I thought that model made some sense here. The hard part is getting the minimizer to realize what s/he is doing. There is no problem in identifying a maximizer. But a minimizer thinks they are doing what they should. They are being proper and respectful, so how else are they to act? I was accused of this myself. Since my wife and counselor were not happy with this, I just opened up and let loose on them, dumping all the anger I had been holding in. So you need to be careful what you ask for. But then, if I understand right, HD’s wife is already like that at home right? She will not like showing her stripes to the MC, but that’s part of therapy.
One way for HD to push her into this role is for him to play the prim and proper minimizer himself. She will not like the false impression he is trying to paint and will try to tear it down. This is essentially like detaching since you break out of the cycle of interplay between the two people. For her to maintain her dysfunction, she needs him to play is part. When he stops, she must either come clean or pull him back into it.
I actually called our counselor and spoke to her about these types of things – what I saw at home that was not displayed in session. The counselor would always state later in session that she had spoken to me, but it was also in a benign way that never seemed to cause a problem. So some behind the scenes advice is possible.
