Strengthening Our Marriage With Couples Therapy

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Couples therapy in schizoaffective disorder…

The therapist I’m currently seeing is winding up her rotation in December, and I’ve really valued her input and the time I’ve spent with her.

I believe now more than ever how helpful and healing weekly, individual therapy can be. When I was released from the hospital last year, my husband and I decided to seek private, weekly therapy outside Kaiser because at the time, Kaiser only offered a maximum of one therapy session approximately every four to six months. For people suffering from severe psychiatric disorders, this does little, if any good.

My Kaiser case manager gave me a list of low-cost/sliding scale therapists, and I had my first session last September. I saw a student therapist from a graduate school who was supervised by a licensed psychologist. This therapist was great, and I really benefited from our sessions together. I can say the same about my current therapist at the same school. After my last session, my therapist and I agreed that I’ve made such a big improvement in terms of dealing with my illness and managing the voices, that when her rotation ends in December, my husband and I will start couples therapy and I will no longer come once a week for individual therapy.

I think this is a wonderful idea. I am doing so much better than before, and I feel like I’m leaving my husband out of the picture sometimes when I have my therapy appointment and I’m just talking about myself. It isn’t as if I’ve lived through the last six years alone! My husband was and still is a huge source of support and encouragement in my life, and my illness affected him in many ways as well. I think that with couples therapy, we can grow closer together and strengthen our marriage even more.

For many people with psychiatric illnesses, relationships or marriage are not an option, or are torn apart. Often, people with schizophrenia don’t know how to maintain healthy relationships, or their partners don’t know how to help them deal with their illness. Fortunately, both my husband and I have worked hard at managing my illness and keeping our marriage together.