What You Need to Know About Individual Therapy from a Couple’s Therapist…

What happens when one partner is in therapy and the other is not? Much as we might sing its praises, not every person out there is in therapy, and fewer still have “always” been in therapy. It comes as no surprise, then, that therapy–whether you’re in it or not–can shift relationship dynamics, particularly when it’s newly introduced. In a partnership, when one partner begins individual therapy and the other does not, that shift may disrupt what is called the homeostasis of the relationship. Homeostasis is the natural state of your relationship–the patterns that you have created with one another over your time together–and when one partner starts making adjustments and changes for themselves, it follows that this “order” of things within the partnership is going to be thrown off. 

As those who have been there know, therapy encourages and requires the hard work of uncovering and examining the patterns within a client’s life that may or may not be serving them, and then helps them implement the major changes to those patterns. If homeostasis is a set of patterns between two people, when one person starts changing their patterns, the patterns between the two must necessarily change as well. Understandably, the partner who is not in therapy will feel the changes, which can be scary, hard, and different–to name a few choice emotions that often prelude change.

Conflict may arise when the partner in therapy is building awareness about aspects of themselves, learning things about the relationship which aren’t working as well as they could, and understanding and unconvering things that have long been buried, but the partner-at-home is completely in the dark–not just about what the partner-in-therapy is learning and talking about/how they’re growing, but about themselves as well, and what they are bringing to the dynamic. The partner-in-therapy is then “doing the work” and hoping to make big changes, but “coming home” to these old patterns, as well as their partner’s confusion, lack of awareness, and possibly even resistance. Sure, the partner-in-therapy can share what they learn, but ultimately they are on this journey alone. 

Think of a wheel–the wheel of a car runs because of its homeostasis, but when a change is made–let’s say the weather cools, and the temperature drops, affecting the air pressure in the tire–new steps must be taken, adjustments made, in order to ensure that the wheel can get back to running smoothly. Maybe now the PSI has to be kept higher, but in this new homeostasis, the wheel can continue to work well. 

Here’s the thing–just as a plant needs a bigger pot so that its roots can grow, people, too, need to be evolving and growing. We cannot stay the same, as ultimately we will become stagnant, just as the plant’s roots will grow all deformed if it isn’t given a bigger pot. If we would like our relationships to continue to run smoothly, must they shift with the times and recalibrate, just as the people in the relationships will also grow and change. And hearkening back to our wheel analogy–sure, we could ignore the low tire pressure warning, and try to keep everything exactly the same, but we know that if we do that, eventually the tire will flatten and the wheel will cease to work, just like our relationships that refuse to support the change and adjustment.

To hear it straight from the source, click the link below to hear from Moushumi Ghose, MFT about homeostasis, and to explore her TikTok for so much more!