How to get the most from Marriage Counselling
Our counselling services aim to help you reach your goals as a couple and to do so in a way that does not violate your core values or deeply held principles. The major aim of counselling is increasing your knowledge about yourself, your partner and the patterns of interaction between you. Counselling becomes effective as you apply new knowledge to break ineffective patterns and develop better ones.
The key tasks of couples counselling are increasing your clarity about:
- The kind of life you want to build together;
- The kind of partner you aspire to be in order to build the kind of life and relationship you want to create;
- Your individual blocks to becoming the kind of partner you aspire to be; and
- The skills and knowledge necessary to do the above tasks.
Communication is one of the number one presenting problems in couples counselling. Good communication is much more difficult than most people want to believe. Effective negotiation is even harder. A couple’s vision emerges from a process of reflection and inquiry. It requires both people to speak from the heart about what really matters to each.
Effective communication means you need to pay attention to:
- Managing unruly emotions, such as anger that is too intense;
- How you are communicating – whining, blaming, being vague, etc.;
- What you want from your partner during the discussion;
- What the problem symbolises to you;
- The outcome you want from the discussion;
- Your partner’s major concerns;
- How you can help your partner become more responsive to you; and
- The beliefs and attitudes you have about the problem.
Prior, to coming to couples counselling you may like to reflect on some of your own personal communication processes and what could be improved.
