Couples Counselling

We all know that relationships can be complicated at the best of times. With the added complexities of children, work pressure, extended families, and social networks, it’s no wonder that we can have trouble connecting with our partners. Life gets busy, there are demands on your time, unforeseen events can pop up and throw us into a tailspin at times. Everyone seems to have an opinion on how you ‘should’ navigate your relationship, or what a marriage ‘should’ look like but, guess what – there are only two of you who really know what it is like to live and love in your relationship.

Pressures of everyday life can overwhelm us and harsh words are spoken, blame is thrown around and we lose the compassion and empathy that we once had for each other. There are suddenly subjects that we instinctively avoid, so as not to trigger or cause a fight. This list has become so extensive that you feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells. Everything that you say to each other sounds like an attack, so it’s easier to keep communication to a minimum. Only now you’ve grown apart, perhaps you no longer argue as frequently, but maybe that's a result of not knowing what is happening in each other’s lives. It’s almost like living with a flat-mate and not a partner. You go through the motions of everyday life mechanically, with no idea of how to get back to where you once were – happy, contented, connected, loved.

The foundations for our connections are rooted in early attachment. Often, the blueprint for our concept of a healthy relationship is contingent on childhood experience of what marriage and partnership looks like. Couple this with our own childhood experience of attachment to parents and carers, and we can begin to get a sense of the ingrained patterns that govern our current relationships. We then connect with someone who brings their own experience of attachment into a romantic partnership, and suddenly we realise that the lens with which we see any given situation, might be very different from our spouse.

The Good News? You’re here! Willing to take steps to make positive and lasting changes -You’re already halfway there.

THE GOTTMAN METHOD

The Gottman Method is a research based approach to couples therapy adapted from many years of evaluating and monitoring couples to better understand what creates a successful relationship. It draws from other therapeutic frameworks such as Attachment Theory, to facilitate an enhanced level of communication and foster empathy and connectedness. It is a structured framework and can be appealing for those who like the integration of an evidence-based approach in their therapy.

This is one of the many methods we use in couples counselling at Beaches Women's Therapy. Please contact us for further information.

0435 021 204

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