Understanding Couples Therapy with Karen Murphy

This week, Annmarie and Katie are joined by the wonderful Karen Murphy — founder of the Institute of Couples Therapy and the trainer behind the very diploma both hosts completed this year. It's Karen's first ever podcast appearance, and it's an episode packed with insight, honesty, and genuine emotion.

Karen takes us back to the beginning of her own journey into couples work, the lack of dedicated couples therapy training in Ireland, and why she eventually set up her own Institute — now the only organisation in the country offering ongoing training and community support specifically for couples therapists.

The conversation moves through some of the biggest themes in relationship therapy today:

• Why differentiation — learning to hold and respect difference rather than fighting it — is one of the most powerful (and hardest) concepts a couple can grasp
• The danger of falling into "victim versus villain" thinking, and why neutrality is one of the most powerful tools a therapist can offer
• Karen's concept of the "paradoxical theory of couples therapy" — why the behaviour a couple presents with (anger, shutting down, communication breakdown) is usually a coping strategy, not the real issue
• How shame shows up the moment a couple sits in the waiting room, and why simply naming that can be transformative
• A grounded, careful conversation on terms like gaslighting, narcissist and stonewalling — why they matter, why they're sometimes overused, and the crucial distinction between everyday relational struggle and genuine abuse
• Why couples therapists must never work with active domestic violence or coercive control without specialised training
• What to actually look for when choosing a couples therapist — accreditation, transparency, and whether they see both partners together from the start
• The importance of curiosity over judgment, and how asking instead of assuming changes everything in a relationship
• Karen's honest reflection on her own blind spots, her own marriage, and what a decade of sitting with couples has taught her about being human
• Why neither Annmarie nor Katie believe in the idea of a "perfect marriage" — and why couples therapy isn't about staying together at all costs

This is an episode about hope. About showing up for each other even when it's hard. About what it really means to be vulnerable with the person who knows you best — and why that, more than almost anything else, shapes the quality of our lives.

Karen also shares details of her upcoming community and training opportunities for therapists interested in working with couples, along with why supervision is completely non-negotiable in this line of work.

Whether you're a therapist considering specialising in couples work, someone currently navigating a difficult relationship, or simply curious about what really goes on in the therapy room — this conversation offers warmth, honesty and real hope.

Find Karen Murphy and the Institute of Couples Therapy at theinstituteofcouplestherapy.com

This episode is proudly sponsored by Inner Therapy, Naas & Portlaoise — offering EMDR, couples therapy, CBT and neuro-affirmative care. For more information, visit innertherapy.ie

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