Healthy and fulfilling relationships are the basis for a happy life. Most of us consider our relationships with our partners, children, families, and colleagues as integral to our sense of fulfilment and satisfaction in life. While relationships can foster feelings of satisfaction and happiness, they can also result in anger, frustration, hurt and disappointment. Relationships can be the source of pain as well as happiness. Problems can occur at any stage in a relationship and may result from poor communication, difficulties with sexual intimacy, financial pressures or conflict over household tasks and responsibilities, or through major life transitions, including career changes, becoming a parent, conflict within extended family, or the loss of a loved one. When stress, frustration, anger, or other forms of conflict have affected your relationships, couples and family therapy can be useful for resolving differences and producing new, healthier ways of relating.
By nature, humans are social beings with a need to maintain connections with one another. Our most important relationships are the ones we share with our partners and family.
Attending therapy as a couple or family, you will be guided to explore beliefs, values, and expectations that may underlie your relationship difficulties. Sessions are focused on improving communication, reducing conflict, and enhancing connections between family members or partners. This is achieved by helping participants to understand each other’s experiences and points of view, appreciate each other’s needs, build on strengths, and make meaningful changes in their relationships. Family and couples therapy is not about changing an individual. It is about working on the relationship between all individuals and the influence of these interactions on behaviour. Change can happen from the new understanding generated during therapy and by experimenting with different ways of relating with one another at home.
Family and couples therapy can be helpful for addressing:
- Family stress or conflict
- Parenting concerns
- Conflicted parent-child relationships
- Couples conflict
- Communication problems