Couples Counselling
Cultivate joy and resilience in your relationship
Loving connection is the only safety nature ever offers us.
Sue Johnson
Feeling understood, supported, and accepted by a loved one is how nature makes us resilient to stress and tragedy.
Love and care can make us physically healthier. Yet, when we feel invalidated, let down, or unsupported, the opposite is true.
Our brains light up in pain, and our bodies sense danger. Suddenly, a safe connection is flipped on its head, actually becoming a source of stress.
Does this sound familiar?
When your partner doesn’t seem to listen, tries too hard to ‘solve the problem,’ shuts down or disappears into work, they may have a concealed message: I feel totally overwhelmed like I can’t do anything right in your eyes. I feel you can’t love me as I am. Being criticized by you is so scary that it’s easier just to disappear.
If you feel nagged by a partner who won’t get off your back, there may be a softer message that is harder to hear: I feel so scared and alone right now. I want to tell you how much I need you here with me, but I feel like you’ve abandoned me because I am ‘too much.’ Then it all comes out as anger and I push you even further away.
Learn to interpret the messages hidden in your disagreements
The secret to restoring a safe connection is learning to recognize and interpret the messages hidden underneath your disagreements.
Through Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, our counsellors will help both of you:
- Recognize the positive intentions underneath all the arguments, defensiveness, and protest
- Overcome negative cycles and patterns of behaviour
- Learn to tackle problems together as a team
- Understand how to nourish each other and foster resilience in your relationship
- Feel present and safe with each other
- Rediscover the joy of being together
At Thrive, you will find a safe and non-biased space where you will quickly see this isn’t about being right. It’s about feeling heard and understood… about learning that it isn’t you versus each other. It’s both of you versus destructive styles of problem-solving.
Learn to break the cycle. A world of care and kindness awaits.
Fear and anger are just the shadows of love — learn to face and integrate them together
Looking for a different
type of therapy?
Individual Counselling
Take charge of your emotional well-being by seeking out individual counselling today!
Low-Cost Counselling
Take the first step towards emotional well-being by exploring low-cost counselling options with us today!
Psychedelic Integration
Learn more about psychedelics and how to integrate your trips.
Couples Counselling Rates
COUNSELLOR
$200 + GST
INTERN
$80 + GST
Couples Counselling FAQs
What is couples counselling?
Couples counselling, also known as couples therapy, is a type of psychotherapy that helps couples explore, identify, and resolve conflicts to improve their relationships and interactions. Through couples counselling, couples can make thoughtful decisions about rebuilding their relationship (or in some cases ending the relationship through a process known as conscious decoupling). Couples counselling is conducted by a licensed couple therapist with specific training in family systems and couple dynamics. During the sessions, the therapist will help both partners to communicate better, negotiate differences, and solve underlying issues.
Who needs couple counselling?
Who needs couples counselling sounds like the intro to a joke from the 1970s. A better answer is that anyone who is in any type of relationship and is finding that it is draining them more than energizing them can benefit. This may be a romantic couple, a friendship, a family relationship such as siblings or parents and children, groups of people and those in non-monogamous arrangements. It goes without saying that folks of all cultural and identity backgrounds can benefit. Anybody in some type of relationship feeling stuck who wishes to see through blindspots and find vitality instead of struggle.
What are the benefits of couples counselling?
Just think of the opposite of whatever is making you scroll through a couple’s counselling webpage. People who ‘do the work’ as they say learn how to get out of negative, destructive cycles of cursed problem solving. They learn how to team up against issues instead of each other. Partners engaged in couples counselling learn communication skills, for sure, but more valuable is discovering how to help each other back from their pain when they are both so triggered and jacked that communication skills aren’t even helpful anymore. It’s about finding out how to calm each other instead of agitate each other.
What can I do if my partner does not want to go for couples counselling?
This is tricky. If someone’s emotions or nervous system are flashing a red light there isn’t much we can do to talk them out of a feeling. Even if you physically brought them in, they may be locked up tight and unable to benefit from the work in their ‘freeze response.’ My best suggestion is to approach the topic softly and with curiousity like I respect if you don’t want to go. No one can force you. I know that we both value our relationship though and I’m feeling a bit stuck. Can you share a little bit about what makes you hesitant to go? I’d love to understand. This alone may lead to some deeper chats that may help you to connect in ways you haven’t in a while, whether you end up trying couples therapy or not.
Can couples counselling work?
Yes! With commitment to attend sessions and to release the grip of needing to be ‘right,’ couples regularly improve their connections.