Being in an unhappy relationship can hurt your health, well-being, productivity, and other aspects of your life. Relationships are difficult, and couples therapy can provide a safe setting to work through your difficulties and work towards your healing. If you’ve never been to couples therapy before, here are a few notes about what to expect from couples therapy.
What is Couples Therapy?
Couples therapy is a form of psychotherapy that helps couples and individuals improve their lives and relationships. It can be a safe place to talk about your relationship, whether you’re dealing with persistent conflicts, feeling disconnected, or wanting to enhance your communication and connection.
Couples therapy improves relationships by helping couples address and resolve conflict in a constructive manner. Furthermore, couples counseling provides couples with essential tools and skills such as effective communication, empathy, problem-solving, self-management and social skills. Although it is therapy for couples, often times, individual sessions are occasionally needed to focus on specific issues that affect each individual person.
Who Can Benefit from Couples Therapy?
Therapists who work with couples and individuals, use various techniques to:
- Improve communication and intimacy
- Foster a deeper bond and connection
- Address and modify dysfunctional behavior
- Reduce emotional distress and disconnection
- Identify and assess the couple’s strengths and weaknesses
- Resolve past traumas and reduce their impact on the relationship
You can benefit from couples therapy if you struggle with any of the following issues:
Communication breakdown: Couples therapy provides tools and strategies for improving communication, enhancing listening skills, showing empathy and developing healthy communication habits.
Persistent conflicts: Couples therapy can help you understand the root causes of your disagreements. It can also help you learn how to engage in healthy conflict resolution.
Different points of view: Couples therapy can help you to understand different points of view and different perspectives. This is beneficial for couples who want to understand each other better and strengthen the foundation of their relationship.
Infidelity: Couples therapy can provide a secure and non-judgmental setting to address infidelity, restore trust and renew the intimacy in your relationship.
What to Expect from Couples Therapy
When you first begin couples therapy, your first session will be the initial or the intake session. The intake session is crucial for gaining a comprehensive understanding of the couple. It’s also helpful for establishing a rapport (a trusting relationship between a therapist and a client). Establishing a rapport is essential for effective communication and productive interactions.
The first session of marriage counseling is usually very structured. Expect the therapist to ask several questions to learn about each of you individually and the overall context of your relationship.
This approach helps the therapist learn about your history, your childhood experiences, your key relationship issues and your therapeutic goals. This process is intended to evaluate and assess your needs as a couple effectively and lay a firm foundation for your therapeutic journey.
The first therapy session involves discussing many subjects simultaneously, so you may feel overwhelmed and nervous, which is normal. Your therapist will validate your feelings when you feel uncomfortable and normalize this experience. After the first (and future) sessions, your therapist may ask for feedback to ensure that your sessions are beneficial and productive.
Moving forward, here is what to expect in future therapy sessions:
1. Expect to Make a Commitment
If you want to make profound changes in yourself and in your marriage, you should make a commitment to attend every therapy session. Couples therapy may last for a few weeks, a few months or even a few years. Making a commitment to couples therapy helps to build trust and credibility with your partner and your therapist. When you are committed to the process, you invest your time and your energy into each session with the willingness to work through any challenges that may arise.
2. Expect to Deal with Individual Issues
In couples therapy, the primary focus is on the relationship rather than on the individual. However, while typically addressing issues among couples, there are instances where only one person may need to dive deeper into a discussion with the therapist.
An individual therapy session may be a good fit for you if you are dealing with anxiety, depression, past trauma or attachment issues. Attending individual therapy sessions may help you improve your mental health and help you become the best version of yourself.
3. Expect to Dive Deep and Be Vulnerable
Couples therapy is a very intensive and thorough process. Your therapist will not help you solve your problems overnight. Instead, your therapist will assist you with developing long-term strategies to improve your relationship.
In order for these strategies to work, you must dive deep into your thoughts and feelings and openly discuss your past experiences. When you openly discuss your experiences, you must be vulnerable and allow others to see the real you without any defenses, walls or barriers.
4. Expect to Show Empathy and Honesty
Empathy serves as the foundation between you, your partner and the therapist as you all build a therapeutic relationship. This therapeutic relationship is strengthened by listening, understanding and experiencing what each person is sharing.
Therapists are trained to practice these skills regularly. Because of this, they are able to listen to your challenges, experience them emotionally and connect to your struggles so that you feel heard, understood and validated.
In order to benefit from couples therapy, you have to be honest with your partner and your therapist. Be authentic as possible during your sessions. This will ensure that you receive the maximum benefit from your therapy sessions.
5. Expect to Work in Between Sessions
There is a great deal of work that goes into therapy sessions. Your therapist will provide you with advice and guidance during your session, but it’s your responsibility to apply those lessons outside of therapy.
Your therapist may give you homework assignments to practice applying your new skills in real life situations. This will help you become familiar with the new skills in your toolbox to work through issues that you will encounter in your daily life.
What can be Challenging about Couples Therapy?
Couples therapy may not give the best results if:
- One partner chooses not to engage or commit to the process.
- A trusting relationship has not been established with the therapist.
- The couple has unrealistic expectations for treatment.
- There are untreated addictions or mental health issues present.
- There is ongoing emotional and physical abuse within the relationship.
Summary
Couples therapy helps to resolve issues by working through your feelings and concerns with a licensed expert in a safe and non-judgmental environment. Couples therapy also helps to address the root causes of your problems, improve your problem-solving skills and advance your communication skills.
However, to fully benefit from couples therapy, you must be committed to the process and apply these new skills and techniques to your daily life. You must also be transparent and honest about your struggles, your accomplishments, your positive experiences and your negative experiences.
Hopefully, this article helped you to understand what to expect from couples therapy. If you agree with the expectations of couples therapy, it may be time to consider searching for a therapist. If you’re not quite ready to take that step, you can download our Marriage Repair Handbook and visit our resources page.