Maintaining a good relationship with your partner can contribute to a happy household and improve your quality of life. It can also be beneficial to your health and well-being. However, it’s common for couples to go through rough patches, which can lead to stress, anxiety, and even depression. If you feel your relationship is falling apart, consider seeking professional help. Many unhappy couples in Arlington Heights, Illinois, are coming to NeuroHealth Arlington Heights to undergo couples counseling. This kind of therapy can help improve understanding, respect, and affection between you and your partner, resulting in a happier relationship.
What Is Couples Counseling?
Also known as couples therapy, couples counseling refers to a form of psychotherapy that seeks to improve your relationship with your partner. It’s different from individual therapy in that it focuses on the communication and dynamics within the relationship instead of helping you overcome personal issues.
Couples counseling can be an effective way to address a wide variety of relationship problems, including feelings of disconnection, recurring conflicts, sex-related issues, affairs, and difficulties resulting from external stressors. Such therapy not only helps repair strained relationships but can be beneficial even when things are going well.
Couples therapists use many different techniques to improve relationships. Some of the most common methods include:
- Emotionally focused therapy: Emotionally focused therapy helps identify and change patterns that contribute to feelings of disconnection.
- Psychodynamic therapy: This type of therapy explores the underlying hopes and fears that influence you and your partner so that you can better understand each other.
- The Gottman method: This method addresses areas of conflict and aims to strengthen friendship and enhance intimacy between you and your partner.
- Behavioral therapy: Behavioral therapy involves reinforcing positive behaviors that promote satisfaction and stability and discouraging negative behaviors.
Why Do Couples Go To Counseling?
Couples seek counseling for many different reasons. These can include communication problems, emotional disconnect, parenting conflicts, decline in intimacy, infidelity, and financial stress. Couples therapy not only helps you deal with the negative feelings and behaviors resulting from these circumstances but also seeks to uncover and address the root causes of the problems. Its goal is to help you and your partner achieve comprehensive and long-term healing.
Let’s take a look at an example of how couples counseling works. Suppose you and your partner are experiencing parenting conflict. Couples therapy provides a safe and comfortable space where you can openly discuss your parenting styles and concerns. It focuses on helping you understand and respect each other’s perspectives, identify common ground, and devise a unified approach to parenting. This can lead to fewer conflicts, aligned parenting strategies, and a more supportive and healthier family dynamic.
What Does Couples Counseling Help With?
Couples counseling can help you and your partner to do the following:
- Improve communication: Counseling can help you and your partner understand each other better by allowing you to express your feelings, fears, hopes, values, and beliefs.
- Enhance the quality of time spent together: If any problems have been affecting the time you spend with your partner, couples therapy gives you a chance to address them and find ways to spend quality time together.
- Resolve conflicts: If you and your partner have conflicting views on parenting, household responsibilities, or lifestyle choices, undergoing couples therapy is a great way to communicate and resolve these concerns.
- Rebuild trust: Lies, broken promises, and infidelity can damage the trust between you and your partner. Couples counseling can help you get to the root causes of these issues and rebuild trust in your relationship.
- Restore intimacy: If you and your partner are experiencing problems related to intimacy and sex, couples therapy can provide a safe space where you can openly share your feelings and find ways to restore intimacy.
How To Prepare for Couples Counseling
Depending on your needs and goals, you and your partner may have to undergo couples therapy for a long time before you start seeing positive changes in your relationship. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure you’re both willing to commit to the process. Couples counseling works best when both parties prioritize openness and honesty, so it’s important to approach it with the right attitude.
During the initial session, you and your partner will typically have to fill out medical history and insurance forms. Your therapist may also ask you to complete questionnaires to help them understand your relationship, the problems you’re experiencing, and what you hope to achieve through therapy.
After submitting these forms, you and your partner will work with your therapist to set counseling goals. Couples counseling usually involves joint sessions, but your therapist may also conduct individual sessions with you or your partner.
Couples Counseling: What To Expect
During couples counseling sessions, your therapist will help you and your partner gain a more in-depth insight into the factors contributing to your relationship problems. They’ll guide both of you to understand the roles you play in dysfunctional interactions, which can help you change your perception of the relationship and each other. Your therapist doesn’t take sides in disputes, so you can rest assured you’ll get unbiased opinions regarding your relationship.
Another important aspect of couples counseling is changing behaviors. Your therapist will likely assign you and your partner homework so that you can apply the knowledge and skills you gained from therapy to your daily interactions.
Start Your Journey to a Stronger Relationship With NeuroHealth Arlington Heights
If you’re looking for a reputable provider of couples counseling services in the Arlington Heights area, look no further than NeuroHealth AH. For more than 20 years, our family practice has helped many couples in greater Chicago overcome a wide variety of relationship problems through neuropsychological testing and therapy. Our licensed therapists hold master’s or doctorate degrees in the mental health field, and they’ve been trained to take a personalized and compassionate approach to couples counseling. Contact us today to schedule a consultation, or visit our website for more information.
at-home-couples-session by Wilson Lau is licensed with CC BY 2.0