Suzanne Taluy: When Couples Therapy Is the Wrong Room to Be In

Couples therapy carries an assumption that both people in the room want the same thing. Suzanne Taluy says that assumption is where a lot of harm gets done, because when one partner is abusive and the other is reacting to it, joint sessions can make the situation worse rather than better.

Suzanne Taluy is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of a group practice in Norwalk, Connecticut, where the clinicians work with children through older adults and specialize in trauma and life transitions. She is EMDR certified and trained in emotionally focused therapy for couples. She and Lisa met in person over lunch, which is part of why this conversation goes where it does.

Suzanne opens with the range of reasons people arrive at couples counseling, from newlyweds wanting a foundation to one partner dragging the other in hoping the therapist will take their side. She describes how she screens: a consultation before anyone books, direct questions about substance use and physical or emotional abuse, and a willingness to pause the work and send both people to their own therapists. Her comparison is to treating someone whose trauma is ongoing, where stabilizing is close to impossible while the source is still active.

Lisa then describes her own experience of couples counseling with a therapist who had been her ex's individual therapist for years, and being told to set her own feelings aside. Suzanne names the ethical problems in that plainly. They also cover why therapists are trained not to tell a couple whether to stay or go, and the situations where a clinician is obligated to speak up anyway. Toward the end, Suzanne gives the questions to ask any therapist before you commit, and Lisa raises what happens to a child in court-ordered therapy who knows their words are going back to the court, so nothing in the room is really private.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why an abusive dynamic makes couples therapy unsafe, and what a therapist should do instead
• How a good clinician screens for abuse and substance use before taking a couple
• Why the person who arrives second to their partner's longtime therapist is at a disadvantage
• The questions to ask in a consultation: training, years with couples, and what they aim for
• Why therapists are trained not to tell a couple to separate, and when they speak up anyway
• How a manipulative partner works on the therapist, and why training is the defense
• Why trauma sits on a spectrum, and who to look for if you are the one seeking help
• What court-ordered reporting does to a child's ability to trust their own therapist

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why people come to couples counseling, and who gets screened out
5:00 How Suzanne screens for abuse before she takes a couple
7:00 You cannot stabilize someone while the harm is ongoing
10:00 What to ask a therapist in a consultation
12:00 "Process consultants," not fixers
14:00 Lisa's experience: her ex's therapist as their couples counselor
19:00 Why therapists rarely tell a couple to separate
22:00 How a manipulative partner works on the therapist
24:00 What to do instead, and finding a trauma-trained therapist

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Suzanne Taluy at Embrace Psychotherapy: https://www.embracepsychotherapyllc.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.