Does Couples Therapy Work?

 

If you have ever wondered, ‘Does Couples Therapy Work?’, this article will answer this question and others about couples therapy. In most cases, couples therapy links partners with a therapist who can assist them in cooperatively resolving issues and difficulties while enhancing communication. Couples counseling may be done in person or online; you don’t have to be married to benefit from it. 

Results are frequently improved when both parties are ready to work hard to change for the better. The ability to set limits with friends, find a mental health professional with whom you feel at ease, be honest with oneself, and seek couples counseling or marital counseling before issues get out of hand are some additional elements to success. 

 

What Is Couples Therapy? 

Couples therapy often assists couples in addressing issues like excessive argumentation, growing apart, or coping with work-related stress that affects their relationship. While therapeutic strategies might be helpful, these difficulties and many more can be daunting. Couples counseling typically provides you and your spouse with the skills necessary to communicate effectively and handle the unique issues in your relationship.

You don’t necessarily need to have relationship issues to seek couples counseling. Acting now rather than when your marriage is falling apart may improve your outcome. If couples want to get closer, this treatment may help.

 

Benefits of Couples Therapy

Effective couples counseling may help you improve skills that support healthy relationships and help you and your spouse understand your relationship better. Communication, conflict resolution, listening, and relationship harmony and positivity are examples.

Couples who struggle to resolve conflicts and maintain their relationship benefit from couples therapy. Does couples therapy work? It depends on whether individuals are willing to learn to forgive, heal, and reconnect via sessions. 

Due to their inability to repair their hurt, many couples are stuck. For instance, one spouse might have been unfaithful while the other may still be inconsolable over the betrayal. Their partner must recover from adultery before forgiving the cheater. 

Effective communication is essential for every relationship to be successful and joyful. In a relationship, it’s necessary for both partners to feel heard and understood. Believing that your partner is not paying attention to you is upsetting. It’s easy to feel disregarded by a loved one, whether they stonewall you or don’t offer any indications that they comprehend your ideas and feelings. Couples can sharpen their communication and listening skills through marital counseling so that both spouses feel heard and understood. 

 

How Couples Therapy Works

Couples counseling does not involve blaming someone or pointing fingers, if there is one thing it does not involve. Instead, marital counseling gives couples the skills to speak honestly to one another and request what each partner requires for their relationship to be successful. 

Couples counseling encourages partners to talk about their current issues and consider any potential answers they may have to mend their marriage and halt the fighting. The counselor will steer the dialogue to concentrate on assisting the partners in effectively communicating any conflict or potential relationship cracks. The therapist won’t pick sides or incite conflict between the partners. Instead, they will assist the spouses in understanding one another and exploring and resolving their issues. 

A couples counselor will also assign tasks to clients outside of their therapy sessions, such as practicing empathetic behavior, effective communication, or constructive conflict resolution. Couples must work on their relationship outside of counseling sessions in order to modify ingrained negative behaviors that contributed to the initial decline of their relationship. 

 

Preparing for Couples Therapy

Avoiding the idea of couples therapy as “divorce counseling” or as a punishment your spouse must experience to demonstrate their love for you may be helpful. You should remember that you are the only one you can manage. Although you may not be able to pick your partner’s path or control their behavior, you may influence others, especially those with whom you have a strong relationship. Even in marriage counseling, concentrating on your ideas, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors may be the key to success. This might be a straightforward yet effective tactic to enhance the therapeutic process for troubled marriages.

People have a tendency to resist change. No matter how bad our reality is, we are usually more comfortable in the familiar. Truly, this might be one of the biggest obstacles when undergoing individual or couple treatment.

As was already established, for couples therapy to be successful, both spouses’ motivation is often needed. Therapy may require more receptivity from some partners. One spouse may agree to couples counseling to say they tried to save the relationship. Although these partners may not know what is expected if couples therapy works, significant change requires genuine dedication, intentionality, and action.

 

How to Make the Most of Your Couple’s Therapy

Before starting your first therapy session, consider your goals and the direction you’d like your relationship to take. It may be helpful to be willing to own your shortcomings and your part in the present situation and to be ready to put in the necessary personal effort to make your therapeutic efforts effective.

Having the support of your friends while establishing clear boundaries may help you deal with the issues brought up during your therapy sessions. However, your progress can be hampered if your friends consistently advise you to break up with your spouse rather than recognize your right to make your own choices.

Collaboration between you, your partner, and your therapist is typically necessary for therapy. Finding a therapist with whom you feel at ease is frequently beneficial. Also, be prepared to switch to another therapist if your present one is ineffective. 

 

In Final Words

It’s crucial to pick a therapist whose method you believe will work for your circumstances. You could opt to participate in emotion-focused treatment even though your family would benefit from solution-focused therapy. With this method, your therapist reorganizes interactions, reduces relationship discomfort, and enhances relationship function. Then, emotionally oriented treatment can strengthen the attachment relationship. 

 

 

About Life Coaching and Therapy

Life Coaching and Therapy (LCAT) is a therapy and coaching practice that transforms our clients lives through our flexible. Multi-technique approach and pleasure-skills training provided by systematically-trained and licensed therapists!

Get to know our founder and owner, Amanda Pasciucco, (a.k.a. The Sex Healer) PhD, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST) that has developed innovative therapy programs and therapy videos that get results.

Our team of compassionate, licensed therapists and certified sex therapists help all clients who visit us for a variety of personal, relationship, intimacy and sex problems.

LCAT provides on-site appointments, as well as video chat and text therapy programs.

Learn more about how LCAT can help improve your life at What We Do.