How marriage counseling works
How marriage counseling works – ETHOS HEALTH CARE.
Marriage counseling typically brings couples or partners together for joint therapy sessions. The counselor or therapist helps couples pinpoint and understand the sources of their conflicts and try to resolve them. You and your partner will analyze both the good and bad parts of your relationship.
Marriage or marital counseling is also called couples therapy. It is a kind of psychotherapy. Marriage counseling is often provided by licensed therapists known as marriage and family therapists. It helps couples of all types recognize and resolve conflicts and improve their relationships. Through marriage counseling, you can make thoughtful decisions about rebuilding your relationship or going your separate ways.
Talking about your problems with a marriage counselor might not be easy. Sessions might pass in silence as you and your partner seethe over perceived wrongs or you might bring your fights with you, perhaps even yelling or arguing during sessions. Both are OK. Your therapist can act as mediator or referee and help you cope with the resulting emotions and turmoil.
If you or your partner is coping with mental illness, substance abuse or other issues, your therapist might work with other health care providers to provide a complete spectrum of treatment.
The main purpose of marriage counseling is to put you and your significant other in a room with a neutral mediator to help you make sense of what’s going on. If you’re having trouble communicating with each other, then the counselor is going to help guide you through talking about it.
As couples move through the steps of the counseling process which involves talking, listening and uncovering communication patterns, this eventually reveals the underlying emotions. These underlying emotions have been covered up by the defensiveness of hurt feelings, disconnection, loneliness, frustration, hurt, misunderstanding and being unheard and ignored.
Marriage counseling gives couples the opportunity to hear their loved one in a brand new way. Once a person feels less defensive because they are being heard, they can then open themselves up to identify and understand their own contributions to the problems in the marriage. They discover things about themselves, and their partner that they never knew previously.
Depending on the situation, your counselor might also talk to you both individually for portions of the appointment, or in separate appointments altogether. Marriage counseling is well worth the feelings of connection and romance that can come back.
