Couples counselling can help improve romantic relationships, whether the issues are major or minor. It can help address and resolve problems in your relationship, improve communication and conflict resolution skills, and strengthen your connection.
Couples counselling provides a safe space for both of you to talk about anything and everything that’s going on in your relationship. This includes the good, the bad, and the ugly.
It can be therapeutic for both of you to share what’s been on your minds, especially if you have been holding onto your feelings for a long time. Couple counselling allows you to talk openly and freely, without judgment or bias. It allows both of you to be heard and validated, as well as talking on topics that might be difficult to discuss on your own.
Couples therapy is not a long-term form of therapy. Instead, it is a short-term therapy that aims to equip you and your partner with skills to help you prevent and manage conflicts that arise down the road.
The benefits of couples counselling helps you both
- Understand each other better
- Identify relationship issues
- Improve communication skills
- Resolve conflicts
- Strengthen friendship and attachment
- Terminate dysfunctional behaviour
- Learn skills
- Improve relationship satisfaction
How does it work?
Couples therapists often employ an integrated approach to treatment, borrowing techniques from different forms of therapy, depending on your needs. Vikki incorporates the use of the Gottman method to assist in addressing areas of conflict and equipping you and your partner with problem-solving skills. It aims to improve the quality of friendship and the level of intimacy between you and your partner.
Some of the strategies a couples therapist might employ:
- Getting to know you: Creating a sense of safety by getting to know you and your partner to aid in working actively and collaboratively to understanding each other better.
- Identifying you and your partner’s feelings.
- Exploring the past: It helps you both better understand your fears, motivations, and behaviours in a relationship. It can help address unresolved conflicts that affect your present.
- Focusing on solutions: Assist you and your partner to resolve issues, correct negative behaviour patterns, and focus on positive aspects of the relationship.
- Teaching skills: The aim is to equip you and your partner with tools to help you deal with issues as they crop up.
Couples therapy ideally requires participation from you and your partner. However, if your partner is not open to it, you can also opt to do couples therapy alone, to better understand your relationship and how you can improve it.
If you and your partner undertake it together, Vikki will work with you and your partner to outline the goals for therapy and whilst couples therapy typically involves joint sessions, Vikki may also do individual sessions with you or your partner to help deal with the issues brought up in couples therapy.
If you would like more information about couples counselling and how it could benefit you and your partner, then please feel free to contact me.
