Rosetta Mental Health’s clinicians approach couples counseling with three primary therapies: the Gottman Method, emotionally-focused therapy (EFT), and psychodynamic psychotherapy. In couples therapy / marital counseling, one can expect the following:
“The meaning of what someone’s wife says to him today is dependent on everything both have ever said to each other, everything they have ever done together, and the contents of their mutual imaginations–and that does not exhaust the complexity. Such meaning may even be importantly dependent on how, for example, the wife’s mother treated her father (or her grandmother treated her grandfather), as well as the relationship between men and women in the broader culture. That is why domestic arguments so often spiral out of control, particularly when a pattern of continual and effective communication has never been established. One thing leads to a deeper thing, and that leads deeper yet, until an argument that started over what size plates are best used at lunchtime turns into a no-holds-barred war about whether the marriage in question would be better dissolved. And there is certainly fear of falling down a hole of that size (again, particularly when much has remained unspoken) that motivates the proclivity to keep things to yourself when they would better, but dangerously, said.”
-Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life (2021)
The therapists at Rosetta Mental Health will assist you in (finally) saying what needs to be said, so that solutions may be found, while simultaneously teaching you and your partner effective communication tools to set you up for success in your relationship moving forward.
Please contact us to schedule an appointment.
Absolutely not. When your car is acting funny, you bring it to a mechanic. When your relationship is sub-par, you go to an expert in relationships to explore what is going wrong and to find solutions.
If you feel like one or more dysfunctional patterns in your relationship are stubbornly entrenched, or if, despite all your best efforts and intentions, your relationship produces more misery than joy, it is likely time to hire a relationship expert. That being said, however, the wheels of a relationship don’t need to be completely falling off before you seek couples counseling. Even if your relationship is relatively stable and fulfilling, couples counseling can be helpful for strengthening communication skills, navigating a difficult situation or looming decision, better managing in-laws, or improving your co-parenting skills, just to name a few examples.
A study from 2019 found that EFT (emotionally-focused therapy), a method commonly used in couples therapy, was 70% to 75% effective at reducing marital dissatisfaction. And according to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, almost 90% of clients reported improved emotional health after participating in couples therapy. While there are certainly no guarantees that couples counseling will be successful or save a relationship, there is at least a glimmer of hope when faced with pervasive negative experiences in a romantic partnership.
While talking to friends and family can feel good as far as moral support, this can sometimes do more harm than good. It is rare for a friend or family member, especially one that you would trust enough to share deeply personal and sometimes embarrassing details of your relationship, to be emotionally detached enough to give you solid, objective advice. Our friends and family mean well, but they can usually be pretty quick to take our sides and start to see our partner as the “bad guy,” not giving us the truly objective feedback we would get from a trained therapist who, in addition to having experience with dozens if not hundreds of couples and who has studied the dynamics of human relationships in great depth, would be able to judge our situation with minimal to no bias of who is “right” or “wrong.” Most therapists have the training to look at a relationship as an integrated system with multiple moving parts, rather than as John against Jane, much like a mechanic would simply study the symptoms of a poorly functioning automobile and proceed accordingly.
That way of thinking is usually a recipe for simply transferring bad patterns in one relationship to the next. Without any true introspective work around what you might be contributing to a problem, you will likely continue to experience similar problems in subsequent relationships.
