Couples Therapy as a Formative Process

SUMMARY

Becoming a couple means that two bodies come together to form a bond. In forming this bond, the partners' bodies use innate or learned patterns-how to be aroused, how to be tender or kind, how to reach out. These body postures can grow and mature over the lifetime of the relationship, or not. Couples seek professional help when they cannot end the shapes of bonding that no longer serve them and organize the next shapes of adult relating. This article presents the formative model of couples therapy, a somatically based experiential approach that emphasizes how partners use themselves bodily in their relationship and how they can reorganize their patterns bodily to grow both themselves and their relationship. A case example is given.

Key Words:

• Somatic
• formative therapy
• somatic-emotional exercises
• couples
• cobodying
• psychotherapy