What is Couple Therapy?

• Couple Therapy offers you the chance to find out how to prioritise your relationships, work commitment, children, friends, and family.

• Couple Therapy is often referred to as Couple Counselling or other titles - see box on left. It is a safe place  offered by the therapist where both parties can share ideas and feelings...

  • without feeling guilty about doing it

  • knowing someone can mediate if things get out of hand

  • with the confidence that neither party will be blamed or punished

  • with a professional trained to guide and promote a healing environment.

Differentiation of Self —
The "dance" in relationships:

When you consult a Couple Therapist you are likely to be asked to bring with you into the room a spirit of willingness.  To be willing to look at the issues without blame or accusation, without judgement or harsh words will allow the three of you (the counsellees and the therapist) to examine the issues carefully and constructively.

Therapists will help you discover when the "dance" in your relationship is prompted by unresolved emotional issues you bring to the partnership from previous experiences, your family and faulty assumptions and expectations. Also this helps Identify those responses that are genuine emotional responses, reasoned and rational in the moment.

Sometimes you will be asked to see the therapist separately.  This enables the therapist to get a better idea of what each of you want, how you see the issues and maybe get to know know you as an individual before knowing you as a couple.  This can help when discussing the problems together.

Along the way there are several things you will look at:

• Styles of communication
  How we all communicate is quite different.  Learning to recognise the different styles, knowing your own style and how that influences your effect on other people, how your partner speaks and what they mean... these all influence how you get on on a daily basis.

• What's on your mind...
  may not be what your partner is seeing or hearing or understanding.  How do you know you are getting your message across?  Apart from the fact that your partner still does not put out the garbage even though they agree to do it; or still doesn't let you know if you are changing your plans, even though you've asked them to let you know.

• Negative feelings
  Why it is important to let your partner know you are not liking things they do and why it is important to not bottle up these negative feelings.  YOu will learn how to do this without hurting or offending.

• Positive feelings
  Why it is so important to let people know when you are happy and WHY!

• Holding you peace until it is appropriate
  Learning to control your anger and your temper is a very important part of our lives... especially when we are living closely with someone.  Find ways to temper your temper, alleviate the anxiety of being angry, use positive methods to show you are unhappy.

• Power and control
  In most relationships there are power struggles and balances that must be maintained for the relationship to continue.  Sometimes one partner is dominant and for the relationship to continue the other partner must be subservient.  When one partner shifts to a less dominant or more submissive (or vice versa) position the equilibrium is rocked.  Is this what is happening to your relationship? See Diferentiation of Self

• Nagging and criticism
  Coming from the heart and for the best possible reasons, criticism of your partner can often seem like nagging.  When we think someone is not happy with what we are doing (and if we are doing the best we can and what we think our partner wants or needs) the tensions can become unbearable.  Many an argument starts here and often for the completely wrong reason.  Learning HOW to speak, tone of voice, "I" statements and many other ways to speak to our partners can alleviate these tensions.

• Sex and intimacy
  Being able to connect intimately with our partner is not about having sex or making love or lust... well it is in a way about all three and probably more.  Few people really integrate their lovingness and sexuality without using their partner to their own ends.  Marriage is about being together by choice.  Breaking up is often about one or the other partner leaving.  Sex and intimacy are born of understanding "self" and "other" but mainly about living from the "I" position.  Knowing yourself gives you permission to know others.  Seeing what moves you, understanding the emotional context of your feelings and thoughts gives you the right to observe, to see, others.  Truly looking at yourself in a mirror, looking directly at your own eyes, knowing what you see there is the real you gives some indication of the difficulty of letting another person truly look at you, in your eyes.  And vice versa.  here we are moving toward true intimacy.

• Sex outside the partnership
  Finding satisfaction outside the partnership is often cause for much anger and anguish, especially for the silent or no-participating partner.  Trust and infidelity go hand-in-hand.  Couple Counselling works toward repairing the broken links and looking to find why the infidelity occurred in the first place.

• Couple counselling without your partner
  Coming shortly

• Too bad to stay, too good to go
  Coming shortly