9 Adlerian Therapy Techniques for Couples Worth Trying

You rush through the door with big news: the promotion finally came through. Your partner glances up from their laptop, says “nice,” and goes back to typing. The rest of the evening feels a little flat.

Moments like this rarely cause a big fight. But over time, small moments of feeling unseen or discouraged can shape how a relationship feels.

Adlerian therapy techniques help couples replace discouragement with encouragement, understand the beliefs each partner brings into the relationship, and work together as equals. Many of them are simple enough to start practicing at home.

This guide explains the ideas behind the approach, what to say instead of discouraging your partner, and 9 techniques worth trying.

What Are Adlerian Therapy Techniques?

These are tools drawn from Individual Psychology, the approach developed by psychiatrist Alfred Adler in the early 1900s. Adler believed people are shaped by their relationships and their sense of belonging, and that encouragement helps people grow.

Encouragement in everyday moments may matter more than it seems.  

Adlerian therapy methods for couples build on a few core ideas:

• Social interest. A sense of caring about others and contributing to something bigger than yourself, including your relationship.
• Encouragement. Building each other’s confidence and sense of worth, especially in hard moments.
• Lifestyle. The core beliefs and patterns each person develops early in life, which shape how they love.
• Mistaken beliefs. Unhelpful conclusions, like “I’m only loved when I’m useful,” can fuel conflict.
• Equality. Partners working as a team, rather than one leading and the other following.

Every couple brings old patterns into the relationship. Adlerian work treats those patterns as understandable and changeable.

Things To Say Instead Of Discouraging Your Partner

Many Adlerian techniques start with something simple: noticing the difference between discouraging and encouraging words. Here are some everyday examples:

If encouragement feels forced at first, that’s normal. Start with one specific, honest comment a day. It tends to feel more natural with practice.

9 Adlerian Therapy Techniques For Couples

These Adlerian therapy interventions range from simple everyday habits to deeper work that’s best done with a trained therapist. Pick one or two that fit where you are.

1. Encouragement over praise

Praise focuses on results, like “Great job.” Encouragement focuses on effort, progress, and who someone is, like noticing how hard your partner worked. Adlerians see encouragement as essential because it builds confidence that doesn’t depend on perfection. It also helps partners feel valued.

Try doing

• Notice one effort your partner made today, even if it was small.
• Name the effort specifically, rather than only the outcome.
• Encourage during setbacks, too, not only after successes.

2. Exploring each partner’s lifestyle

In Adlerian terms, your “lifestyle” is the set of beliefs you formed early about yourself, others, and how to belong. A therapist may explore family roles, birth order, and childhood experiences to help each partner understand why they react the way they do.

Try doing

• Share what role you played in your family growing up.
• Talk about what you learned about love and conflict at home.
• Notice where your childhood roles show up in your relationship today.

3. Sharing early recollections

Adlerians believe the memories you choose to recall from early childhood reveal something about how you see the world now. Sharing one or two with your partner, and talking about the feelings attached, can offer surprising insight into each other’s fears and hopes.

Try doing

• Each shares a specific memory from before age 10.
• Describe the feeling you remember most strongly.
• Ask what that memory might say about what matters to them now.

4. Spotting mistaken beliefs

Mistaken beliefs are conclusions that once made sense but now cause trouble, like “If I don’t stay in control, things fall apart.” In couples work, naming these beliefs helps partners see that many fights are driven by old fears rather than by each other.

Try doing

• Notice a thought that repeats during conflict.
• Ask yourself where you first learned that belief.
• Share it with your partner, and ask whether it fits your relationship now.

5. Acting “as if”

This technique invites you to act as if you already were the partner you want to be, for a set period. If you want to feel more patient, you practice behaving patiently. Over time, acting differently can help new feelings and habits follow.

Try doing

• Choose one quality you’d like to bring to the relationship.
• Act “as if” you have it for one week.
• Notice how your partner responds, and how you feel.

6. Noticing what a habit gets you 

Adlerians call this “spitting in the soup”: once someone spits in your soup, you might still eat it, but you won’t enjoy it. A therapist gently points out what an unhelpful habit secretly gets you, like sulking for attention, so it’s harder to keep it up.

Try doing

• Pick one habit that shows up in your fights, like going silent or keeping score.
• Ask yourself honestly what it gets you, such as attention, control, or a way out of a hard talk.
• Notice what it costs your relationship, and share what you find with your therapist or partner when you’re ready.

7. Holding a regular marriage conference

Adlerian psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs encouraged couples to set aside regular, structured time to talk about their relationship. Each partner gets uninterrupted time to share, and the conversation stays focused on understanding and problem-solving rather than blame. It turns small issues into planned conversations instead of surprise arguments.

Try doing

• Pick a weekly time, and keep it to about 30 minutes.
• Take turns speaking for a set time while the other listens.
• End by agreeing on one small change to try that week.

8. The push-button technique

Developed by Adlerian therapist Harold Mosak, this exercise shows how thoughts shape feelings. You recall a pleasant memory, notice your mood, then a painful one, then another pleasant one. It aims to show that you have more control over your emotional reactions than it may seem.

Try doing

• Try it alone first, with your eyes closed, for a few minutes.
• Notice how your mood shifts with each memory.
• Before a hard conversation, call up a warm memory of your partner.

Watch this TED Talk by Jonathan Ljungqvist, relationship coach, who shares practical ways to strengthen love, connection, and understanding in relationships. 

9. Building social interest as a team

Social interest is the Adlerian idea of caring about others and contributing to something bigger than yourself. In a relationship, it can look like treating problems as shared, helping each other grow, and working together on something that matters to you both.

Try doing

• Choose a shared project, like volunteering or a goal for your home.
• During disagreements, ask what’s best for both of you, not only what you want.
• Do one small thing each day that makes your partner’s life easier.

FAQs

Still have questions? Here are answers to common ones about Adlerian couples work.

Growing As A Team

Adlerian therapy techniques are built on a hopeful idea: that couples grow stronger through encouragement, cooperation, and understanding where each partner is coming from. You don’t need to try all nine at once. 

Start with one, like naming your partner’s effort each day or holding a weekly check-in. Small, steady shifts can change how you feel about each other. If deeper patterns keep getting in the way, a trained Adlerian therapist can help you both go further.

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