Couples can get stuck doing things that aren’t healthy and therapy can help you get unstuck, and learn how to create a supportive and loving relationship where everyone is getting their needs met.
Research shows that working with an experienced therapist greatly affects the outcome of couples counseling. I recommend that couples only work with
therapists who have been in practice for more than 15 years. Couples and marriage counseling is a specific area of training and expertise.
There is a Marriage and Family Therapy License and this ensures that the therapist is specifically licensed for couples counseling.
When I work with couples, people often ask if it is required that they do individual counseling as well. I leave this up to the couple to decide. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Different therapists approach this differently.
I work with couples to sort out the goals of couple therapy and together we will figure out if individual work would be helpful to support the goals. If at some point, it seems helpful to work on something individually, we’ll discuss this and decide timing and how to make it flow with the goals of the couple therapy.
I will work with people individually and as couples, because that is how I work – I am comfortable working with all the different parts and configurations in therapy. If a person prefers to be referred for a segment of therapy, that can work just as well.