What Jungian Therapy Does for Relationships That Couples Therapy Doesn't

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Couples therapy works on the relationship between two people. Individual depth work works on the person. These are not the same activity, and they reach different things.

What I have seen over and over in my practice is this: meaningful change in a relationship often comes not from working on the relationship directly but from one or both people doing significant work on themselves. When the individual changes, the dynamic changes. Not always, and not automatically, but with a regularity that is worth understanding.

This post is about what individual depth work does for relationships, why it sometimes does things that direct couples work cannot, and how the two forms of work can fit together.

In This Post

What you bring to every relationship
What couples therapy alone can and cannot do
What individual depth work changes in a relationship
When both are useful
Where to start

What You Bring to Every Relationship

Every relationship you enter, you bring yourself. That seems obvious. What is less obvious is how much of what you experience as "the relationship" is what you are bringing to it: the expectations, the fears, the patterns laid down in earlier relationships, the parts of yourself you cannot see and therefore see in your partner.

Jung called this projection. The qualities we cannot own as ours get attributed to the people around us. We experience them as coming from out there when they are coming from in here. In relationships, this dynamic is particularly potent because the intimacy of a close relationship activates projection at a level that casual contact does not.

The partner who seems controlling may partly be genuinely controlling, and may partly be activating the part of you that was controlled early and is now reading control into situations that do not necessarily contain it. The partner who seems emotionally unavailable may be genuinely less emotionally available than you need, and may partly be carrying your own fear of intimacy, projected outward so it does not have to be owned.

None of this is deliberate or conscious. That is the point. And working on the relationship directly, as couples therapy does, cannot fully address this dimension because it operates in the interaction between two people, not in the individual psyche where the projection originates.

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." — Carl Jung

What Couples Therapy Alone Can and Cannot Do

I want to be fair to couples therapy here, because it is real and valuable work. Good couples therapy addresses communication patterns, helps each partner understand the other's experience more accurately, and can significantly reduce the frequency and intensity of conflict. For many couples it produces real and lasting improvement.

What it is less able to reach: the individual material each person brings to the relationship. The pattern that one partner keeps generating regardless of who they are with. The way one person's shadow material keeps getting activated by the other's ordinary behavior. The part of someone that genuinely wants the relationship and the part that is organized around keeping intimacy at a safe distance.

Couples therapy can identify these dynamics. It cannot always change them, because changing them requires individual work that goes deeper than the relationship context allows.

This is one of the reasons some couples find themselves in therapy for years without fundamental change. The patterns keep appearing, the sessions keep addressing them, and the underlying generators of those patterns are not being reached because reaching them requires individual depth work that couples therapy is not designed to provide.

What Individual Depth Work Changes in a Relationship

When one person in a relationship does significant depth work, the relationship tends to change, even though the work is happening individually. Here is why.

Projection decreases

As you become more aware of your own shadow, what you have disowned and pushed outside, you begin to take back the projections you have been placing on your partner. Qualities that seemed to belong to them start to be recognizable as yours. This does not mean your partner is perfect or that your frustrations with them are imaginary. It means the charge comes down. The thing that was activated in you is no longer entirely about them, and that clarity changes the dynamic.

Your actual self becomes more present

The adaptive self, the version of you built to manage, to be capable, to not need things, requires an enormous amount of maintenance in intimate relationships. It limits intimacy because intimacy requires being known, and the adaptive self is specifically organized around being known in a particular way rather than fully. As that layer loosens through depth work, something more genuine becomes available in the relationship. Partners often notice this before the person in the work does.

What you need becomes clearer

One of the consistent effects of depth work is greater clarity about what you want, need, and feel, independent of what you think you should want, need, and feel. In a relationship context this is significant. Many relational conflicts are generated by unmet needs that have not been clearly named, sometimes because the person carrying them has not had access to them. When those needs become more conscious, the relationship has more accurate information to work with.

The pattern you bring loses some of its automaticity

The recurring relational pattern, the one that appeared in the last relationship and the one before it, is generated internally. Couples therapy can help two specific people manage it better in their specific relationship. Individual depth work addresses what is generating it. When the generator changes, the pattern has a chance to change too, not just in this relationship but in the way you show up in relationships generally.

Individual or couples work

Both are available. The right starting point depends on what is going on.

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When Both Are Useful

Individual depth work and couples therapy are not in competition. They reach different levels and they are often most powerful when they work together, either sequentially or in parallel.

Some situations where individual depth work is a useful starting point or complement to couples work:

One partner is carrying a specific individual history, a pattern from earlier relationships or family dynamics, that is showing up in the current relationship in ways that couples therapy keeps identifying but not resolving.
One or both partners notice that their reactions in the relationship are disproportionate to the situation, suggesting that something individual is being activated rather than just the current relational dynamic.
A couple has done couples therapy and found it useful but hit a ceiling. The skills are there. The underlying thing has not shifted.
One partner is resistant to couples therapy but willing to do individual work. Individual depth work can produce significant relational change even when only one person is doing it.
The relationship is generally functional but one person is aware of a way they are showing up, a pattern or a limitation, that they want to work on independently of the couples context.

Sometimes the right starting point is couples therapy. Sometimes it is individual work. Sometimes both simultaneously with coordination between therapists. The consult is where we figure out what makes most sense for your specific situation.

For more on couples therapy specifically, see the couples therapy page. For individual depth work, see the Jungian therapist page. State-specific information: New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Texas.

Where to Start

The most honest answer is: it depends on what is going on.

If the presenting issue is primarily relational, a specific dynamic between two people that both want to work on together, couples therapy is usually the right first step. If the presenting issue is primarily individual, a pattern that one person keeps generating regardless of context, individual depth work tends to produce more movement.

Many people who come to me for individual work notice significant shifts in their relationships over time. Not because we worked on the relationship, but because we worked on what they bring to it. That is not a side effect of the work. It is one of its primary outcomes.

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Questions I Often Hear

Can individual depth work fix a relationship?+

Not fix, and not alone. But it can significantly change the individual contribution to relational difficulties, which often changes the relational dynamic substantially. Whether those changes are sufficient depends on what is going on in the relationship, including what the other person is doing and whether both people are willing to engage honestly. Individual depth work is not a substitute for couples work when couples work is what is needed. It is a complement to it.

What if only one of us is willing to do this?+

Individual depth work produces individual change. If one person does significant work on themselves, they show up differently in the relationship, which changes the dynamic even without the other person's direct participation. Whether those changes are sufficient to address what is happening in the relationship depends on the specific situation. It is not nothing for only one person to change. It is also not a substitute for both people doing the work if both need to.

Is this instead of couples therapy or in addition to it?+

Both are possible. For some people, individual depth work is the more pressing need and couples work follows naturally from the individual shifts. For others, couples therapy is the starting point and individual work addresses what keeps coming up within the couples context. Doing both simultaneously with the same therapist is generally not recommended. If both are happening, they are usually with different therapists with some coordination between them. A consult is the right place to figure out what sequence makes sense for your situation.

How do I know if my relational difficulties are individual or relational?+

A rough indicator: if the same dynamic appears across multiple relationships with different people, something individual is being generated. If the difficulty is specific to this particular relationship and its particular dynamics, couples work is more directly relevant. Most real situations involve some of both. A consult is a good place to think through which is more prominent in your specific case.

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A free 15-minute consult is the right place to figure out where to start.

We talk about what is going on, individually or in the relationship, and figure out together what kind of work makes the most sense.

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