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Couples Counseling
Couples therapy, helps couples — married or not — understand and resolve conflicts and improve their relationship. Couples therapy gives couples the tools to communicate better, negotiate differences, problem solve and even argue in a healthier way.
Couples therapy can be short term. You may need only a few sessions to help you weather a crisis. Or you may need couples therapy for several months, particularly if your relationship has greatly deteriorated. As with individual psychotherapy, you typically see a marriage counselor or therapist once a week.
Illness, infidelity, sex, anger, addictions, communication problems — all can contribute to distress in marriages or other relationships. Couples counseling or marital counseling can help resolve conflicts and heal wounds.
Couples counseling involves both partners in an intimate relationship forming a therapeutic relationship with a trained counselor, at the same time.
The focus of couples counseling is on improving the quality of the relationship for both partners. Couples counseling looks at issues like communication, honesty, shared responsibilities, commitment, and mutual support. Problems such as abuse will also be addressed. Couples therapy can help you rebuild your relationship, or decide that you'll both be better off if you split up. Either way, couples therapy can help you understand your relationship better and make well-thought-out decisions.
Many types of partnerships can benefit from couples counseling, including married couples, couples preparing for marriage, co-habiting couples, dating couples, separated couples, and couples preparing for a divorce. Although originally developed as marital therapy, couples counseling now equally recognizes and works with unmarried couples, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples.
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