Why is an Intake Session the Most Critical Step in Couples Therapy?

Nobody said making a long-term relationship work would be easy.

Unless you live in a Utopia, your marriage is going to experience a few troubled phases throughout both you and your partner’s lifetimes. Marriage requires a commitment to make things work, as well as putting in the hard work to turn around what was once a tight bond that has deteriorated into a rocky relationship at best. How do you and your partner get your lifetime commitment back on track?

The answer in many cases is attending couples sessions where a properly credentialed therapist helps both partners explore the issues that have created a divide in their relationship. Couples therapy involves a series of several steps that requires both patience and resilience to navigate. However, the most critical step that leads to a successful outcome of couples therapy sessions is the first one, which is called the intake session.

Why is the Intake Session the Most Critical Step?

After agreeing to undergo couples therapy, both partners attend an intake session that initially starts with confirming several items that form the foundation for conducting therapy sessions, such as the cost and expected duration of the program. Both you and your therapist have the opportunity during the intake session to get to know each other, which acts as a kind of ice breaker that later on can create groundbreaking sessions involving both partners. The intake session represents the best time for both partners to benefit from adult individual therapy techniques, without leaving the other partner behind in receiving helpful tips and gaining important relationship insights.

After developing trust, the intake session is the critical step in the couples therapy process for two primary reasons.

Setting Goals

The therapist overseeing your couples therapy sessions has some idea of what ails your relationship before the first session, but the intake session is when your therapist gains the knowledge required to steer the couples therapy sessions in the right direction. Both partners must agree on the goal or goals of couples therapy sessions, which your therapist helps set during the intake session. Are both partners concerned about intimacy issues? Have finances started to wreak havoc on the relationship? Have career obligations formed a roadblock in preventing the development of your relationship?

Discovering the root cause or causes of discord helps your therapist set goals for repairing the relationship.

Emphasizing a Positive Tone

Repairing a broken relationship or one that is headed in that direction has no chance of succeeding if one or both partners refuse to abandon the blaming the other partner first philosophy. Couples therapy is not about holding one party mostly responsible for the deterioration of the relationship. It is about getting two partners together to find productive ways to break out of a rut or turn around a highly contentious relationship. Although your therapist emphasizes the importance of remaining positive during each session, it is up to both partners to focus on the positive elements of their relationship by displaying selfless traits such as compassion and empathy.

The first step is often the most difficult step to complete when it comes to repairing a broken relationship between couples. This is ultimately why the intake session is the most critical step in the couples therapy process.