Nothing is always effective for every person and sometimes despite all the assessment and testing a prescribed treatment just may not work for some people. Perhaps you are curious if couples counseling will work for you or wondering if the therapy you’ve been in for a while is actually helping. There could be many reasons the treatment isn’t leading to benefits; following are some of the most likely.

When you meet with a therapist for couples therapy something they will screen for is domestic violence or abuse in your relationship. Research shows that abuse can get worse when a couple is engaged in therapy (Exline et al. 2014, Cheng et al., 2021). The perpetrator could use manipulation and create a power imbalance. If they think the therapist is targeting them they may also take this out on the victim. If therapists find you have active domestic violence or abuse, they will typically refer you out for individual therapy for these reasons. Sometimes this may be missed in screening because the victim may be too fearful to disclose it or does not realize it’s happening. The abuse may also start after the screening process has been completed.

John Gottman’s research found that therapy only works if both partners are open to therapy and committed to the relationship. If one is forcing the other to come in, therapy isn’t likely to be effective. When someone doesn’t want to be in therapy, they don’t engage much or follow through with the changes discussed in........

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