Why Marriage/Couple Counselling?

Most relationships that run into difficulty have been falling into a downward spiral for months or even years. It usually takes this long before you seek help from a marriage/couple counsellor. It’s not as quick as pressing the Refresh tab on your computer but restoring your relationship is very possible.

Counselling involves working together with a professional to help you transform destructive patterns into positive connection. It is an opportunity for personal growth and a time to pay attention to your unique patterns of engaging and disengaging each other. Both partners can grow in confidence by learning how to reconnect in an emotionally safe way.

My counselling approach with couples is based on EFT - Emotionally Focused therapy. It is a short term systemic intervention to reduce distress and create emotional safety between partners. Emotion is seen as the essential element that is responsible for transformation; it is the key organizer of our inner experiences and important interactions.

I guide couples to identify their triggers that evoke negative reactions and to learn to send clear signals for safe connection. The couple participates in identifying their particular "dance" of interaction a cycle that leaves them feeling stuck so that they can begin to use this awareness together to get "unstuck" and to feel more trust, safety and and intimacy.

As the couple becomes aware of how they draw each other into a negative emotional cycle, their fears and needs become more apparent. The couple learns a new 'dance' that demonstrates more flexibility, sensitivity, and empathy. The key components of EFT for couples include:

Accessibility: Staying open to your partner when you have doubts and feel insecure. Willingness to struggle and make sense of your emotions so that they are not overwhelming.

Responsiveness: Developing trust by tuning into your partner and showing that his or her emotions, including fears and needs have an impact on you. It means accepting and valuing your partner's emotional signals and sending clear signals of comfort and caring when your partner needs them. Sensitive responsiveness touches us emotionally and calms us on a physical level.

Engagement: This special kind of attention means being emotionally present, and feeling loving, close and valued.

Counselling Facilitates Empathic Connection

We need to feel “safe” to reveal what we want and what we feel, without being criticized, or judged. Problems get solved when the path is softened; it becomes easier to listen and respond when your partner meets you where you are. It is then that you can truly hear what your partner is feeling and value what is important to him or her. Counselling can facilitate compassion for yourself and empathy with your partner - important elements for solving a problem and for developing true intimacy.

Counselling can help you to take ownership for what’s not working in your relationship and guide you to a more mature and satisfying relationship. Change begins when you both commit to do something about the distance, ongoing conflict and confusion created between you.

I invite you to Contact me.