Couples and Marriage Counselling
Why do couples enter into therapy?
Couples enter therapy, by and large, because their pattern of interactions doesn't serve them. The way they act and react to one another doesn't get them what they want. Topics that often come up are infidelity, emotional connection, sex, finances, parenting, vulnerability, stress, division of labour, and communication skills.
The problematic pattern of interactions, when repeated over any length of time, becomes reinforced and therefore even harder to avoid. It can eventually even be brought on by the mere presence of the partners together; no need for any other major conflict for it to start up.
Whatever the pattern looks like, couples can often benefit from another perspective and someone to facilitate a different way of interacting.
Couples often put off this work as long as they can due to the stigma around going to therapy. Like a rut in the road, though, it can be easier to get out the earlier you intervene.
How can couples counselling help?
Couples counselling can help to gain insight into the needs of each partner and where they come from in their history. Often this insight, based on attachment theory, helps to discover the emotional roots of a conflict and remove blame.
It can also, through facilitated communication in sessions, provide the experience of interacting in new ways; providing a new set of options when relating to each other outside of therapy.
Important to the process, right off the start, is also a chance to be upright and honest about where each partner is at in the relationship. To use the presence of an expert mediator to become clear on how committed to being in, or ultimately out, everyone is.
Our approach to couples and marriage therapy
Our goal in couples and marriage counselling is to subvert the pattern of interactions that is causing conflict, ultimately leading to more rewarding relationships; a secure bond characterized by healthy dependence on each other.
We enter into therapy with the perspective that each partner has a reason for the way they act and react, and that this is centred in their experience; that ultimately they couldn't be any other way than how they are given the combination of their nature and environment up until this point. The problem, then, lies in the interactions between the partners, not in the partners themselves.
Our approach is based on the research into Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which has spawned a wealth of literature on relationships including the books "Hold Me Tight" and "Love Sense" by Dr. Sue Johnson.