you're considering therapy. You want to work on yourself first before diving into couples counseling. It sounds logical, right? Unfortunately, this well-intentioned approach can sometimes lead you further away from the relationship you're trying to save.
The reality is that individual empowerment and relational empowerment are fundamentally different skills – and choosing the wrong type of therapeutic approach when your marriage is in crisis can actually accelerate your path toward divorce rather than healing. I am Audrey Schoen, and as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I specialize in helping both individuals and couples creating happy lasting relationships through relational empowerment.
The Individual Empowerment Trap in Traditional Therapy
Most traditional individual therapists are trained to help you become more self-aware, set boundaries, and prioritize your own needs. These are valuable skills in many contexts, but when applied to marriage problems without a relational framework, they can be destructive.
When you sit in individual therapy discussing your partner's shortcomings week after week, something predictable happens. You receive validation for your frustrations (which feels good), you're encouraged to focus on what you can control (yourself), and you're often guided toward "empowering" decisions that prioritize your individual well-being.
The problem? No one is advocating for your relationship.
Research confirms this concern: clients who engage in individual therapy for a couples therapy related issue will divorce or leave their partner at a significantly higher rate than those who engage in couples therapy. Without someone observing the actual dynamic between you and your partner, it's nearly impossible to get an accurate picture of what's really happening in your relationship.
Understanding Relational Empowerment vs. Individual Empowerment
Individual empowerment focuses on personal autonomy, self-advocacy, and meeting your own needs. While these skills matter, they represent only half the equation in intimate relationships.
Relational empowerment is something entirely different. It's the ability to advocate for yourself while simultaneously considering the impact on your partner and your relationship as a whole. It's learning to have your voice while also creating space for your partner's voice. It's developing what researchers call "Power To" (the ability to self-regulate and manage emotions while having voice and respecting your partner's voice) and "Power With" (the couple's commitment to nurture the relationship through empathy, respect, and generosity).
The Relational Life Therapy Approach
Terrence Real, the founder of Relational Life Therapy (RLT), has spent decades developing an approach that addresses this exact problem. His work recognizes that true intimacy can only happen when partners are "same-as" with each other rather than caught in power struggles of one-up grandiosity or one-down shame.
Real's approach challenges what he calls "the toxic culture of individualism" that permeates much of our society and, unfortunately, much of traditional therapy. In his books, including "Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship," he argues that we've been conditioned to prioritize individual success over relational connection.
The RLT model is fundamentally different from traditional psychodynamic therapy. RLT is about action and swift results, helping people to make major changes to the negative parts of their character, while keeping the relationship front and center.
How Traditional Individual Therapy Can Sabotage Your Marriage
When you're working with an individual therapist who isn't trained in systems thinking or relational dynamics, several harmful patterns often emerge:
The Validation Trap
Your therapist validates your frustrations with your partner week after week. While validation feels supportive, it can become a problem when it's not balanced with curiosity about your own role in the relationship dynamic.
The Boundary Overdose
You're encouraged to set firmer boundaries, speak your truth, and prioritize your needs. Again, these aren't inherently bad suggestions, but without considering how to do this in a way that strengthens rather than erodes your relationship, you may find yourself creating more distance than connection.
The "You Can Only Control Yourself" Philosophy
While technically true, this approach often leads to a kind of emotional withdrawal from the relationship. You stop trying to influence positive change in your partnership and instead focus solely on your own personal growth.
Missing the Bigger Picture
Your individual therapist only hears your side of the story. They can't observe how you and your partner actually interact, which means they're missing crucial information about the relationship dynamic.
What Relational Empowerment Looks Like in Practice
Relational empowerment means developing the skills to:
Speak your truth while staying curious about your partner's experience
Set boundaries that protect both yourself and the relationship
Take responsibility for your part in relationship dynamics
Advocate for your needs while considering the impact on your partner
Repair quickly when things go sideways
In my practice, I see the difference every day. Clients who develop relational empowerment skills don't just become better partners – they become more authentic, grounded individuals who can navigate conflict with skill and grace.
When Individual Therapy Makes Sense for Relationship Issues
This doesn't mean individual therapy is never appropriate when you're having relationship problems. There are specific situations where individual work is essential:
Personal Trauma or Mental Health Issues
If you're dealing with unresolved trauma, addiction, depression, or anxiety that significantly impacts your ability to show up in your relationship, individual therapy may be necessary first.
Safety Concerns
If there's any form of abuse in your relationship, individual therapy focused on safety and empowerment is crucial.
Severe Communication Breakdowns
Sometimes couples need individual work before they can tolerate being in the same room together productively.
Finding the Right Individual Therapist
If you do choose individual therapy for relationship issues, work with someone specifically trained to work with relationship dynamics and systems, such as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist or therapists who prefer a systems oriented approach. These professionals understand relationships at a deeper level and won't inadvertently empower you out of your marriage.
The Fast-Working Alternative: Therapy That Gets to the Root
In my practice, I use approaches like Relational Life Therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy, and Brainspotting because they address relationship issues at their core rather than just managing symptoms. These methods recognize that relationship problems often stem from deeper patterns that were formed long before you met your current partner.
The goal isn't just to help you feel better temporarily – it's to create lasting change in how you show up in intimate relationships. This means looking at both individual healing and relational skills simultaneously.
Red Flags to Watch For in Individual Therapy
If you're working with an individual therapist on relationship issues, pay attention to these warning signs:
Your therapist consistently validates your complaints without exploring your role in the dynamic
You're encouraged to focus primarily on your own needs without considering relational impact
The therapy feels like venting sessions rather than skill-building
You're getting more frustrated with your partner, not more understanding
The focus is on what your partner needs to change rather than what you can do differently
You find yourself considering leaving your relationship after months of therapy focused on individual empowerment
Building Relational Skills That Actually Work
Effective relationship work teaches you skills like:
Relational Mindfulness
Learning to stay present and grounded when your partner triggers you, rather than reacting from old wounds or defensive patterns.
Joining Through Truth
Developing the ability to speak honestly about your experience while remaining connected to your partner rather than using truth as a weapon.
Moving from "Power Over" to "Power With"
Shifting from power struggles ("Power Over" interactions) to collaborative approaches where both partners can self-regulate, manage emotions, and maintain voice while respecting each other.
The Neuroscience Behind Relational Change
Recent neuroscience research helps us understand why relational empowerment works differently than individual empowerment. Emotion regulation and empathy are particularly important skills of relational empowerment, and these skills actually change how our brains respond to relationship stress.
When you develop the ability to stay in your prefrontal cortex during conflict (rather than getting hijacked by your amygdala), you can respond to your partner from wisdom rather than reactivity. This creates positive cycles in your relationship rather than the negative spirals that characterize most relationship distress.
Making the Right Choice for Your Relationship
If your relationship is struggling, here are some questions to help you decide between individual and couples work:
Are you dealing with significant personal trauma or mental health issues that make relationship work difficult?
Can you and your partner be in the same room without escalating into harmful conflict?
Are you both motivated to work on the relationship, or is only one of you invested?
Do you want to understand and change the patterns between you, or do you primarily want validation for your experience?
The Bottom Line: Relationships Require Relational Skills
Your marriage didn't get into trouble because you lack individual empowerment skills. It's struggling because our culture hasn't taught us how to navigate the complex dance of intimate partnership.
Individual empowerment teaches you to advocate for yourself. Relational empowerment teaches you to advocate for yourself AND your relationship simultaneously. These are distinctly different skill sets, and conflating them can be costly.
The good news? Relational empowerment is learnable. With the right approach, couples can move from destructive patterns to genuine intimacy remarkably quickly. But it requires working with someone who understands that healthy relationships aren't built on individual empowerment alone – they're built on the ability to be fully yourself while remaining genuinely connected to another person.
Finding the Right Support for Your Relationship
Whether you choose individual therapy or couples work, make sure your therapist understands the difference between empowering you as an individual and empowering you as a partner in an intimate relationship. Your marriage is too important to risk with well-intentioned but misguided therapeutic approaches.
The right therapeutic support will help you become more authentic, more grounded, and more skillful in your relationship – not encourage you to prioritize your individual needs at the expense of your partnership. When you find that balance, you discover that taking care of yourself and taking care of your relationship aren't competing priorities – they're complementary parts of a life well-lived.
If you're ready to explore what relational empowerment could mean for your relationship, I'm here to help. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I specialize in working with couples who want to repair their marriage. Through in-depth intake sessions, we'll track your progress over time and tailor treatment specifically to your needs. Whether we meet weekly or every two weeks, we'll work together to develop the relational skills that can transform not just your marriage, but how you show up in all your important relationships.
Contact me to learn more about scheduling and to discuss how we can work together to strengthen your relationship from the inside out.