Therapy for Couples
Whether you're facing ongoing struggles, experiencing a recent shift in your connection, or simply want to deepen your bond, couples therapy can help you navigate the challenges you’re facing and create a path forward.
Individual therapy is increasingly viewed as a positive and normal part of self care and mental health. This trend seems to be slower for couples therapy. People seem less willing to openly discuss couples therapy with friends. More than individual therapy, couples therapy still seems to signal that something is broken. It’s often seen as a last-ditch effort to salvage the relationship. Unfortunately, I think this results in couples seeking help too late, often suffering inside an unhappy relationship for years and making it more likely that couples therapy does become a precursor to a split.
Somehow, we’ve normalized individuals seeking support to navigate their anxieties and daily stressors, but expect two people with a lifetime of their own baggage to navigate (often) conflicting communication and attachment styles.
When beginning couples therapy, expect to start with a combination of individual and joint sessions to allow the therapist to learn about your relationship history and who you are individually and together.
While every couple is unique, you can expect:
To learn and practice communication skills
To identify your conflict patterns and triggers
To deepen your understanding of each other and yourselves within the relationship
To gain tools to navigate conflict and challenges
To gain tools to deepen your bond and emotional intimacy.
You should not expect your therapist to tell you if you should stay in or leave a relationship. Unless safety is a concern, this is not the the therapists’ role. We help couples increase understanding of the dynamic, but whether stay or leave is a personal decision - and not one that can be outsourced.
Couples Therapy Can Help You:
Navigate Conflict Constructively
Rebuild trust
Strengthen emotional connection
Navigate life transitions
Like individual therapy, couples therapy equips you with tools to navigate the ups and downs together and shouldn’t last forever. Couples often find ‘check in’ or maintenance sessions helpful after ending therapy.
Couples therapy can be useful even if the relationship doesn’t continue. It can help couples navigate the decision and process of separation. And for many, the issues that come up in one relationship will come up again. Couples therapy can help us understand our role within relationship dynamics.
If you’re interesting is discussing couples therpy, please schedule a consultation below.
