Couples therapy revolves around helping partners face painful and complex adversities that can occur during their life together.
A couple’s life goes through different phases, from falling in love to idealization and then realism. This implies that different issues may present themselves, depending on the life-cycle phase the partners are living (young couples without children, parenthood, children grown and leaving, old age).
Love, like everything else, evolves and changes in time and we often don’t realize how much has changed and how far apart we have grown until it’s painfully clear.
An important goal is achieving a happy and satisfying couple life, with a mutual and productive way of managing issues and conflicts, and with special care towards the relationship with children.
When is couple therapy useful?
I recommend couples therapy every time:
- Partners are aware of their communicative and relational difficulties and are willing to overcome them.
- One or both partners are experiencing an undeniable discomfort caused by the situation they are living in.
- The usual means of conflict management are wearing and destructive.
- There is a high probability that children become involved in parents’ difficulties are affecting the children’s psychophysical well-being.
- Partners are experiencing sexual difficulties.
- In case of a legal separation, the ex partners feel the need to be helped in managing the grief of losing their couple bond and/or in preserving a healthy relationship with each other and the children.
Why is couples therapy important?
Choosing couples therapy can help partners change and greatly improve their relationship. The therapist’s intervention is especially directed at promoting mutual listening, in order to get to know the partner’s “language” better, with the common goal of communicating in a clearer and more effective way.
Recognizing our own expectations and needs is crucial, so we don’t set our minds on unachievable goals but, on the contrary, we encourage the expression of each other’s needs in the most sincere and direct way possible.
How does a couples session work?
Every session is one hour long and meets every two weeks, however regularity may vary depending on specific therapeutic needs.
Both partners must be present at every session.
At the end of every session, clients receive a tax deductible invoice, just as with any other health service.