Couples Counseling
Attending Couples Counseling and Therapy in Philadephia
When two people join together as part of an intimate relationship (marriage, dating, life partnership, couples, et cetera), various issues and struggles may arise as they strive to attain and maintain satisfaction in their relationship.
At Equilibria Psychological and Consultation Services, we offer couples therapy and marriage counseling to help couples navigate the challenges that often arise in a relationship. The relationship counseling experience is aimed at increasing empathetic understanding, improving effective communication, and providing an opportunity for mutual growth in your relationship.
Is there a difference between marriage, couples, and relationship counseling or therapy?
The short answer is: no. These terms are often used interchangeably, which is the case at Equilibria. When two people join together as part of an intimate relationship, whether that is dating, life partnership, or marriage, various issues and struggles may arise as they strive to attain and maintain satisfaction in their relationship.
Why Participate in Relationship Counseling and Therapy?
There are many reasons why a couple would seek couples therapy to improve their relationship. Attending therapy may help to keep the lines of communication open and other times, couples attend therapy due to a significant change in their relationship.
The following are common scenarios that bring people into Equilibria’s Philadelphia offices for couples therapy:
- We just don’t communicate well anymore
- It feels like we are just occupying the same space
- We are just going through the motions
- The occurrence, possibility, or consideration of an affair
- A declining sex life (or our sex life has changed)
- No longer able to resolve our differences
- A building of resentment that one or both of us cannot move past
- Separating appears to be the only solution
- We don’t see eye to eye (on one or many issues like finances, social engagements, work, raising children, etc.)
- We stay together for the kids
- A desire to strengthen the relationship
- We need to work through something that has happened
- I don’t feel like I know this person anymore
- Everything my partner does seems to annoy me
The Relationship Counseling and Therapy Process
For the first several sessions of couples therapy, Equilibria’s relationship counselors will assess your relationship. Our counselors are trying to figure out the patterns that exist.
Some of the patterns within the relationship that will be assessed include:
- What is the glue keeping you both in the relationship?
- Your relationship’s stresses and conflicts
- Your relationships’s strengths and weaknesses
- Your relationship’s communication patterns
- Each person’s expectations for both the relationship and their individual lives
- Your relationship’s history
In addition to looking at the patterns of the relationship, Equilibria’s couples therapist will also assess each of you individually to understand the history and expectations each brings into the relationship.
The couple and the therapist will then set realistic goals for the course of your couples therapy that will be revisited frequently over time. Occasionally, one person in the relationship chooses not to continue with the counseling. This does not mean the couples therapy has to end. Many times just one partner seeking counseling can experience significant changes that influence the course of the overall relationship. However, with couples therapy, it is ideal if both partners are committed to working on the issues together.
Why Couples Counseling and Therapy?
Couples therapy is aimed at increasing empathetic understanding, improving effective communication, and providing an opportunity for mutual growth. This type of growth can impact the couple incredibly as a whole and also each partner, individually.
Schedule A Couples Counseling or Therapy Session
At Equilibria, our relationship counselors utilize an integrative, strength-based treatment model to address each person’s set of unique issues. We pull from cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, systems-focused, and insight-oriented approaches to design effective assessment, consultation and treatment strategies. It is our firm belief that treatment must be flexible and tailored in order to achieve symptom relief and increased self and couple understanding.
If you would like to meet or talk with one of our relationship counselors in the Philadelphia area about couples therapy, call us at (267) 861-3685, option 1; or, fill out our contact form.
