‍Advances in brain scan technology confirm that talk therapy actually alters the neuron connectors in our brains. As we progress in therapy and learn new ways of thinking, communicating and dealing with emotion, we experience positive changes in how our bodies function, how we heal and deal with stress.

It’s an overcast January afternoon in New Orleans and I’m not particularly thrilled. As I sit across from my sweetheart in a facsimile Cafe Du Monde, housed in a suburban New Orleans shopping mall, I’m feeling free floating anxiety, courtesy of the prior night’s alcohol and too little sleep.

If you recognize the scenarios below, while it’s not guaranteed that couples therapy won’t work, it has a lower probability for success, or at minimum, be highly frustrating in the early stages.