There was a time that I used to see couples for behavioral health care, though I’ve since decided to take my practice into a different direction and see only individuals. Nevertheless, many of my individual clients are in committed intimate partner relationships.
Therefore, and as needed, I find value in augmenting my approach to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) with techniques designed for treatment and management of problems regarding couples. Recently, one of my clients informed me of a tool she discovered on TikTok.
While I’m no fan of social media, I understand that assigning a global rating to these electronic platforms isn’t in alignment with my goal for rational living. As an example, assuming that all content on TikTok is worthless serves as a form of irrational belief.
Therefore, I remain open to considering techniques about which my clients inform me and which are disseminated on platforms such as TikTok. Besides, rigidly self-assured hubris regarding psychotherapy isn’t an effective approach to helping clients.
In any case, my client told me that a TikTok content creator informed people about the concept of a common enemy when experiencing intimate partner conflict. Regarding this tool, one source states:
If you’re serious about an Intentional Marriage, the first tool you need in your toolbox is a Common Enemy. You might be more comfortable calling it a Common Goal, but what matters most is that you have a sense of “we-ness” as you move through time together. I prefer Common Enemy simply because uniting against a threat together is an extremely powerful motivation.
To illustrate this tool, consider that you and your intimate partner have tickets for a concert. You’ve waited all week to see a band and both of you are excited enough to leave your home early so that you may find decent parking options at the venue.
However, once you access the highway when en route to the concert, the roadway is essentially a parking lot. Traffic is at a complete stop. Frantically, and without using the ABC model or unconditional acceptance to reduce self-disturbance, you access the map on your phone to estimate your arrival time.
You’re projected to arrive half an hour after the concert begins. Meanwhile, your partner starts whining about how awful it is that the two of you will be missing a portion of the opening act’s set. You both really wanted to see the artists perform!
With horns beeping around you, your partner beginning to use profanity from the passenger seat, and no sign of improvement in traffic conditions, you tell yourself that you can’t stand the situation. How could this be happening at such an inopportune time?
Worse yet, you now have to relieve yourself, though there’s no way to maneuver to an exit ramp. Unhelpfully, you demand, “This shouldn’t happen, dammit!” With what you tell yourself, you’ve transitioned from being agitated to angry. In fact, you’re pissed!
Now, your partner is complaining not only about the situation but about how if only you’d listened and taken an alternate route you both could’ve avoided this experience. You then unproductively believe about your partner, “You’re fucking worthless, because I didn’t cause this situation!”
So far, you and your partner have used all four of the major irrational beliefs identified in REBT theory: demandingness, awfulizing, low frustration tolerance, and global evaluations. As such, you’ve disturbed yourself into rage and you now begin shouting at your partner.
Time-out!
What’s the common enemy in this scenario? Although you’re disturbed into a rageful disposition through use of irrational beliefs, you’re a fallible human being and not an adversary in this scenario.
Likewise, your unhelpful beliefs aren’t representative of living beings which present as antagonists. Therefore, what you tell yourself isn’t an entity against which you compete.
As well, just as you’re a flawed individual, your intimate partner is an imperfect person who uses unproductive beliefs which aren’t adversarial in nature. Moreover, traffic isn’t an enemy. It’s merely an inconvenient reality of living within modern times.
Aha!
Inconvenience. The activating event is that both you and your partner were excited about attending a concert on time and now you’ve been inconvenienced. This disruption of expectation is the common enemy shared by you and your partner.
In the interest of “we-ness,” what can you and your partner do, rather than self-disturbing and engaging in conflict with one another? Uniting against the common enemy of inconvenience may be useful.
Bitching, whining, moaning, and complaining won’t mysteriously part traffic and allow you to pass. That sort of magical thinking isn’t how life works. Similarly, arguing with one another while stuck in traffic won’t likely improve matters.
Therefore, identify the common enemy as inconvenience. Then, discuss with your partner a pragmatic approach to tolerance and acceptance. Although the two of you would prefer to arrive to the concert on time, it isn’t as though you must do so.
Additionally, while you may not like being trapped in traffic, this isn’t your first time encountering this sort of scenario. Rather than low frustration tolerance, you could both build upon resilience from past experiences and move toward high frustration tolerance.
After all, you and your partner aren’t adversaries. Just hours ago, you were excited lovers who looked forward to spending time with one another. Well, now you have plenty of time together. Perhaps you could choose to spend the time well, rather than self-disturbing about inconvenience.
As far as nearly wetting yourself goes, that, too, may be an inconvenience with which you may need to deal. In most cases, peeing yourself has likely happened before. Infancy come to mind?
Although the common enemy tool isn’t an REBT-specific technique I use often, I appreciate that my client shared this TikTok-inspired approach to conflict de-escalation. Herein, I’ve combined the tool with REBT techniques.
Does the common enemy approach sound lie something in which you may be interested? If so, why not give it a try? Also, if you’d like to know more about how to reduce self-disturbance, I’m here to help.
If you’re looking for a provider who works to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply helping you to feel better, I want to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
Brittle, Z. (2015, October 8). The best thing you can do for your marriage this week? Find a common enemy. Verily. Retrieved from https://verilymag.com/2015/10/intentional-marriage-relationships-counselling-therapy-common-enemy-goals
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Wayhomestudio. (n.d.). Young man and woman posing together [Image]. Freepik. Retrieved from https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/young-man-woman-posing-together_11265351.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=39&uuid=026535c2-f405-45de-9b82-a7024ae4aff2
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