Marriage Counselling

Couples Therapy

“For all of us, the person we love the most in the world, the one who can send us joyfully into space, is also the one who can send us crashing back to earth.” -Sue Johnson

When To Come In For Couples Counselling?

Couples counselling isn’t just useful when things are falling apart. It can be helpful at many other times as well. Sometimes it is useful when you are taking a new step forward or backwards such as moving in together, getting married, having children, or even when you first start dating someone. Couples therapy helps if you want to do a check in or just make sure you are still in the best possible place you can be at. It helps if you want to deepen and become closer to your partner or, in contrast, when you are wanting to end a relationship.

How Can Couples Counselling Help?

Most couples come to couples/marriage counselling because they feel a loss of connection and worry they have fallen out of love. They are having communication issues, feelings of concern of being abandoned or not being good enough for their partner, and repetitive negative cycles of demand and withdraw that can be found in fighting about anything and everything, and complete shut down that eventually pulls the couple apart. Relationship counselling can help stop this cycle and regenerate a damaged bond.

Benefits of Couples Therapy

By taking couples counselling you can expect:

Stages of a Relationship that Can Benefit from Couples Therapy

Early relationship – You are in a committed relationship and need skills communicating and understanding each other’s expectations.
Power-struggle – Anger issues, bickering, fighting, arguing, an increase of negativity and disappointment characterizes daily living.
Detachment – One or both of you might have lost that “in-love” feeling. You wonder if you have anything in common nowadays and have started to avoid each other. There’s a lack of affection and sex.
Betrayal – Cheating, emotional affairs, online infidelity, or suspicious behavior like hiding cell phones/texts/passwords might happen at any stage, and whilst always a crisis that creates real trust issues, this behaviour is often a cry for help in the relationship.
Perilous – Gottman identifies four reliable predictors for break-up/divorce which he calls the four horsemen of apocalypse:
- 1. Criticism (“you” statements like, “You never think about anyone but yourself, you are selfish” “You always run late, you are so inconsiderate” “I think I just found a foolish person”).
- 2. Contempt (the stronger indicator for the breakup of a relationship. Characterised by acting superior to your partner, nasty sarcastic comments, belligerence, eye-rolling, or name-calling. E.g. “You’re ‘tired?’ Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic video games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid. Could you be any more pathetic?”).
- 3. Defensiveness (typically a response to criticism when feeling unfairly accused, playing innocent or making excuses).
- 4. Stonewalling (usually a response to contempt by shutting down, not responding to the partner or turning away).

My Therapy Process Using Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

The first step is an initial evaluation session to get some background about you, the reasons you are seeking counselling and your individual goals. Additionally, I will be answering your questions regarding my services, confidentiality, and what to expect in therapy.

For the second and third session, I will typically ask you to schedule two individual appointments to gain deeper understanding of each other’s perspectives and stories.

Starting the fourth session we will work with in the set goals to achieve them in three stages:

Assessment and de-escalation.
Restructuring your bond as a couple.
Consolidation.

The Benefits of Couples Therapy

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