Couples Counseling: Communication, Conflict, Codependency
Trust, respect, and affection are the central components of successful relationships.
Marriage, or for that matter any committed partnership, is really a network of many different relationships: romantic, economic, sexual, social, familial, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. Couples are also friends, roommates, activity partners, and frequently co-parents. Life transitions, economic stress, children, and other pressures can expose the fault lines that exist within relationships, and couples find themselves endlessly fighting the same battles on the same battlegrounds. In fact, no one really wins an argument, not in the long term. Losing fuels resentment; winning breeds contempt.
Among the innumerable benefits of a healthy intimate relationship is its capacity to heal old wounds. That's one of the major reasons we seek the partners that we do, consciously or not. But too often, partners fail to live up to our expectations, and can even reinforce early damage. And so when a relationship fails, so does the hope for healing.
The good news is that when we uncover the feelings and the meanings underneath the argument, couples can transcend the win-lose dynamic and return to a place of empathy, caring, and support. Naturally, the best time to seek help is before matters start to get out of hand, before more damage is done to the relationship - but even couples who feel themselves on the brink can very often benefit from counseling. In couples therapy, we'll collaborate to resolve seemingly intractable problems by learning to recognize true, unspoken feelings, and finding safety and support in expressing them. From there, we develop strategies that will lead to communicating in ways that might not have seemed possible. And with the understanding that comes from these processes, real, lasting change and healing can occur.
Among the innumerable benefits of a healthy intimate relationship is its capacity to heal old wounds. That's one of the major reasons we seek the partners that we do, consciously or not. But too often, partners fail to live up to our expectations, and can even reinforce early damage. And so when a relationship fails, so does the hope for healing.
The good news is that when we uncover the feelings and the meanings underneath the argument, couples can transcend the win-lose dynamic and return to a place of empathy, caring, and support. Naturally, the best time to seek help is before matters start to get out of hand, before more damage is done to the relationship - but even couples who feel themselves on the brink can very often benefit from counseling. In couples therapy, we'll collaborate to resolve seemingly intractable problems by learning to recognize true, unspoken feelings, and finding safety and support in expressing them. From there, we develop strategies that will lead to communicating in ways that might not have seemed possible. And with the understanding that comes from these processes, real, lasting change and healing can occur.
