Many people feel like maybe couples counseling will help; others believe they don’t need someone else “telling” them how to live their lives. If you’ve never had relationship help from an “outsider” before it’s hard to know what to expect. You do not know if this will “really” help, or if it will just make things worse.
Some of you have received couples therapy before whether it was from a licensed individual, clergy, or family or friends. At times it may have seemed helpful, other times you may feel like it was a waste of time. All couples counseling is not created equal. We recommend you seeking out specialized marriage and family therapists who are trained in the dynamics of attachment and healthy relational processes.
Why does this make a difference? Because counseling with therapists who may not have the full knowledge and expertise on relationship dynamics may miss important insight, research, and education on systems therapy and what affects change. If you must see someone who is not a marriage and family therapist, insure they have some advanced training in couples such as sex therapy, Gottman therapy, or emotionally focused couples counseling.
At Infinite Transformations Counseling we value highly trained marriage and family therapists and couples counselors who go above and beyond to successful help couples go from distress to repair, and on to healthy secure and stable marriages and relationships. With that being said, what should you expect when you sign up for couples counseling or marital therapy with us?
Couples counseling and marriage counseling with us begins with you taking the first step of finally scheduling that appointment. We find that most couples have discussed couples therapy months, even sometimes years before making an appointment. From there each partner fills out intake paperwork detailing your perspective of what is going on in the relationship and what your goals are.
During your first intake session your marriage and family therapist will learn the dynamics of your relationship in order to assess where you have been, where you are at, and where you would like to be. After this 90 minute intake session you will determine if you would like to continue and commit to couples therapy. From here we schedule 60 minute individual counseling sessions with each of you.
During your individual session, your couples therapist will learn more about you as an individual, beyond the relationship. We will explore your attachment history which includes your family history and past relationship history. The goal of this appointment is to learn who you are and how we can honor you as an individual throughout your couples therapy. You are not the problem in your relationship. Issues arise in relationships due to our attachment styles, attachment injuries, and emotional triggers that debilitate or send us into panic mode. We set out to support both of you through this process.
During the fourth session (back to 90 minutes), we come back together to discuss counseling goals, provide psychoeducation on what we hypothesize is happening in the marriage or relationship, and begin to process and teach you the attachment based emotional skills needed to get the relationship you both want and need!
Depending on what is going on in your relationship, couples and marriage counseling can take from 5 to 12 sessions. Some couples may need more sessions including those experiencing a crisis, recent infidelity, depression or anxiety, miscarriage or loss, addictions, trauma, or simply need extra de-escalation of your negative attachment cycles.
This information can also be found on our website https://www.infinitetranformationscounseling.com.
