BG - I think it can be a really good experience if there is a lot of trust/communication in your relationship with your H and your T has good boundaries (i.e. experience working individually with people who are in a relationship) or at least is responsive to ground rules that you set.

Pros:
-T gets a more "whole picture" of us, by seeing each of us from both his interactions with us and our spouse's descriptions of day-to-day life as it comes up in sessions.
-T can work both ends of issues that involve/effect both partners.
-Less "icky" negative feelings from spouse toward a T they don't know or don't like, regarding stuff the T says to your partner. If my H didn't know and respect his T, he might disregard or complain more about some of the stuff T says to me that butt up against his ideas about how the relationship should work. Also, knowing how genuinely caring and intuitive my T is, I trust he's got my H's best interests at heart. I had all sorts of negative feelings about the guy (based on what H was saying...and paying so dang much) before I started working with him myself.

Cons:
-Triangulation. Does happen. Will happen if you have a very open, communicative relationship with your partner and tell each other stuff that was discussed in therapy. Hopefully, it won't happen from your T (e.g. my T rarely says, "Well, your H said _______," and the one time he did, I wrote a journal afterward to address it). It can cause confusion and conflict when you and your spouse think you're on the same page, but your T's interpretation of each others' statements is different than how you meant them.
-This isn't a problem in our case, but if both of you have deep attachment issues, there could be a problem of jealousy, possessiveness, etc. H has absolutely no attachment to T, period, so I'm good.
-If there are recurring conflicts being worked out in the marriage, there is the possibility of someone feeling sided against. Both H and I nearly always feel like T is on my "side" about things. Luckily, H doesn't really seem to care whether or not T thinks he's right. T's disapproval isn't confidence-shattering to him or anything.

My main recommendation is talk about any boundaries that are important to you ahead of time. Like, H tends to get kind of parental and want to discuss how we're going to deal with some of the more scary issues coming up for me (sensitive issues type stuff) during his trips and such, resulting in me feeling controlled and parented. I've told both H and T that I expect any discussion involving my treatment I should be there. Also, any topic T thinks we need to address together, we should do a joint session. T totally respects and agrees with my rules, so I'm counting on him with H, who says he "just says what's on his mind and doesn't really think about it ahead of time."

Anyway, so far, for me, it has been a really positive experience and the little hiccups have triggered material that is important for me to work through anyway.

I hope some of that information was of help.

Hi BG,
Not a lot of time right now, but I'm waiting for something to run, so quick answer.

My husband and I share a T and we've done couples work with him. It's worked out really well but because of a few important factors (that I'm pretty sure you share).

The first was that our T has a LOT of experience and was very good at keeping our individual work clear from our couples' work.

The second was that my husband and I are pretty open with each other and willing to discuss all our feelings around the situation with our T. So when things cropped up, we talked about them in sessions.

The third was that when I was struggling with jealously or feeling threatened by my Ts relationship with my husband, I would talk to my T about it and he was very comfortable addressing it.

I do think there is something to be said for your T knowing your spouse as it probably gives a more balanced view of who you are.

It also really helped me in that I had to come to terms with the fact that my T is my T and has other patients and knowing my husband was his client helped. Both ways. I couldn't ignore the whole "he has other clients" because I lived with one. But I also got to see how clearly he liked and valued both of us which helped me trust the reality that although I was a client among clients that did not mean my T didn't care about me or that the relationship wasn't real.

All that said, it was sometimes very difficult and felt very threatening when my husband went for individual sessions or sometimes in couples' sessions because I would fear that something I did or said interacting with my husband or something my husband said would affect my Ts opinion of me. I used to occasionally have these horrible daydreams (especially in the beginning) of my T turning to my H during a session and saying "wow, she's really a b----, you should leave." And my husband saying, "you're right." Ummm, never happened. But I did discuss it several times with my T (who reassured me that nothing we did in our couples' work would affect his relationship with me.)

Oh and another that helped, is why I experience such intense attachment to my T, my husband doesn't. He deeply respects and values our T, but it definitely doesn't loom as large for him.

Sorry, I know that answer was as clear as mud.

Somewhere around here is a thread I posted when I was going through this, I'll try to dig it up.

AG

A totally irrational fear

BG, found the link, this will give you an idea of the downside.

And reading Yaku's response (Hi Yaku!!) made me think of one more thing, was that sometimes we really just had to respect each other's privacy. We had a tacit agreement that we didn't push for what happened in each others individual sessions, we only listened to what the other wanted to share. I think I actually bugged my husband sometimes because I spoke of him so infrequently in my sessions.

I do not recommend it. I think it is a recipe for disaster and I do not have a lot of experience with it, so my opinion is just that..an opinion ....

BUT, if it were me, I would be worried about all kinds of possible issues cropping up:
Will T like him better than me?
Will T take his sides?
Will my husband tell him things about me that paint me in a negative light?

etc.

Also,
I think it puts A LOT of pressure on your T to try to remember who shared what piece of information with him. This could be a confidentiality nightmare for T.

For example, lets say your husband says something about a fight you guys had. Then like two months later T mentions the fight in YOUR session to you. and hten you are like, "how did you know about that?" then you might get upset with H for sharing that info. Then H feels T violated his confidentiality. it just gets too muddy and confusing.

But again, this is just my opinion. I think the best place to get advice about this is straight from Ts mouth and find out what he thinks about the idea and what his experience has been with this. Could turn out that its no big deal and he would be on board with it. Or perhaps he will be able to explain that it is not a good idea. You never know until you ask.

quote:

And reading Yaku's response (Hi Yaku!!) made me think of one more thing, was that sometimes we really just had to respect each other's privacy. We had a tacit agreement that we didn't push for what happened in each others individual sessions, we only listened to what the other wanted to share. I think I actually bugged my husband sometimes because I spoke of him so infrequently in my sessions

Hi, AG! Yes, definitely agree with this. I readily share most stuff from my sessions with H, just because my attachment to T makes it a very emotionally intimate environment and I want to make sure I'm still close with my H, not shutting him out. However, my H isn't overly share-y about stuff, so other than asking how his sessions went and whether he felt like it was helpful/productive (i.e. like if he had told me there was a specific topic he wanted to work through), I just leave him alone. No pushing. Basically, I put out there that I care and am interested and then trust things come out throughout the week as they need to and H feels comfortable. I used to feel insecure that I shared so much and he so little, but it doesn't bother me anymore, because...again, H doesn't have attachment stuff with T. That makes things so much easier.