You and your partner have been struggling with communication, intimacy, and generally feeling happy and content in your relationship.
Perhaps sex and intimacy in particular have been a challenge, and you are wanting help in getting your sex life back to feeling easy, accessible, desired, fun, and satisfying.
Maybe you and your partner have had a big event happen in your relationship such as getting engaged or married, the birth of a child, moving, taking care of elderly parents, or death in the family and you are struggling to find your new normal through this transition with each other.
Maybe you and your partner have endured infidelity or your relationship getting off track and are wanting help to rebuild trust and move towards a more sustainable and fulfilling relationship than you had previously.
Maybe you want to be proactive and are looking for guidance on how to continue to have a healthy relationship through all of the ups and downs life will through at you.
Couples counseling is a great resource for couples to really work on the dynamics of your relationship and understand what things you each individually bring to the relationship that are strengths and what things you each bring to the relationship that may require some awareness and communication in order to avoid a negative impact.
How Does Couples Therapy Work?
Couples therapy is all about working on the dynamics of your relationship, not the content. In couples therapy, I work with partners on how to understand the patterns and dynamics they are both co-creating to bring awareness to these dynamics and work to interrupt them so there is room for new dynamics to be learned.
In learning these dynamics, couples therapy is also about learning what YOU can do differently in the relationship to improve the dynamic. Understanding your attachment style, trauma, how you react to your partner, etc. is essential work to having self awareness and not blaming the conflict all on your partner. You both have created this relationship and its going to take both of you to work on the things you are aiming to grow in.
My Process
I begin couples therapy with a four part intake process that allows me to really understand in depth what your relationship looks like, where the pain points are, and where the strength and love is as well.
The first session is with both partners where we dive deep into the concerns you have about your relationship and how that is effecting your relationship over all. We will talk about all the aspects of both of your lives that are influencing the concerns in the relationship as well as what patterns are coming up around these concerns as well.
The second and third session will be individual sessions where we will talk about each partner’s family background, relationship history, and sex history if relevant. There will then also be time for that partner to talk more about their perspective on what is going on in the relationship and give more context to what they are particularly experiencing.
The fourth session is for us all to come back together and discuss how the individuals sessions went, if they sparked any new conversations within the relationship, and to decide what the goals for therapy will be along with the priority of what we want to start working on.
Once we move through these intake sessions, the rest of couples therapy is typically with both partners present and we focus on working towards the goals you have set.
Should I do Couples Therapy or Individual Therapy?
Couples therapy can be helpful in tandem with individual therapy or as something you and your partner seek out when needed. Because couples therapy does focus mostly on the dynamic happening in the relationship, sometimes the suggestion of doing some individual therapy in addition to couples therapy can come up when there are things that one or both partners need to really focus and work on separate from the couples therapy work. These things could be anxiety, depression, trauma, understanding themselves and their own triggers better, being able to identify emotions more clearly, their own barriers to being able to work together with their partner and meet their partner more where they are at, etc.
Many couples come to me in the opposite way as well where their individual therapists have suggested doing some couples therapy to work on the dynamics in their relationship they have been discussing in those individual sessions.
Results Couples Therapy Can Offer
Overall, couples therapy can help you achieve:
Better and more effective communication
More connection, intimacy, and pleasure
Understanding how to voice what you need and want
Setting appropriate boundaries for yourself and your relationship
Creating goals together as a couple and working together as a team
Prioritizing time and space for your relationship
Building trust, honesty, and vulnerability in your relationship
Learning what is ‘normal’ in a relationship so you can have realistic expectations
You deserve to have the relationship you desire!
If you are struggling in your relationship and are in need of some help to get things back on track, please click the button below to schedule your FREE 30 minute consultation and I would be happy to help you feel heard, understood, and connected again!
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