Episode 04: Lessons from Couple Therapy: How to Engage the Male Partner on the Road to Connection

Please Send Us Your Thoughts on this Episode or the Podcast!Why are so many men ambivalent about coming to couple therapy? And so many therapists struggle with engaging men in the therapy process? In this special episode, Dr. Erica Liebman looks for answers by interviewing her co-host, Dr. David Shepard, who is a leading expert on making couple therapy effective for male partners. Together, David and Erica will explain why men in heterosexual relationships are ambivalent about couples work. David will then discuss what clinicians can do to help them overcome their ambivalence, and instead, make them feel couple therapy is a safe place for the vulnerable work of expressing tender, often attachment-related emotions.  The episode will reveal how to build a therapeutic relationship with male partners, how to know when a man is ready to explore painful emotions, how to make sure a man doesn't worry about a female therapist taking his partner's side, and other solutions to making sure therapy is a place where men and women can feel more deeply connected.