One of the most persistent assumptions in couple therapy is that insight creates change. That once people can see the pattern, understand where it comes from, or name the childhood origins of their reactions, something will shift. Awareness gets treated as progress. Understanding gets mistaken for movement. And because this belief is so common, it rarely gets challenged.

But insight does not reorganise relationships. Couples can understand their dynamics in detail and still repeat the same arguments again and again. They know what they are doing. They know why they are doing it. And they keep doing it. This is not resistance or lack of effort. It is coherence. Relationships behave according to how they are organised, not according to how well they understand themselves.

This is where couple therapy becomes challenging and, at times, provocative. It does not simply add understanding; it interferes with the existing organisation of the relationship. It slows conversations down, interrupts familiar sequences, and prevents the usual moves from playing out unchecked. That disruption is uncomfortable. It creates friction. And it often feels worse before it feels better, because the system is being prevented from doing what it normally does to stabilise itself.

This is why explanation alone is never enough. The system can absorb insight without changing. Change happens when the old pattern can no longer run smoothly, when it is interrupted, blocked, or made unworkable in real time. Insight still matters. It can reduce shame and help people make sense of what they experience. But it is not the engine of change. Real change is structural and behavioural first. It is lived before it is understood, not the other way around.