What is Marriage and Couples Counseling?
Marriage counseling is when two married people seek help to enhance and strengthen their marriage. Couples counseling is when two people who are in a relationship seek counseling. Most likely it’s going to be with someone who’s really an expert in working with relationships, such as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. They have specific training which focuses on looking at their relationship from a systemic perspective.
When two individuals come together, fall in love, and get married for better or worse, they each have very different backgrounds and are most likely wired differently. Everyone learns about communication differently, how to give and receive love, and how to manage conflict in different ways from their family of origin. When couples come together and get married, it’s an exciting time. However, it can be quite the transition, because it’s a merging of two different people with two different backgrounds.
A marriage therapist is going to be someone who can help you to define areas in your relationship that need to be strengthened and then give you strategies to strengthen the areas that you struggle in. These sessions may focus on a wide range of topics such as communication or even how to handle big transitions such as transitioning from two to three with bringing a little bundle of joy home or maybe it’s a big move or perhaps it’s even family issues that might be going on with extended family or the in-laws. Couples counseling or marriage therapy can also be a great resource for more serious challenges such as betrayals and trust issues. Whether it’s substance abuse or someone has had an affair or there is ongoing infidelity in the relationship.
Regardless of the challenges, marriage and couples counseling can help in a lot of different ways. No relationship is immune from conflict. Conflict is actually healthy for relationships as long as it is managed in a way that is constructive rather than destructive. That’s where marriage therapy can really be a wonderful asset.
There’s no more important step that you can take to really value your relationship than investing in counseling. If you’re interested in learning more about how marriage therapy or couples counseling can help you in your relationship, give us a call today at 954-391-5305.
In addition to Dr. Kate Campbell, LMFT - founder of Bayview Therapy, we have several relationship experts on our team who would be happy to help. Give us a call to connect with your therapist today. We look forward to speaking with you!
