Marriage and Couples Therapy – Relationship Counseling
Did you ever have this experience? You have been learning better communication techniques; you are ready to listen to your partner and use your new skills to begin a good conversation about something important. Then, your partner says a sentence or two and suddenly you realize your heart is starting to pound, your mind is starting to scream, “it’s not fair” or “you don’t understand me!” and the listening and nice communication exercise is over.
Seems like it is the same discussion and the same emotional response all over again and again. It seems like you can’t change.
The truth is, you CAN change. We have found that our clients need specific skills to improve or maintain a successful relationship – often before learning how to communicate, or have better sex, or cooperate on money issues or parenting, or whatever the issue is. However, once these underlying skills are learned, all the other important relationship tasks are MUCH easier and start to make sense and become usable in everyday life.
Our approach to relationship and couples counseling includes evaluating what are the strengths and challenges in the relationship - assess what is needed for your relationships to improve and then focus on addressing the specific skills needed in your particular case. We work with all our clients in a collaborative fashion—we LISTEN to you and bring our experience to bear on your problems and issues. Our approach is pragmatic, but thorough. It is based on identifying specific circumstances and behaviors related to the relationship issues, and then defining, learning, and practicing specific ways to resolve them.
Through out the marriage counseling, family counseling, or relationship counseling process, we invite you to evaluate how you and we are doing. We emphasize your progress so you can enjoy the successes. And we use the evaluations to chart out the next steps in the counseling process to the point you have acquired new, lasting ways to enjoy better relationships.
To see if relationship counseling may be helpful for your relationship or if improving relationship skills may be helpful for your career or social life – just call 520-529-1565 for an initial discussion with no obligation.
Resources
Click on the highlighted text to see articles or resources about relationships and related topics.
Communication tips: This article is adapted from a National Institute of Health website, but you can find it here. It is published in an area that talks about addictions, but it is a valid skills-based approach to relationship counseling and relationship communication.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call Janet or Reed at 520-529-1565.
Call us to set up a free introductory session: 520.529.1565
All the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.