The Radical Nature of the Relationship Enhancement Expressive Skill and Its Implications for Therapy and Psychoeducation

Abstract

Some common ways that couples speak to one another have the effect of inducing defensiveness and generating endless and unwinnable arguments that effectively shut down the possibility of genuine communication. This article uncovers the problematic underlying assumptions of the implicit ‘‘objective’’ frame of reference that underlies those common ways of speaking and describes how the Expressive Skill within the Relationship Enhancement (RE) therapy and psychoeducational model points to an alternative, subjective frame of reference that can help break through the all-too-common impasses in communication that otherwise result. The radical nature of the RE Expressive Skill is that its implications go beyond simply coaching people how to express themselves more skillfully and respectfully but instead help people change the very way they think about their own and other people’s experience by coming to recognize that all human experience is intrinsically subjective in its very nature.