Couples Therapy

• Couples Therapy and Marriage Counseling
• Premarital Counseling
• Marriage Rejuvenation Therapy
• Parenting Skills Training

Couples Therapy and Marriage Counseling

Relationships can bring great pleasure to life. However, difficulties and miscommunication are often a component of relationships. Once problems become too big they take up too much space and don’t leave room for couples to be happy in their relationships. When people are having problems in their relationship that they just can’t seem to get past on their own, or if they believe that they want to enhance their relationship, couples therapy can often be helpful. Relationship Tips & Advice for Couples

The focus of couples therapy is to provide a setting in which both partners can feel safe to explore their feelings and work on reaching a deeper understanding of each others’ needs. In couples therapy, you can learn new skills that will allow you to build intimacy and connection without sacrificing your individual identities. Couples often benefit from clearing up past issues, so that they can concentrate on improving their present situation. You can replace resentment with respect and replace arguments with caring and honest conversations. Old habits and patterns of negative interaction can be replaced by new relationship enhancing behavior, creating ways to reconnect with each other on multiple levels.

Common areas that couples therapy or marriage counseling can help repair:

1. Communication difficulties
2. Relationship issues
3. Intimacy problems
4. Sexual issues
5. Financial/Household management conflicts
6. Infidelity problems
7. Frequent fighting
8. Blending family or step-family problems
9. Parenting issues
10. Power and control problems
11. Lack of mutual respect
12. Career conflicts
13. Decreased satisfaction within the relationship

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Premarital Counseling

Premarital Counseling provides couples with a framework for investing the time, energy and thought that creates a healthy marriage. Even couples who know each other quite well before deciding to marry discover that there are certain issues they either haven’t thought of or may even avoid for various reasons. Most couples discover important things about themselves and their partner during the premarital process, and learn skills that prepare them for the challenges of married life. When challenging issues arise in the course of married life, couples who have been through premarital counseling already have tools to address these issues. And since they have sought outside support before, they are less likely to try to struggle through issues alone, when help is called for.

Some of the goals of premarital couples counseling may include:

• Gaining an understanding of oneself and one’s partner in the following ways: personality type, family of origin, personal values and life experiences
• Clarifying expectations, desires and goals 
• Identifying strengths and areas needed for growth
• Learning skills that can enhance communication and conflict resolution as well as nurture intimacy

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Marriage Rejuvenation Therapy

Some couples have a good working relationship, but crave the passion that first attracted them to each other. Their level of intimacy may decline due to stressors that often come along with marriage. Raising a family, financial responsibilities and work obligations can become the focus of conversation and the couples’ attention. Love doesn’t have to die because issues get in the way. Marriage rejuvenation therapy can help you renew your loving, affectionate, and sexual feelings for your partner. Therapy can help you to find the spark that you once had, and rediscover the mutual values and dreams between the two of you that make a relationship satisfying and meaningful.

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Parenting Skills Training

Raising children can be the most rewarding job one can have. It can also be the most frustrating, demanding and heart wrenching. No one provides us with clear guidelines about the right way to parent. Either we do what our parents did, or try to do the exact opposite. Parenting skills training is valuable for every parent because it can help you do the best job possible in raising your children. It can improve your confidence in your parenting ability, and therefore help your own sense of inner peace. Whether you are a single parent or share the responsibilities, effective parenting skills can be learned in therapy to create more harmony in the home.

Here are some of the tools you can learn in Parenting Skills Training:

• Setting appropriate limits and boundaries
• Building your child’s confidence and self worth
• Fostering open and respectful communication
• Developing methods of discipline that foster responsibility

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