Marital Counseling, Couple Therapy Plus!
Marriage counseling is one way couples can make sense of what is happening to them so they
can make positive choices to improve their relationship.
Marriage therapy is an informed opinion about what couples can do differently based on sound principles and researched knowledge of how relationships work.
Marital therapy provides direction, creates clarity, holds couples accountable, provides a safe space for couples to talk about their hurts, sadness, frustrations, hopes, and the good things about their relationship.
Good people can sometimes fall into bad patterns. It happens over time.
Effective marital counseling and couples therapy:
- teaches partners how to avoid polarized, win-lose conversations.
- shows couples how to minimize defensiveness when in conflict.
- provides space for couples to test out new ways of communicating.
- actively reconnects the couple with strengths obscured by a problem-focus.
- offers direct feedback relevant to the couple’s situation.
- can almost immediately reduce stress and couple anxiety.
Marriage help takes people out of the box of their own thinking. Couple help gets people off the treadmill of doing the same things over and over again.
Marriage and Couples Counseling:
- recognizes one person is rarely the problem: it is a dance we do together.
- focuses on what YOU want and need instead of blaming the other person.
- orients itself around larger issues instead of burying itself in detail complexity.
- believes reason and emotion both need to be heard and expressed.
- accepts that affairs can happen and that couples can overcome them.
Relationship help is one way couples can take the next step to being pro-active.
Relationship help is about moving out of discouragement towards action.
What are Couple Therapy sessions like?
- 80 minute sessions to identify issues, teach and provide assignments.
- Allotted time for you and your partner to have meaningful conversation.
- Specific instructions on how to listen and problem-solve.
- Interactive, professional feedback that is relevant and informed.
- Principles are introduced that provide guidance and new direction.
- Humor is present as a antidote to the deadly seriousness couples often feel.
- There is a process for helping couples through infidelity and unfaithfulness.
- Stories, metaphors, paradoxical statements are used to shift awareness.
- High energy, a positive outlook, enthusiasm, a sense of hopefulness are present.
- Christian relevancy is offered only at the couple’s request.
Marriage help is not only "Tell-her-how-you-feel" or "What-I-hear-you-saying" psychology but a focused, lively process that provides new information and changes the way people talk with each other.
About 50% of clients I work with at any given time are married or couples seeking help.
Consider the following questions:
- Are you suspended in patterns you repeat over and over again that aren't getting you anywhere?
- Are you at a point where you have either stopped trying or have lowered the bar so far just to maintain your relationship?
- Is what you are doing working? Will more time make it better?
For more information on how marriage counseling and couples therapy can re-energize your relationship and rekindle your friendship for each other, call or e-mail John A. Bragstad Counseling at no obligation to you.
Note: a common misconception is that BOTH partners need to be in couple counseling or marital therapy for change to occur. While it is desirable, one person motivated to change can have a real impact on their relationship. Marriage help can be about individuals or couples.
