Couples Therapy Exercises

Looking for couples therapy exercises to use with clients?  This article provides an overview of couples therapy, couples therapy questions you can ask your clients, and a list of couples therapy exercises, including couples therapy communication exercises,  addressing common challenges faced in relationships. 

What is couples therapy?

Therapists play a critical role in empowering individuals and their partners to improve their relationships by building conflict resolution skills, improving communication, and building distress tolerance. 

Chances are you’ve worked with couples or clients with relationship conflicts.

Couples therapy is a form of psychotherapy provided by a licensed mental health professional, such as a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), clinical social worker (LCSW), or licensed professional counselor (LPC). This type of therapy involves working with a couple on a regular basis to resolve issues in the relationship. 

Couples therapy can help to:

• Resolve a conflict or dilemma 
  
• Rebuild trust after it’s been broken (e.g., cheating, a big lie or omission) 
  
• Enhance communication, distress tolerance, and conflict resolution skills 
  
• Address feelings of disconnection 
  
• Navigate separation and conscious uncoupling 
  
• Deal with big changes or external stressors (e.g., becoming parents, getting married, or health challenges) 
  
• Strengthen attachment and intimacy in the relationship 
  
• Address and stop abusive or dysfunctional behavior 
  
• Improve the general quality of a relationship

In a nutshell, couples therapy helps people in partnership navigate challenges, feel heard, discuss issues, and reach a fair resolution or agreement. 

Common couples therapy questions

While a client may feel like the challenges they’re navigating are unique (and facets of them may be individual), couples often face similar themes to their challenges. 

To better understand these challenges, you, as the couples therapist, can ask a series of pointed questions—during the intake process and in-session. 

Here are some great prompts and questions that can help you in your work with couples: 

• What are your strengths in the relationship and individually? 
  
• Describe how you met
  
• How would you describe the core values in your relationship? 
  
• What is your favorite memory of your relationship? 
  
• What are the top three issues you are facing as a couple and individually?
  
• What do you hope to accomplish in couples therapy?
  
• What are your major concerns in the relationship?
  
• What possible solutions could solve the challenges you’re facing in your relationship?
  
• How would you describe your individual communication style?
  
• Do you notice any patterns in your communication styles individually and how could you improve them?
  
• How do you deal with stress individually and together?
  
• Which behaviors would you like to improve?
  
• How would you rate your satisfaction sexually?
  
• How would you describe your emotional intimacy? And in which ways do you achieve this?
  
• What are your medium and long-term goals as a couple?
  
• How do you like to receive feedback?
  
• In what ways do you show your love and appreciation of your partner? And how do you like to receive love and appreciation?

What are the benefits of couples therapy exercises?

To facilitate or supplement therapy with your couple clients, you can utilize couples therapy exercises both in-session and as homework. 

There are many different types of therapy to address relationship issues, each using various styles of couples therapy exercises. 

Mental health therapists may favor one or more modalities in couples counseling. 

Here are some examples:

• The Gottman Method: Can resolve conflict and improve intimacy within the relationship.
  
• Emotionally focused therapy (EFT): Helps to gain a better understanding of attachment and feelings of disconnection.
  
• Psychodynamic couples therapy: Explores hopes, fears, and motivations to better understand each other.
  
• Imago relationship therapy: Helps to understand, validate, and fulfill the love each partner wants.
  
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Identifies thoughts and beliefs that influence behaviors and create strategies for change. 

Whatever the exercises or modality, couples therapy has many benefits. Studies reviewing the efficacy of couples therapy show it can significantly improve relational challenges—like communication, problem solving, and marital functioning. It can also improve mental health, enhance coping strategies, and may strengthen couples’ resources to withstand stress.  

Using therapeutic exercises to meet certain goals, like repairing trust, has proven to be effective. One study of married couples found therapeutic interventions and mechanisms that facilitated forgiveness were strong predictors of marital satisfaction. 

Examples of couples therapy communication exercises

A key challenge for many couples is communication. They may have different communication styles that further exacerbate conflict—such as one partner needing more detail and context, while the other prefers clear and concise communication. 

Here are couples therapy exercises for communication to help you address these issues with your clients:

Active listening 

This exercise involves uninterrupted listening, giving each partner time to express their thoughts, feelings, and needs. 

At first you might instruct your clients to set a timer or wait for a verbal cue, to signify one partner is done speaking and ensure they have time to fully express themselves. 

To the listening partner, you can suggest using a physical gesture, like nodding, to indicate they’re paying attention—instead of interrupting verbally. Once the speaking partner is finished speaking, the listening client can ask for clarification, and/or summarize what their partner said. This makes the other person feel heard and understood.

If facilitating active listening during therapy, you could follow up with open-ended questions, asking for more information about a particular point they made. If you’re instructing your clients to actively listen at home, they can also follow up with open-ended questions.

Team meetings 

These are also called executive meetings, check ins, or admin meetings. These are to be held on the clients’ time, as regular appointments with their partner outside of therapy.

The goal is to schedule a regular meeting to discuss things that one or both partners feel need more attention, such as household admin, planning their kids activities and making a schedule, and other important topics. 

You may suggest your clients create a recurring meeting in their calendar to ensure consistency and commitment to better communication.  

Making amends 

While we all make mistakes in relationships, the key to a healthy partnership is taking accountability and effectively apologizing. Educating clients on what is and isn’t a genuine apology can significantly help foster trust and forgiveness, bolster communication skills, and improve conflict resolution. 

Let clients know that apologies can feel disingenuous when they are fleeting or hollow, or followed by criticism or justification. 

Next, explain what a genuine apology entails. You could say: “The way to make an effective apology is to take responsibility for your actions and how they may have impacted your partner, refrain from making excuses or justifying your behavior, and ask your other half what you could do to make it right.” 

Finally, you can practice this exercise in session, or you can instruct clients to use these guidelines for making amends the next time they have a conflict at home. 

Couples therapy exercises at home

There are several couples therapy exercises that are made to be practiced at home, such as:

Improving intimacy 

A common unmet need in relationships is feeling a lack of physical connection or affection. 

An exercise might include making time to cuddle. That could be at moments throughout the day, a specific time before bed, or when waking up. 

The timing of the exercise is less important than the commitment and mutual agreement to improve intimacy through cuddling.

Date night 

Setting a regular date night, which may be once a week, shows commitment to setting aside time for the relationship and the partners in it. 

Let clients know that this doesn’t necessarily come at the cost of a hefty restaurant bill. They can instead plan a romantic meal at home. 

Whatever it is, this exercise is meant to demonstrate actionable steps towards building trust, security, and commitment to the relationship, so consistency and reliability is key. 

Impress upon them that canceling a date may harm progress made or exacerbate existing issues—so they should not cancel without good reason.

Enjoyable activity 

Encourage your clients to find an activity that they both enjoy doing together, like riding a bike, visiting an art gallery, trying a new restaurant, or going to a music festival. 

The activity should be enjoyable for both partners and give them an opportunity to have fun, connect, and increase bonding.

Couple therapy exercises for trust

Trust building exercises empower couples to strengthen or rebuild trust in the relationship. They are especially important when trust has been broken, such as when there has been infidelity or dishonesty. 

These activities may include:

Share vulnerabilities 

It can feel scary to reveal your insecurities and fears, but doing so can build trust, empathy, and understanding. 

Couples can get vulnerable with each other by sharing their fears, recounting difficult situations and experiences, and explaining ways they may overcompensate for their insecurities or react to triggers. 

Play a game 

Going to an escape room, or playing a game of truth or dare, are fun ways to share experiences that may prompt vulnerability in couples—either by revealing things to their partner, or engaging in an exhilarating challenge together. 

These exercises can promote honesty, enhance communication, strengthen resilience, and improve problem solving skills. 

Improve communication 

Couples can take the time to define what trust looks like for each of them. That might include certain expectations, boundaries, and limits. 

Understanding what trust means to each partner creates awareness that helps foster  mindfulness in the relationship. 

Knowing what is important to each other can result in taking actions that reflect each partner’s values, and avoiding behavior that conflicts with their values.. 

Take accountability 

This might mean acknowledging actions that broke trust in the relationship, apologizing, and making amends.  

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