James Coyne demonstrates Strategic Couples Therapy in an actual session with a gay couple. Watch this master therapist and learn the basic principles of Strategic Therapy, which seeks to help the couple develop a problem-solving strategy tailored to their specific concerns and values.
Hugh and Alan have been together more than a decade, and now find themselves ready to work on some of the more persistent annoyances in their relationship. Coyne illustrates many core Strategic Therapy techniques, including meeting with each partner individually prior to bringing them in together, describing the problem explicitly and concisely, investigating all solutions that have been previously tried, defining a clear and concrete change to be achieved and formulating and implementing a strategy for change.
Coyne demonstrates other techniques such as reframing, and gives Hugh and Alan a paradoxical homework assignment: permission to do what they are already doing in order to view their conflicts as an opportunity for change. The therapy session is both preceded and followed by an in-depth exploration of the principles of Strategic Therapy and a discussion of Coyne’s own thought process and methodology.
