Interview with Drs. Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson

Erik Lenderman opened the conversation by welcoming two guests who happen to be married to each other: Dr. Peter Pearson and Dr. Ellyn Bader. The pair founded and run the Couples Institute together, and they've written Tell Me No Lies and In Quest of the Mythical Mate. Their work has turned up on more than fifty radio programs and on television, with appearances that include The Today Show and CBS morning news.

When Erik asked who wanted to begin, he joked that a married couple surely had enough practice deciding who goes first. Ellyn volunteered, adding that going first wasn't usually how things played out between them.

She explained that she and Pete have spent roughly three decades focused on couples. Back when they started, specializing in couples work was treated almost as an afterthought to what people considered real therapy. Few clinicians saw much reason to build a practice around it. The two of them were pulled in by a different question: what actually allows a committed partnership to flourish, and why were so many marriages ending in divorces that felt early and avoidable.

Out of that curiosity came what they call the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy. The idea is that relationships move through a sequence of fairly predictable stages. Couples who put in the work can build something durable through those stages. Plenty of them get stuck along the way, though, and when that happens they usually need outside help or have to grow some emotional strength they didn't have before.

Ellyn also mentioned that she and Pete have trained therapists in many countries. One thread they keep returning to is the overlap between business and marriage, and what each of those worlds can borrow from the other.