What Can I Expect from Couples Counselling?

You may be at a point in your relationship where you realize that you want couples counselling, but you’re unsure about what to expect from it and how it would work if you chose to pursue it with your partner. 

This blog is for you! I’ll help you to understand what couples counselling is, what you can expect from your time, and also three ways couples counselling can be approached for it to be the most effective. I will also note a few misconceptions that I have heard surrounding couples counselling and what might be helpful to consider instead. 

So, what is couples counselling? What can you generally expect? 

Decision Ownership 

A common misconception is that couples therapy is about keeping couples together. However, this isn’t always true! Your therapist is not necessarily working to keep your relationship intact. This would be a tiring pursuit and a difficult goal that would not serve you well in the long run. Instead, the therapist’s job is to help both of you cultivate ownership of your decision to be or not to be together by bringing you deeper into your emotions and understanding of each other. Ultimately, the decision to grow in intimacy with each other or not is ultimately up to you, not your therapist! If you are questioning whether you want your relationship to last, the hope is that couples counselling will bring you and your partner clarity and confidence in how you choose to move forward. 

To Remove Barriers 

You can expect that your therapist will help you hear each other more clearly. The therapist you choose will work with you to remove barriers that might be hindering your communication and intimacy. They will aim to facilitate a space where each of you can come back into alignment by helping you both discover your blind spots and the ways you may be missing each other.  

For example, your therapist will pay attention to how you interact with one another. He or she will want to know what your patterns of communication are, or in other words, your cycle of interaction. The therapist will encourage you to show up as you would if you were at home. Something I often ask is “If I were a fly on the wall in your home, what would I see and hear?” The idea is to identify where the stuckness is for you and bring awareness to it so that you and your partner can shift toward a different way of interacting.  

Your therapist may point out what he or she sees and express curiosity. Something I might say in session is, “What just happened there? I saw that you pulled your body away when she moved towards you. What is happening inside for you right now?” Sometimes partners find it easier to share their feelings directly with the therapist. If this is the case, the hope would be that this would create an opportunity for the partner to truly hear what is going on for the other, and vice versa, until it feels safe enough to turn toward each other and share eye to eye. Your therapist might also operate as a translator of sorts, to help you both hear and understand each other in a new way. 

Once you feel ready to talk directly to your partner in the therapy room, your therapist will help you find a rhythm of listening and responding in a way that will minimize defensiveness and help each of you feel heard and seen. Often, each partner has a story playing in their heads about what is happening in their relationship and don’t realize that the stories are often very different. Therapy is a beautiful opportunity to learn how to see things from the other person’s perspective and choose to extend curiosity instead of assuming that there is only one right way of seeing something. 

To Build Your Friendship 

Building (or rebuilding) friendship is important in couples counselling. The time that sessions offer to become re-acquainted with your partner again is so vital and important. Your therapist might prompt you to remember the very beginning of your relationship. What attracted you to each other? What helped you choose to say “yes” to entering into a romantic relationship or saying “I do” on your wedding day? Can you remember any inside jokes from your early days? Any favourite memories? Moments you felt on top of the world?  

Your therapist will then bring you to the present. She or he will facilitate conversation that is conducive to helping each of you learn even more about one another. Sometimes it is easy to know more about a past version of your partner than the version they are today. The therapist will help give you language around questions you could ask each other in order to gain deeper insight and understanding of who your partner is, including their value and belief systems, what excites them, their biggest fears, what their hopes are for the future, what makes them feel loved, and more. 

To Learn the Art of Repair 

Something I share with the couples that I work with is that every relationship is bound to go through periods of connection and disconnection. The goal is not for you to stay connected at all times or not to fight because this is actually unrealistic. Being an imperfect human in relationship with another imperfect human means that there will be periods of disconnection and conflict, and this isn’t a negative thing! What is negative is remaining disconnected and at odds without knowing how to reconnect and repair. The goal is that couples counselling will equip you with tools and understanding around how to bring yourselves back together.   

Effectiveness of Couples Counselling 

Lastly, I would love to share four ways that can help maximize the effectiveness of the therapy process:

1.  While it is incredibly important to pursue couples counselling when you are in crisis, it is also incredibly important when you are not in crisis. Therapy will look different depending on what your capacity is. When you are in crisis, the time may be spent problem-solving and learning how to regulate. The process may feel slow and require more time because of the extent of the hurt and alarm. Your therapist may also suggest that you seek individual counselling alongside couples counselling for more support. However, if you come in as a proactive measure when your relationship feels less rocky, it may be easier to absorb information, remain present, and dive deeper, and so the work may feel richer and more sustaining. 

2. I encourage you to come to therapy with the mindset of “I want to learn how to help my partner feel safe enough to tell me their fears, desires, dreams, and needs”. Safety is the foundation that is required for a relationship that is long-lasting. 

3. Come to therapy knowing that your therapist will not be quick to give you advice, but rather see you as the experts of your story, extend curiosity, de-escalate arguing, and facilitate the conversation so that both of you have equal airtime to share your thoughts and emotions in a constructive, helpful, and congruent way. 

4. A big fear I hear from couples is that the therapist will side with one of the partners and show bias. This can happen and it makes sense that this might be a reason prospective couples are hesitant to begin therapy. If this resonates, my encouragement to you is to voice this concern in the first session if you sense that this is happening or simply voice that it is something you are concerned about. Another option is to continue the search for a therapist if you didn’t feel the therapist was able to stay neutral. It is so important that both partners like the therapist and feel settled with him or her.

If what I shared resonates with you, or if you are curious about whether couples counselling could be healing for you and your partner, please reach out! It would be my joy to connect with you. As I am pre-licensed and under supervision, I am offering in person or online sessions at a low cost in both Surrey and Langley. If you are unsure, I welcome you to book a free 15-minute phone consultation with me and we can figure out if I am a good fit for your needs.