How to Find the Right Couples Therapist (with Ryan Ginn)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back, everybody. I am super pumped today to be joined by Ryan Ginn, my friend, associate, and an incredible practicing couples therapist, men's coach and educator on relationships and health and well being that I've had the pleasure of knowing. I don't know, eight or nine years now. Done a lot of deep work with myself. And, um, really wanted to bring Ryan on here because in the work I do with men, kind of from the more coaching angle, a lot of times I'll work with guys in relationships and they'll get to a point where it's pretty clear the couple needs some outside support. And either they've had therapy before or about to look for a therapist for the first time and just don't know where to start in terms of how to find a good, good couples therapist. And I thought, knowing you personally as someone I think is a great couples therapist, maybe you could bring some tips and ideas for things, things to look for and, and, and really how couples therapy can serve a couple and really kind of take it from there. So first off, welcome.

Ryan Ginn: Thanks, Jason. Yeah, super, super cool to be here. Yeah. You know, as you're speaking, I start. I started having flashbacks to my first experiences in couples. Thera. Not excellent, shall we say. And then I, and I'm really actually just in the moment, really realizing that there is a unspoke. I don't, I haven't, I don't hear it spoken very much truth that many therapists think that they can handle couples because they had some training, grad school, and maybe, you know, did, did one train, you know, one training. And with the Gottmans and so they're going at it and they don't actually have a strong enough framework for dealing with the complexity of what's happening in a couple system, you know, and, and yet the thing that they, they, they're really well intentioned. No. And they're maybe seeing mostly individuals. And it's a different animal. A couple, A couple therapy session is a different, different animal. They end up leaning on their, you know, primary skills as an individual therapist, which is, you know, listening, you know, reflective listening, you know, validation. And they don't come in with a strong frame of expectations of the couple of each individual in the couple. And we could get into those. But just, just as a starting point, I reflect back and I think, God, you know, I, I had, you know, with my wife, I had couples therapy experiences that, that wherein the therapists actually did. Would take sides, either, you know, my side or my wife's side. And of course, either way, that just feels not right. But you know, individuals, you know, especially in a, in a, in a.

Jason Lange: We'Ll.

Ryan Ginn: Say not fully developed, like not a strong, high functioning couple system are going to come into couples therapy already kind of ready to make their case. I mean. Right. Yeah, just not, you know, sadly, you know, 90% of the time that's what how a couple presents to me. Right. They're both, they're both treating, they're looking at me like I'm the adjudicator of right and wrong, you know, true, true and false and that I'm just going to say, okay, well he's, yeah, he certainly is the one that is the victim here and you need to start to shift your whole thing so that he feels better. There's. I, this is sort of the implicit expectation they have of me. And we both know, right. I mean, we're smiling like that's, it's. How. In what world is that gonna play well. Right. Yet, yet it's very, really remarkable. I mean, the insistence on that, on treating the couple's therapist that way.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: Okay. So maybe just to backtrack a little bit and just really, you know, really answer this question of like how to find a good one and kind of getting, getting at it in terms of one that is, that actually has a frame and you feel it. You, you want to feel like when you do, you know, your most any high quality couples therapist is going to do a screening call with you or a meet and greet. Right. To see if it's a good fit. And you want to feel for, from them that they are somebody that you feel like you can really learn from. Like that they have a quality. This is somewhat abstract, but I think you all can get this of leadership. Like they're not just reflecting back to you what's happening there. You know, they're hearing you deeply hearing you, but then they're coming back to you with, okay, so this, this is what we do. When you come into my office, we're going to be learning this. I'm not going to actually put up with a lot of acting out. Right. I'm, I'm not. That's not, you know, that's not in your interest. It's nearly unethical. For me just to have you play out individualist, selfish self, super self centered, you know Vic victim stories in, in, in. In the sessions. This is not going to work for you. I want to help you. I want to help you Want to hear some of this kind of languaging what I'm saying, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: Uhhuh. Where they're cutting, they're going down the middle. They're. They're holding you both accountable as two adults that are choosing to come into this consensual relationship as leaders as right as like empowered, you know, high, you know, agency adults that need some skill development. Right. And I think that's. Yeah. And I'm curious if you have any kind of curiosity.

Ryan Ginn: Right.

Jason Lange: We're actually out of, we can't lead ourselves out of this. So we, we need that. And so finding someone who has that leadership quality of, okay, you're going to, you guys are coming in, I'm going to help you take responsibility, we're going to make a plan and we're going to kind of go on a journey, it sounds like, from kind of A to B to see what's really going on and what's possible here. Is that, is that kind of fit with what you mean by leadership?

Ryan Ginn: Yeah, that's a great frame. Yeah, that's a, that's a great way to describe it or, you know, kind of further, further elucidate it for, for the guys out there. You really. Right. I mean, you're often spending several hundred dollars for this. Right. I mean, it, it is not a place to, to just come invent. It's a, it's a place to train. You know, I think a couples therapist would be better, better called, you know, a relational, like literacy trainer. Like, it's, it's like a training experience. Experience. Right. Because you're, you have, you have your patterns, right. That you, that are, you know, really deeply grooved in. Because we're talking about the primary attachment system. Right? I mean, just a, you know, a, A, a short dip into attachment theory here. Right. When you go into, when you're in a long term primary pair bond, we call in like in might, you know, school of couples therapy, it, it turns on this part of your brain that is, there's really the Same brain that you, you know, you utilized in your primary relationships, like your pr, your, you know, primary caregivers. Right? It's, it's that deep, it's that automatic. It's that full, full nervous system. It's not, you know, it's not a, it's in no way a mental thing that you turn on. It's automatic. And so. That's a tall task to repattern, needless to say. And yet. So therefore you need a facilitator that sees that that's the work at hand. We're not going to just talk abstractly about our problems and our challenges. We have to turn, you know, we have to turn and face each other in real time and get some coaching, some training to try something different. Because what you've done has not worked. So why would you be doing it in front of somebody that, in paying money for that? That's, I mean, I say, I say that with also compassion because it's, I mean it's, it's an understandable thing to do, especially if you don't have one, Some, some. Someone saying like, we know we don't do that. Like, that's not what we're doing here. Do you want to learn? Do you want to. Let's try something else. And so I should just, you know, briefly describe, you know, my school, the psychobiological approach to couples therapy. It's not my, I mean, the school I'm trained in, packed, formed by Stan Tatkin is. And you know, other schools do this too. Eft Gottmans do some of this too. You know, the big, the bigger schools do this experiential learning, right? This, you know, based on the premise that if, if you don't practice something in, in stress, you won't, you won't, it won't translate, you know, to your everyday life. You know, you actually have to, you know, you have to put the couple under stress which turning and facing each other and saying, you know, talk about your money challenges. I want to see you talk about what you're going to do to move forward. Just do one, you know, pick. Come to one thing that you're going to do together to move towards a healthier relationship with money as a couple go. I want to see you do that. That's stressful, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: And yet that's what you want to use someone like me for, right? Is, is to, is to get, get that auxiliary regulation to your nervous system so that you don't just pop out and just revert back to blame patterns argumentation shutdown, stonewalling, all the things you stay in a relatively regulated state that can actually collaborate and be creative and be empathetic. All the things you need to be, to function well. Like you're doing hard things, you're raising kids, you're managing a household right. You're dealing with like ill, you know, parents, like, they're really doing difficult things. So you need to be able to be regulated, empathetic, like take the other person's perspective, you know, come up with suggestions that both take care of you and the other person at the same time. That's high level executive functioning. And, and one doesn't do that because one is reverting back to their primary, their family of origin stuff and they're, you know, and, and, and so you need help to shift that pattern. You know, just start to see it. It's not like it's gonna go away. You're like breathing through it. You know, you've got someone like me that's got your back saying, you know, try that again. You're on the right track. Right. It's like a trainer would, right? No, just. Almost there. Just take a moment though. What's going on for you right now? That's like, I'm just feeling like really part of me is feeling really frustrated that she doesn't get. Okay, well let, and then I can offer some of that as a bridge. Like I can offer some of that empathy strategically so that they can calm down and give it another go and keep practicing. Like staying in their adult collaborative to, you know, perspective taking brain.

Jason Lange: Okay, so this, yeah, this is so big. I just, I really want to highlight what you're saying there, that like actual skill building and training should be happening in the session. Right. So maybe one way to frame what I've kind of heard clients talk about is we just come in and we kind of recapitulate the pattern. Right. It's like, I do this, you do this, I do this. And there just happens to be someone witnessing and reflecting that. But they're not necessarily intervening to help us in the actual session. Try something new to build a new capacity that we then, you know, go back and try to keep bringing it sounds like in between sessions, but that if you're not learning something about yourself or a new skill or something like that, it's probably not going to be very productive long term. And so it really takes that active leadership. And I think you're kind of pointing to the sweet spot of evoking the stressful situation for the couple. But Then what is different is you. Right. The actual regulated nervous system of the, the, the therapist who can then kind of bring the extra care in the moment to do, start to implement some of those small tweaks or create some of those moments of self awareness. So then you can kind of start to pattern things or try things differently. But that if you're not training and building that skill capacity, it's probably not going to actually be that effective for you long term. And that's where I think I have. You know, we've been someone for like two years. Like two years. Wow. And has anything changed? No, nothing's changed. Like we just kind of come in and do the same thing because that process isn't actually happening in a sense. So I really love that you highlighted that. And if there's one word, you know, I, I certainly know men can get behind, it's training. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. We're going to, we're going to train. We're going to relationally train to build these new skills and capacities, which it's not. So we're going to talk about what's, you know, broken or messed up about us, which, you know, it can be part of there, but it gives it a slightly more, I would say, alluring framing for certain men. That's like, okay, yeah, I want to learn how to do this better. It's not that we're never going to fight, but let's learn how to fight better or let's learn how to talk about money better or let's learn how to do these different things better. So looking for a therapist who has that strong leadership capacity frame ability, I imagine, to hold themselves. I've, you know, I've honestly been shocked, man, at how often guys have shared, like when their therapist gets triggered, they can like hear their therapist is getting upset by something, which then I'm like, how do you. That doesn't work, you know, and I'm sure it happens. It's part of being human. But if it's showing up in the session, I think something's maybe not quite going the way it should. Okay, great. But this is awesome. Let's just keep this train going.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah. You know, one other thing to really name it or maybe to double click on is that the, the training is mostly on the nervous system level. Right. Because that's the foundation, that's the foundation of our behavior. If you're not regulated in a moment, in an interaction, you're not going to be able to listen, empathize and be true. Collaborative, just kind of Re repeating that again because people come into. I mean, we're getting more into not just how to choose a there, but how. How do you orient yourself? How. You know, because if you want to make the most out of this, like, help. Help the, you know, help the therapist out by, like, reframing your, you know, like, reorienting yourself. Like, I'm going in here and it's going to be. I'm actually going to be expecting similar to. I would like a training session. Like, I'm going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to be managing the natural impulse to do the easy thing, which would be to blame. To shut down, to talk over, you know, to. And I'm gonna stay in the dis. The discomfort of what I'm feeling and be. Will, like, be willing to be. To build, you know, a tolerance in this container for the inherent discomfort of creating a life with another person. You know, I think that's the. Just to boil it down that the. The biggest issue in any couple is that you're a human being that feels really frustrated, disappointed in this other. That isn't cooperating with you the way you want them to on a daily basis, and you want to just tell them to just change. If you just did this, then I wouldn't feel this.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: And it seems so simple. I could just tell you maybe, you know, and you don't listen. So I'm going to maybe do it in a. In a stronger way. And, you know, and this. This is the. This is the human condition that we're contending with and that we're trying to train a person or a couple out of. I'm just saying, like, to come in and with a willing. With a humility that. Okay, like, I may be really successful in so many of my other relationships in life in general. Like, and I'm really, you know, an intelligent person. But there's a way in which, you know, couples work is, as, you know, Jason is the ultimate humble pie. It just is, you know, you think you've done so much work. Oh, man, I've done a hundred ayahuasca ceremonies and, you know, I've done this, that, and created three companies. And then you just feel like a baby sometimes, totally not getting what he wants. It's. It's hard, you know, so coming in with that, you know, that recognition, you know that it's going to be real, but that. That's. It's going to be really difficult. And yet the other side of that is this opportunity to heal and repattern some of Your most basic injuries. Right. The injuries that took place for you as a child that you didn't, of course, have the psychological, emotional capacity to. To deal with or to confront. Now you go into couples work and you have some auxiliary help to actually become like an advocate, but an effective one for your emotional needs in real time. Right. And when it's like really hard, like, oh, I have to take care of this person. I have to, like, listen to them and help them feel safe and present what I need in a way that they. That. That they can really hear it. Oh, yeah.

Jason Lange: That'S a great. I think just to highlight too. Right. So don't expect it to be easy. Right. Whoever you pick, you got to come in humble and be willing, you know, with a certain willingness to learn and know it's going to be hard. And actually, that's kind of the point is to. To get into the hard state, but with the presence of someone that can help you through it in a sense. And that it's not about just finding someone who's going to make you feel better.

Ryan Ginn: Right, right. Or vindicating you too.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: You know, because we all want. I mean, it was so human. I mean, we want. We want to be. Because we experience ourselves. Right. As the protagonist and the whole. We can't help it. Yeah.

Jason Lange: So true.

Ryan Ginn: You might get a little bit of that, but, you know, that's not.

Jason Lange: That's.

Ryan Ginn: It's not going to be the goal or validation. You might not get vindication, but some validation.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And, you know, one question that's coming up for me that I. I often kind of talk to guys about, but I'd be curious on your take. Like, sometimes, you know, guys will come in and there's something going on in the relationship and, you know, they start to talk to a therapist or something, and the. The feeling they get transmitted from the therapist or even just they. They implicitly imp. Kind of absorb, is that it's going to take a really long time for things to change or make movement. Like. Like, what's your sense? You know, I'm not saying that everything's fixed, but, like, should progress start to become kind of visible fairly fast? If you're really doing effective work with a therapist in session, like, does it take three, six, nine months? Or, like, what do you see, like, in the best kind of case scenarios, in terms of what's possible, in terms of timelines.

Ryan Ginn: I think you should see some shifting. Yeah. Certainly within the first few months. With a big caveat, you know, in my year, years of working with Couples, the biggest factor is both of their, their willing. The both of them. Simon, if they both simultaneously have a willingness to, to really be more mindful, more intentional, like practice the skills, you know, in other words, not, not fall prey to their own human tendency to blame and to, to go into the past and keep replaying times at which they were hurt as one, you know, in that. That doesn't see their own part in it. Of course, you know, if, if they really say, you know, there's a kind of turning over new leaf, like, hey, if the best. The couples that, that stop seeing me, you know, which is the, the actual goal within a few months or maybe come every, you know, quarterly or something.

Jason Lange: Yep. Get top ups.

Ryan Ginn: Right. Are the, are the ones that have that mindset like, hey, we both over the years have, you know, done what couple. What happens to couples, you know, started to get sloppy, you know, start to automate the other person. Not deeply listen to them, get more self oriented, not paying attention to the, the health of the, the couple system. And here we are. And here we are. We're hiring this person to come in and train us to like, develop new patterns, new principles, practices, and we're going to do them because we're, we. We recognize that, that if we don't, we will, we will revert to our conditioning, which has not worked. In other words, you know, to boil it down, they, they've abandoned the blame game. They've just said that's a dead end. Right. And I'm not going to litigate. I'm not going to try to litigate the past. It never works. I'm going to save you, the couple's therapist some time in that way. And I'm going to say I want to learn how and in real time, I want to learn. And then I'm going to take, I'm going to practice outside of here how to, how do we create a culture that is increasingly sensitive, creative, affectionate. That covers most of it. Right.

Jason Lange: I think if you sign me up.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah. They're. And they're doing, they're doing that and they're like, they're taking it up.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Ryan Ginn: And there's always a mystery, like, well, what does it take? What does it take for a person to actually like, step into that level of like, leadership? I don't want to, I don't want to insinuate that there isn't some importance of doing some repair around, you know, and of course, if there's betrayal and that that's an asymmetric situation and has a Different process. But if there's been hurt, there can be a process. But it has, but it has to be done in a way that's constructive, not just, I'm gonna dump this whole boatload of things that you've done and, and expect you just to sit there, you know, sit there and say, you're right, I'm wrong, you know, I'm the one who's messed up this whole relationship and you're amazing.

Jason Lange: The.

Ryan Ginn: Finesse to encourage the movement forward, the wind, the building of winds, so that the, the cup, the couple, the marriage starts to have some morale to it because you need a blend, you know, and.

Jason Lange: And.

Ryan Ginn: In that way, I think of like, couples therapy, relationship coaching as an art. Right. You know, the coach has to come in there, you know, really feeling into this culture here and seeing, like, hey, the morale is kind of low. We need to create something to help, you know, build a win for them. It's gotta be back and forth, right?

Jason Lange: Yeah. I mean, that. Yeah, that feels like another thing to just really highlight for guys. Like the. Yeah. You want your therapist to help you be helping you find some wins to keep that forward momentum going. And if, you know, if they don't have the capacity to do that, that might be one of those times you consider revisiting. You know, like, okay, we need to either talk to them about, hey, we need to try some different strategies here, or potentially find a different person to work with that can help you start to experience some of these wins to kind of, yeah, get that feeling of, hey, our teams, our team's turning it around. Hey, we can do this, right? It's a long season ahead, but hey, things are changing.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just to be clear, too, I mean, the, the, the. The reviewing past experiences needs to be done in a very clear way. You know, one subject was one experience at a time. Owning one's own personal experience, hope, bringing in some level of humility. Like, this is what I remember happening and how it affected me so as to not throw out a bunch of bait for the other to. Like, that's not exactly how it happened. That's not the point. Like, I have this memory in me that I'm still. That I, you know, and it. And I have pain here. So, I mean, that's where. Right. Like, quality couples therapy is so helpful because it's, it's right. You've no doubt everyone's experienced this. It's so hard to hear a mischaracterization of, of oneself as you experience it. Right? You're like, I didn't say that that way. I didn't yell or. I didn't. I didn't just slam the Door. I, you know. Right. We get into this back and forth and this argumentation about what happened versus an actual repair and an acceptance that this is what you remember happening. And that sounds so painful. I'm so sorry that that happened. How can we, how can we put it to rest? What do you need? But you get to both take turns though, is also the thing. People get pretty like, fearful that this is going to be a one way thing where I'm, I'm the one who's doing all of the, you know, kind of repair work.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah, definitely. Right. There's a, there's a boldness that's necessary to. And yet also some, obviously some tact and some finesse to, to interrupt or to shift and to call. You know, name something. You know, we say impact, you know, you know, we make a call or we make a statement that goes down the middle, that stops a. That kind of interrupts a pattern. Like, for example, the two of you don't seem to know how to really take turns and then they just kind of sit with it and kind of like, huh. Yeah, right. It kind of exposes this pattern they're in where one and that's on them both. Right. What's up with the guy that's just sitting there taking it all? Like how he doesn't have a skill to say, hey, honey, I really want to hear you, but I need you to pause so I can just really take in what you just shared and figure out what you need so that you can feel safe again. He doesn't have that skill anyway. Right. So. Yes. You want that level of inter, you know, the boldness to interrupt a pattern that's just playing itself out. It's like it's doing. No, it's not only doing no one good. I mean, it's, it's doing more detriment because you're just grooving in a dysfunctional pattern.

Jason Lange: Boom. Feels huge. Because we don't want to do that. That's already hard enough.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Awesome. And. Yeah. Any other tips that come to mind in terms of you know, kind of low hanging fruit for couples or men to be on the lookout for or know how to ask for.

Jason Lange: That feels. Yeah. Really good and I imagine really empowering to actually step into as well. Because.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Oh yeah. Okay. It's not that the session has to happen to us like oh no, yeah, cool. Let's, let's get hungry, get in there, get, get, get dirty and learn some skills so we can up level. And I really want to highlight what you said of kind of. Maybe another thing to look out for in a sense would be if it's just staying, if your sessions are just staying in the realm of the conceptual and not actually getting into the somatic rewiring of. Yeah. What do you do when she says the thing and it reminds you of the time when you were young or whatever in your whole nervous system goes into red alert. Like that's, that's where the needle is really going to move when you're getting into that real experiential stuff. And if you're just kind of talking about the patterns, you're not really going to get that ability or have that opportunity to train your nervous system like you're talking about. Like, again, just want to highlight what Ryan said earlier. You know, you can kind of think of this as nervous system training, good couples therapies, training you two to work with your nervous systems so you can stay on the same team and keep moving towards the things you want. Right. Without some of these different patterns from childhood and from frankly just being humans getting in the way. But that it takes that like, visceralness. I think that was maybe a word you said too. Like it should be a pretty visceral experience of like, whoa, okay. Yeah, this is the thing that's happening and you're helping me track what's happening and getting the opportunities to actually try some different things in this state while we're in the session together. Because that's already going to be plenty hard compared to, I mean, that's already hard enough having the support of the therapist in the room, let alone, you know, being expected to just go figure that out alone after the session. Like, no, it needs to be happening. When you're in that kind of sacred, you know, very limited time frame in some sense. Like there's, you know, compared to how many hours you're in relationship with your partner coming in for a session once, twice, three times a month, it's not that much. So you really want to make sure something is happening in that space. And you know, I think if we kind of highlighted anything here in some sense, if it's not, it's probably not the right fit for your couple. And your, your Reese, the limited resource you have would probably be better invested finding someone else who can get you more into that really visceral place where you're, you're doing the hard work in a session. Totally.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah. Well said.

Jason Lange: Awesome. Well, any, any, anything else last come to mind for you here before we close out? Just in terms of the topic so far?

Ryan Ginn: No, I think we covered, covered, covered some good ground there. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Lange: Fantastic. And what is the best way for, you know, anyone listening to kind of get to know you more, keep up with you and some of your offerings for, for couples and the work you do.

Ryan Ginn: Yeah, you can find me Ryang Underscore on Instagram and ryangin.com G I N N and also doing a collaboration with one of our mutual friends, Luke Adler. And that's on being men.net where we do courses for men in long term relationship. And yeah, I would also want to offer that if you're looking for a couple therapists in your neighborhood, the Pact Institute. P A C T. Just Google that and you can find someone highly trained in a lot of stuff. We were talking about.

Jason Lange: A directory I often refer guys to and again, just kind of what he's highlighting there is, you know, it's going to be really useful if the person you work with has some specific training for couples and kind of has a trajectory, a sense of kind of where to take you. Right. If they don't have a sense of where to take you, I would take yourself elsewhere maybe. Bottom line that in some sense. But awesome, man. Thank you so much for showing up and the work you do, it's always so incredible. I learned so much every time I receive your gifts and your education and your brotherhood. So it's always a pleasure. And we'll definitely have to do this again sometime, my man.

Ryan Ginn: Sounds good. Jason.

Jason Lange: If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary men. Apply.