Preconditions

Obviously anyone can try this work, but I want to emphasize that if you are in a bad relationship these explorations may serve to open up the sources of the trouble and, possibly, make things worse. Even the best of marriages have problems and these explorations may expose them. Only if the couple has the capacity for it will these means presented be useful for working on the problems.

Agreement by both. If either of you has strong doubts about whether to try this work it should not be undertaken.

Stable marriage. By this I do not mean a stability lacking movement or conflict, a "neurotic equilibrium." I mean a stability of commitment in which this emotional work is not to be a way of "saving" your marriage.

Sexual relationship. Since this work tends to expose emotional needs which may have been hidden, it is best to start from the basis of a continuing sexual relationship with no major conflict over needs.

Good physical health. Stay within the normal limits you would follow in doing any exercise. I will not be suggesting anything so strenuous as swimming or running but will suggest you accentuate your breathing. Consult your doctor if you think any health condition might impair you in either vigorous exercise or emotional expression, if you have drug dependencies which alter mood, this book is not for you: drugs dull emotional response and expression.

Good emotional contact. You will not be able to do this work if you have problems in making eye contact with your partner or if either of you resents the other person's expression of "negative" emotions such as anger, fear, and grief. These emotions may not be enjoyable to face and you may be unhappy at times about what you consider your partner's excessive anger or anxiety, but you must give each other a basic permission for expression.

Respect for privacy. Everyone has their secrets and we are often glad to unburden ourselves to professional therapists. Partners, however, are not always suitable recipients of our worrying secrets or acts. It is best to agree before starting this work that you will respect the other person if they do not want to pursue a line of thought or emotion any further.

Limits

This work follows natural processes of unfolding and opening, of letting things happen rather than making them happen. Ideally even professional therapy follows this course although the therapist should have the experience to encourage risks which I would not recommend in couples work. To make the distinction clear and as a way of setting limits by emphasizing what couples work is not meant to do, here is a brief list of some differences between couples work and psychotherapy in its most intense forms. (If concepts used here are not familiar they will become so as you read this book).

In couples work there is:

No attempt to push through into destructive emotions, even if these are responsible for blocking.

No confrontation of a person's character attitudes.

No systematic working through armor over the long term.

No deliberate unmasking of anxiety and subsequent work on it.

No attempt to build up a high level of charge or excitation in the organism and use this to burst through or push through blocks.

No attempt to arrive at a diagnosis or program of treatment.

No deliberate attempt to "restructure" the person.

No attempt to unmask "transference," i.e. the expectations, negative or positive, which a person projects onto a therapist based on experience with parents.

Aims

To explore. These are not exercises along set lines, but explorations of the involuntary and spontaneous.

To know, as a consequence of exploration. Knowledge and understanding within a marriage are worthwhile in themselves and may bring people into better contact.

To open feelings and whatever else has been closed and can now be revealed.

To deepen feelings which are already present.

To control our responses to emotions. Control is almost a dirty work now that we so encourage self-expression. But self control is a consequence of understanding and of being able to live the emotions. Blocked emotion is what tends to burst out of control. Once we feel something clearly, then we can decide whether to act on the feeling. If we are capable of self-regulation, we do not need to be controlled or regulated by others.

To surrender at will. It is not necessary for a healthy person to surrender to all demands from others or to all experience. To be able to surrender to a loved partner in orgasm, and to one's own depths are, however, preconditions for being able to surrender deeply to any involuntary process, whether in creative work, in play with children, or in surrender to the inflow of life from nature and from art.

To trust as a consequence and a precondition of surrender: a rational fearlessness is based in trust of the self and of others, stemming from a clear experience of the self and the perceptions.

Cautions

Don't program. If change occurs as a result of this work, well and good but don't set a program change for yourself or your partner. If you find you have such a program, share it and then let go of it. To have aims is not to have a program. Programs lead to controlling and judgemental behavior. Just as performance anxiety is the enemy of real tenderness in a conjugal embrace, so it is the enemy of deep feelings in therapeutic work. The best test of whether to continue is the amount of satisfaction you feel.

Don't compete. I hope that if you read this book and do some work together you will gain some knowledge and some respect for character differences. Some people have more access to feeling that others and are more open to spontaneous movement. On the other hand, some people who seem stuck are holding back because their energy is high and there is more risk for them in letting go. Respect differences in pace. If you feel competitive, discuss it. If one person reveals in this work a degree of emotional confusion or disturbance, you are betraying them if you take advantage of this. There may also be the temptation of feeling superior about your lack of such problems. This is dangerous, and probably self-deceptive. My experience as a therapist leads me to believe that in almost all couples, no matter how different the character structures of the partners, the level of healthy functioning is approximately the same. It is as if, perhaps unconsciously, people choose a partner whose level of functioning is not very different from their own. Of course sometimes one partner will grow away from the other, in which case the marriage goes downhill. If this is already the case, this work will not help.

Don't betray. One of the most important issues in therapy is confidence. In couples work, confidence can be betrayed in two major ways: by manipulating the other person through the use of knowledge gained during the work; and by using such knowledge as ammunition in fights. It may be impossible to avoid this completely. If you find that doing this work spills over into your daily life in such a way as to undermine your relationship, then stop doing the work.

Don't dump. If you take the attitude "Let's have a session," instead of working through an emotional conflict as it occurs, you are using the sessions to dump energy or avoid issues. This work is not meant to substitute for normal emotional contact and exchange. This is one reason why it is necessary to pre-schedule sessions.

Don't push. An issue in any therapy is how far to intervene or force a resolution. In therapy, it is important not to push the emotions since emotions are more likely to be drawn out than pushed or squeezed out. The life whose movement is expressed in emotions seems to produce an energy of "pull," like gravitational attraction, rather than a mechanical energy of push. You can't push feelings, you can only work to remove obstacles so that the feelings emerge on their own.

When To Stop

When you feel like it. When either person feels like stopping, whether in a particular session or in the work as a whole, this must be respected. It may help to have a brief discussion of why, but it is best to postpone this discussion to a later time, when feelings have calmed down.

When it becomes dull. Any repeated process may become dull. Don't pursue this work if it loses its energy —you will find results much diminished.

When you feel satisfied. If this work enables you to enjoy life for a while without working at it, then let it go. You can resume whenever you both like. It is not a perpetual process but preferably one stage in your development.