Relationships become derailed for many reasons. With life events, relationships must evolve and change to adapt to problems or new life circumstances. Over time, couples may experience periods of increased conflict characterized by criticism, blame, resentment, defensiveness, and withdrawal. This can lead couples to question if their relationship can make it or if there is any hope. These are signs that a relationship needs attention and pursuing couple counselling can help bring to light some of the answers to the questions, "how did we get here, and what can we do about it?" While couple counselling may not save all relationships, I have helped many couples make it through to the other side of some very challenging relationship issues to find a renewed connection to their partner.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is highly effective in helping couples work on their interactional cycles and patterns that have affected their connection and works to strengthen their bond. Many couples who come to me identify that they hope to work on their communication. Ultimately, it is about understanding the emotions attached to the communication that is worthy of our attention. "Is my partner listening and trying to understand the issues?", "Do I really matter?" or " Can I express myself and feel heard?" are the questions at the core of many relationship challenges.
Using this approach helps couples to reach out to each other and to develop the potential to become closer and more trusting of each other. My goal is to help couples who want to improve their relationship by turning towards each other rather than away, and to work on finding a new and more meaningful connection, reminiscent of what brought them together in the first place. Dr. Susan Johnson developed EFT for couples, which has over twenty years of empirical evidence. It's success is well documented and the improvements are long lasting.
Relationships last not because they were destined to last.
Relationships last long because two people made a choice to keep it, fight for it and work for it.
- Anonymous
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