Extreme Psychology

For a small band of shrinks, intervening in catastrophic situations is an everyday event. But their experience at the edge has deep consequences for us all: It is altering our understanding of the true nature of human nature.

By Joann Ellison Rodgers, published on July 01, 2006 - last reviewed on January 08, 2009

She is disdainful of her mate but silences her sense of superiority. Unwilling to risk losing her man, she shrinks from putting real demands on the table, instead erupting over side issues that leave him clueless. Given his unwillingness to work on the relationship, she either withholds sex or offers the silent treatment.

Typically they've been married for decades, were once deeply in love and have been through multiple rounds of marital counseling. For Massachusetts-based marital therapist Terence Real, that's part of the problem. Most couples counselors don't take sides. That leaves them "ignoring the obvious," which, Real insists, is why everyone gets precisely nowhere.

Like a battle-toughened Special Forces operative, Real drops behind enemy lines in a last-ditch attempt to keep couples from self-destructing. In an intense 48-hour fusillade, he is aggressive in pointing fingers at bad behavior, insisting that both he and she own up to their shortcomings. And when he takes sides, it's usually with her against him.

What he says typically sounds something like this: "Harry, you have a problem. You're a rager and even Mother Teresa wouldn't want you. How do you expect your wife to sleep with you?"

The problem, Real finds, is that today's women are invariably asking for more intimacy than men are trained to give. "The great unspoken secret of bad marriages is that men are not unhappy about their marriages but about the fact that women are so unhappy with them." Its corollary is that women have a right to be unhappy with them.

"When women say they want men more connected, more responsive and more in tune and expressive, it is not appropriate for a therapist to then turn to the men and ask 'Now, what do you want?' What's needed is to turn to the guy with empathy and say 'OK, you weren't trained in relationship skills; let's go get some. They're better and healthier for you.' And the wife needs to stop scolding him for not doing what he doesn't know how to do."

Connecting requires that men give up their grandiosity, and Real admits that's a toughie—because grandiosity feels so great. But it makes men tone-deaf to others' needs. So he delivers a crash course in remedial empathy and the healthy ego.

Real has done no formal follow-up with clients after they go back home. But his office reports that nine out of 10 leave recommitted.

His message for women: Stop being coy and nasty and put demands on the table firmly and considerately. To men, he says: Stop whining about conflict, take up the yoke and learn to do some of the heavy lifting that women have always been taught to do and do well. "Honey, we have to talk" should not be a man's five most dreaded words but an invitation to the dance.