Couples

Couples who come to Impulse Treatment Center are often in crisis, angry and confused.  How do they deal with the discovery of Sex Addiction in their relationship?  How do they manage the conflicting priorities of the Addict’s shame, the Partner’s trauma, and most damaging of all, the couple’s lack of safety, as shame and trauma struggle to live under the same roof?

For couples seeking to heal from the effects of Sex Addiction, these conflicting priorities must be addressed if further crises are to be avoided. Impulse Treatment Center offers a variety of treatment options, individually tailored to each couple’s needs in each stage of the recovery process.

Stage One

Sex Addiction is a form of intimacy disorder, but intimacy cannot be addressed until shame and trauma no longer have to defend themselves against each other.

Empathic listening, respectful behavior and expressing vulnerability are essential elements of early recovery for all parties, but since the relationship is no longer a place of safety, these elements must be found elsewhere.

At Impulse Treatment Center, Sex Addicts and Partners are assessed by individual therapists and referred to their own individual groups during Stage One recovery.

For help in establishing boundaries and guidelines that allow the couple to function together without constant re-traumitization, the two may also be referred for a form of couples work called Couples Mediation, to help them maneuver through Stage One of the recovery process.

Click here to read more about Mediation Services for Couples at Impulse Treatment Center.

Stage Two

Once both partners have been stabilized in individual recovery, couples counseling at Impulse Treatment Center can help them deepen their understanding of themselves in relationship, grieve their unmet needs and loss of trust, and begin to develop an intimate relationship based on personal responsibility, direct communication and authentic selves.

Stage Three

At Impulse Treatment Center we believe group therapy is often the most effective way to manage the shame, blame, and ongoing pull to revert to old unsatisfactory ways of being in relationship. To that end, we offer short and long-term couples groups to teach couples how to create intimacy and keep working on couple issues as they arise over time.

Both groups require that each partner be working on their individual recovery from addiction and co-addiction.

Both groups focus on the following concepts:

• As partners, how are we different? How are we the same?
• How do we create space for differences?
• What is Respectful Conflict?
• What did our families of origin teach us about relationships?
• What are our communication styles?
• How do we nurture our relationship?
• How do we make amends to each other for breaks in honesty, safety and respect?