Friendship Therapy
Many of us have actually had some of our friends in our lives even longer than we have been with our significant other, if we have one. And for some of us, our closest friends are actually our chosen family, and our friendship is stronger, or as strong, as those we are related to by blood. So when something happens to cause you and your beloved friend to risk growing apart, it can really hurt.
In fact, it’s often with these closest of friends that substantive issues have the potential to arise. This is because, like with our significant others, siblings, or parents, we have grown so connected to them emotionally that our most significant vulnerabilities are likely to be triggered and brought to the surface. Issues like misunderstandings, built-up resentment, betrayal, or stalemates can show up and lead to a chasm in your relationship.
The bond we have with this special class of friends of this level is literally essential to our experience of fundamental wellbeing. And while society definitely celebrates the value of friendship, especially for people who identify as women, it is less commonplace to find the same resources that romantic partners are offered when a friendship has fallen out of balance or is threatened by a sense of emotional injury or betrayal.
Seriously close friends deserve to have access to a professional who can facilitate emotional repair.
Now we’re not talking here about flash-in-the-pan friends, fair-weather comrades, or clubbing companions. We’re not talking about the friends you meet for a “reason” or a “season”. These are lifetime-level friendships that you’ve been able to count on through some seriously rough patches in your life. These folx are the ones who have supported you through things like past boyfriends, girlfriends, marriages (and separations), job loss, miscarriages, pregnancies, abortions, family drama, the list goes on.
You’ve shed tears of grief with each other, and you’ve also shared tears of raucous laughter during some of the most intense belly laugh sessions over the inside joke that only you both could possibly find so undeniably hilarious.
They are the ones who check you and tell you “remember your filter” when you might be about to put your foot in your mouth. They’re the one who encourages you to consider giving the guy or gal you were going to toss to the curb a second chance if they think he/she/they might be deserving. They’re the one who, when dropping you off at your place, watches to make sure you make it all the way inside before driving away.
It’s all the little things, along with all of the momentous acts of love that make these friendships fall into the category of soulmate material. The only difference is, they aren’t romantic. And to be honest, that’s part of what has made them so fabulous.
It is time that we acknowledge that the field of psychotherapy seems to have a baked-in bias. It has largely placed a primacy on helping people in their individual lives, romantic relationships or with family members, while largely omitting a focus on significant interpersonal issues that sometimes arise between close friends.
These are lifetime-level friendships that you’ve been able to count on through some seriously rough patches in your life.
Friendship Therapy might be right for you and your friend, if:
You’ve had a conflict arise that is causing pain for you both and feels like it’s beyond the scope of your typical remedies for getting back to pre-conflict status.
You find that talking about the difference of opinion or conflict is not feeling productive anymore and might actually be making things worse or spinning you both in circles
Or maybe you’ve come up against a recurring common challenging pattern in your friendship and this time it has reached a critical mass that can’t be ignored.
You notice that the way you both are communicating with each other is not feeling loving, productive, or solution-focused.
Perhaps you can’t figure out the real “core” issue at hand that is impeding you both from solving this dilemma on your own, and you sense it’s deeper than the surface symptom or precipitating event that lead to the conflict.
One or the other (or both) of you may feel you’re not being truly understood or heard around your personal truth and it’s getting exhausting or super frustrating.
You sense unproductive defensiveness rising up big-time on your part, your friend’s part, or both.
You feel really hurt about something they did/didn’t do, and you don’t know the best way to address it with your friend; you realize that if you keep burying the hurt, it may result in you walking away from the relationship or drifting away from each other and you don’t want that to happen.
Or, you might be the friend who feels blamed, scapegoated, or even attacked for something you don’t feel is fair and you want a level playing field to try to work it out.
There may have been an act of betrayal that feels really significant to one of you and you want to determine whether the friendship can be repaired.
You both express a desire to try to work on the friendship and see the value and worth in working with a therapist who can help you navigate and express your feelings and needs in a safe, unbiased space
If your friendship needs to end, you know you want to honor the significance of your friendship in your life by getting some much needed closure with the facilitation of a safe, trained person. .
What we will do together
This work is quite similar to couples therapy, except the issues and considerations around sexual life, physical intimacy, division of labor, finances and family planning are rarely at play (phew!). But, we are still working with the fundamentals and sensitivities that ignite emotional pain and struggle in all interpersonal relationships. For this reason, you’ll see an overlap with what we do in other partner therapy, with a few important distinctions.
Assess where your relationship is strong and where we can improve your skills to strengthen your connection, as well as explore your views about friendships, loyalty, and responsibility to friends.
Tease out the challenging threads of the frustrating cycle that is wreaking havoc in your relationship and guide you through the confusion towards a deeper experience of emotional safety with your friend.
Revolutionize your communication skills to take you from hurting one another to hearing one another and responding instead of reacting.
Unlock your capacities to understand each other in nuanced ways, so that you can begin to again experience the part of your friend that genuinely cares about your needs and perspectives
Gain insight into how the ways you learned to cope with difficulties in getting your needs met in the past may be influencing your present relationship and how these past hurts may be influencing you now. Most importantly, our goal is to help you both build awareness and empathy for each other’s experience.
Facilitate repair around past emotional injuries that may be in need of healing, in order to move forward towards a newfound sense of closeness and affection.
Become genuinely honest about preferences, expectations, communication needs, and ideals for the future development of your friendship that you may not have yet felt completely comfortable to share with your friend.
