How we work with couples
At Mind and Body Works, you can arrange couples therapy and counselling in one of our three Dublin centres, our centres in Galway or online.
Your relationship may be at a stage where you or your partner are finding it difficult to see a way forward together that feels satisfying or fulfilling.
Your relationship may no longer provide what one or both of you are looking for, and you may now be wondering whether it is possible to make changes in your marriage or relationship to improve your life together.
Marriage counselling is for all couples, whether you are actually married or simply in a long-term relationship.
It provides a space where you and your partner can explore the difficulties and issues that have arisen in your relationship and see if you can work through them to bring about change and a happier, more contented relationship.
When a relationship is in difficulty
Communication in your relationship may have become difficult or negative, often due to the demands of a busy life and the pressures of work and children.
In other cases, the behaviour of you or your partner may seem unreasonable to the other, such as not being very interested in each other’s lives, feeling neglected, or excessive drinking, gambling or affairs.
You may be experiencing a lot of rows, conflict, resentment, boredom, feeling misunderstood, or it may feel like there is a lot of distance and withdrawal between you and your partner, as if you are living separate lives.
Sexual difficulties may have arisen in the relationship, and you may have infrequent or no sexual relationship together. Your relationship may be at a stage where one or both of you find it difficult to communicate easily with each other, leading you to either argue quickly or simply not say what you need to say to each other.
If your marriage or relationship is no longer providing what you are looking for, now is the time to consider therapy for your marriage or relationship.
How counselling can help
The additional help and support of an experienced counsellor can be beneficial in helping you and your partner clarify the issues and difficulties and see whether they can be improved together.
Counselling can help provide a better understanding of each other’s family backgrounds and personal histories. This can be a very important part of the therapy process, helping you understand the dynamic and problematic issues and behaviours that may now exist in the relationship you have created together.
It is important to know what each of you brings to the relationship from your own family history. Some of this may indeed be very healthy and beneficial to your relationship, but some of it may get in the way of you forming a happier relationship with your partner.
Family history can lead to tension and stress as you struggle with the differences between you. In a long-term relationship or marriage, the couple often moves towards a model of fusion, where differences are smoothed over.
This is often seen as a healthy development, whereas in fact one or both of you may feel that you have had to compromise hugely and are not really able to be yourself and express your differences in the relationship in a way that is heard and respected by your partner.
Couples counselling allows you to be two individuals who are in a relationship together, and yet can be separate in your differences.
What to expect in sessions
Your couples therapist will generally work with you as a couple together in sessions. The therapist may also do some separate individual sessions with one or both of you.
This will be worked out between you and your therapist so that the process is clear and transparent.
Your therapist will explain how they will work with you, how many sessions you will contract for initially, and establish what both you and your partner wish to get from the process. In circumstances where either you or your partner does not wish to remain in couple therapy, the other may be encouraged to remain in individual therapy.
Who comes to us
The Couple Counsellors at Mind and Body Works have experience of working with many different issues which present for couples and their relationship.
Couples in therapy are not necessarily married, and in many cases they are not. Many couples are simply in a longer-term relationship, or may be considering marriage but experiencing difficulties in their relationship.
We also work with couples who are separating or have already separated.
Our counsellors also have experience of working with different types of relationships including gay and lesbian couples, couples with and without children, couples of other nationalities, inter-racial couples, and polyamorous relationships.
The additional help and support of an experienced counsellor can be very beneficial in helping the couple clarify the issues they are facing and see whether these can lead to a happier and more fulfilling relationship.