Couples counselling
A romantic relationship is one of the closest we have as humans. Choosing a partner and staying together through life’s twists and turns is rarely simple. When we choose to get married and raise a family together, unsurprisingly this only adds to the complexity.
Whether you have the odd tiff, full-blown arguments or you have simply stopped having fun – very few relationships exist conflict-free. When this (one of our most important relationships) begins to falter, our health and happiness often suffers. While for many of us our first instinct is to try and work through problems alone, it can be incredibly useful to seek outside help.
One route you may choose to go down is couples counselling – a form of talk therapy designed for those in a relationship. On this page, we will look at couples counselling in more detail, including how it can help and some of the common relationship problems explored.
Couples counselling is a form of therapy that looks to improve communication and resolve issues within an intimate relationship. Couples counselling is a term applied to talk therapy for two people within a relationship.
While couples counselling is ideally suited to couples attending the sessions together if your partner is reluctant you can look to speak to a couples counsellor on your own to begin with. You may find your partner wants to join you after you have had some initial sessions alone – or you may find it helpful to intersperse couple sessions with individual sessions.
How can counselling for couples help?
Sometimes talking to someone with no connection to yourself or your partner is all it takes for you to gain perspective. What couples counselling offers here is the chance to speak to someone with no preconceived notions of who you are as a couple, with the added bonus of having skills and training behind them to guide you through your concerns.
The overall aim of couples counselling is to help you do the following:
• Understand how external factors such as family values, religion, lifestyle and culture affect your relationship.
• Reflect on the past and how it operates in the present.
• Communicate in a more constructive way.
• Learn why arguments escalate.
• Negotiate and resolve conflicts where possible.