I’m sitting with a couple during an online therapy session as they have been talking through whether or not they should stay together. Mark* had been leaning towards ending the relationship in the weeks leading up to this moment. It was just too hard. Still, after years of building a life and sharing love for a child who would be impacted by a possible break-up, this is truly a grueling decision.
Mark suddenly turns to his partner and says,
“You know, when I was younger, I survived this house fire. Like, if you haven’t been in a fire before, you can’t even imagine what the smoke feels like. It’s this intense burning sensation on your skin and it just fills up your lungs, making it impossible to even breathe.
I helped my roommate Dave get out of his room, but I knew I had to go up a flight of stairs to help Nancy out of her room too. As I climbed each step, the smoke just kept getting thicker and thicker.
When I got to the fourth step, I realized that if I went any further, I’d literally die. I couldn’t go on. But I was able to stay on that fourth step, call out to her, and wait for her to respond to my voice. She eventually found me and we managed to escape the house together.”
He pauses for a moment, then continues, “Rachel, our house is on fire.”
The words hit hard.
“And I’m willing to put up with a lot of pain right now, like the burning of my skin and lungs, even tolerating not being able to breathe easily. But I can’t die for this relationship. I’ll stay here with you on this fourth step, call out to you, and wait for you to find me. I’ll stay here for as long as I can. And I’ll accept the nearly unbearable hurt. But… I can’t go any further than this.”
Transformation on screen
This vulnerable and transformative moment took place on a screen. I live several thousand miles away from this couple, and I’ve never met them in person. But in my years of working online with couples, I’ve learned that poignant and life-changing moments can happen through a screen. Practiced therapists can find a way to draw close to clients and have clients draw near to one another, even from far away.
Mark and Rachel experienced an emotional and relational breakthrough, mediated through a combination of technology and trust. In response to Mark’s metaphor of the house on fire, Rachel both understood the urgency and felt tremendous relief. While she was still in danger of losing this man, whom she loved deeply, she now had a chance. She just needed to find a way to crawl back to him.
The contradiction of online therapy
Online therapy is in itself a contradiction. It is distant in obvious ways. It is also incredibly intimate in perhaps less obvious ways.
When I started seeing couples online, there was a learning curve. I needed to upgrade my Wifi, learn how to connect with couples through a screen and learn how to implement and adapt research-based interventions without being in the same physical space as the couple. What I learned is that the medium had yielded unexpectedly positive results.
Reaching more couples
One example is that I was able to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to quality couples therapy: couples living in rural communities; couples living geographically apart from one another (across the country or even across the world from one another); and couples with young children who were able to put their children to sleep, turn on their computers, and receive help for their struggling marriage. The “distance” part of the distance-therapy was, in many ways, more boon than blemish.
There is a great deal of research solidifying the efficacy of online therapy. We know it works for many, many couples, which means it can help couples in crisis who never would have considered it before.
“Rachel, our house is on fire.”
Achieving Closeness Despite Distance
For the couples I see online, a new closeness is achieved despite the physical distance. I am invited into their homes, their living rooms, and their kitchens. I see their family pets, a toddler traipsing through the session, and even a mother nursing her young child. Therapy is intimate by nature and by design.
Online therapy has a way of amplifying some of that very intimacy. I sense that my online couples adjust to this modality quickly and gratefully, experiencing firsthand the power and efficacy of the connection built through a screen.
Healing an affair online
With online platforms’ assistance, I’ve helped couples learn how to heal after an affair, how to build a strong connection early on in marriage, and how to manage and assuage overflowing volatility, such as when dagger-like criticism flies back and forth.
Separated by hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles and many time zones, I’ve guided hopeless couples back to believing that their love had a future and witnessed courageous couples share their needs transparently and respectfully, forging a path back to the intimacy they richly deserve.
Close, raw, and vulnerable
While I never shared actual physical space with most of these online couples, the relationship between therapist and couple continues to be close, raw, and vulnerable. Though it remains a dynamic fraught with the risks associated with balky Wi-Fi and interruptions unlikely to disturb an in-person session, I remain confident that the online therapeutic relationship is based on trust, transparency, healthy boundaries, and emotional risk-taking. And, again, it works.
A Leap of Faith Worth Taking
You don’t have to wait until your house is on fire to begin couples therapy. Nor do you need an excellent therapist down the block. You might find one across the country. When we commit our lives to another person, we are taking a massive leap of faith. Online couples therapy may feel like yet another leap of faith. But a skilled therapist will take your hand and walk you through the journey. And it may end up being the most important journey of your life.
*Identities and details have been disguised to protect the privacy of my clients.
Havi Kligfeld
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