How I Approach Couples Counseling
YOUR FIRST THREE SESSIONS
I utilize primarily a psychoeducational approach to Couples and Relationship Counseling.
What this means is that your first three sessions are typically devoted to my TEACHING you a minimum of four specific models to which all feelings, behaviors, thoughts and actions in your relationship are ANCHORED.
Think of these models as the difference between being able to see where you are going on the highway from the viewpoint of a helicopter versus the viewpoint of a car on the highway. The Models are a MAP of your Couples Highway!
I utilize primarily a psychoeducational approach to Couples and Relationship Counseling.
What this means is that your first three sessions are typically devoted to my TEACHING you a minimum of four specific models to which all feelings, behaviors, thoughts and actions in your relationship are ANCHORED.
Think of these models as the difference between being able to see where you are going on the highway from the viewpoint of a helicopter versus the viewpoint of a car on the highway. The Models are a MAP of your Couples Highway!
|
|
MY ROLE AS YOUR COUNSELOR
As your counselor, I'm your helicopter pilot! My job is to teach you how to see things from the helicopter view versus an individual feelings and thoughts perspective (see things from a different, raised perspective), and this means that you are here to LEARN and NOT ARGUE, or what Dr. Phil labeled as "right fighting."
Neither of us is here to argue or right fight. Be here to learn so you CAN fix things during the week with what you learn. In order to help you learn and reinforce your learning, my website content should cover many of the topics we discuss in your sessions. This is available to you between sessions, so please be sure to sign up, and use this resource. I have provided hours of free learning so that you can jumpstart your results.
Again, I am here to influence you and teach, and put the couple first, remembering I am the counselor to the couple or relationship. This means that you will not always experience the same therapeutic support as you would from an individual counselor. It is really important to understand this. This does not mean that I'm not understanding or empathic to your individual feelings or perspectives. Trust me, relationships follow predictable patterns, and I've seen many different variations of the patterns - but I'm only as good as the information you give me.
My role is to take your feelings and perspectives and REFRAME them into the models I teach you so that you can see the difference in your approach versus the model's approach in terms of happiness and growth in your relationship. If you learn what I teach you, you should not need to come back to couples counseling except for help with concepts you've forgotten and a "tune-up."
As your counselor, I'm your helicopter pilot! My job is to teach you how to see things from the helicopter view versus an individual feelings and thoughts perspective (see things from a different, raised perspective), and this means that you are here to LEARN and NOT ARGUE, or what Dr. Phil labeled as "right fighting."
Neither of us is here to argue or right fight. Be here to learn so you CAN fix things during the week with what you learn. In order to help you learn and reinforce your learning, my website content should cover many of the topics we discuss in your sessions. This is available to you between sessions, so please be sure to sign up, and use this resource. I have provided hours of free learning so that you can jumpstart your results.
Again, I am here to influence you and teach, and put the couple first, remembering I am the counselor to the couple or relationship. This means that you will not always experience the same therapeutic support as you would from an individual counselor. It is really important to understand this. This does not mean that I'm not understanding or empathic to your individual feelings or perspectives. Trust me, relationships follow predictable patterns, and I've seen many different variations of the patterns - but I'm only as good as the information you give me.
My role is to take your feelings and perspectives and REFRAME them into the models I teach you so that you can see the difference in your approach versus the model's approach in terms of happiness and growth in your relationship. If you learn what I teach you, you should not need to come back to couples counseling except for help with concepts you've forgotten and a "tune-up."
The 4 Models
(1) Default Mode vs. Fight-or-Flight Mode (Physiological Relationships)
(2) The Emotional and Energy Bank Account (Emotional Relationships)
(3) The Building Blocks of Relationship (Psychological Safety Model for Feelings, Thoughts, and Behaviors)
(4) Communication Process Triangles (Adapted Model from John Gottman and the Gottman Method.)
Once I teach you these 4 Models to anchor your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, then we will begin the process of listening to your relationship concerns and I will introduce the Gottman Methods and other tools appropriate to your needs.
The 4 Models are designed to show you a specific higher level of organizing your understanding of your relationship. They are intended to change the way both partners feel, think and behave in your relationship. The models are from scientific studies including the work of John Gottman - the premiere researcher in Couples and Relationship Counseling among other notable couples researchers and psychologists.
MY GOAL: My only goal is to help you learn and organize how you think, feel, and behave in your relationship. I can't change you or your partner but I can show you how to change the way you are looking at your relationship and learn to activate win/win strategies to improve your relationships. You have to do the work to fix the relationship - changing thoughts, feelings and behaviors is not easy. Our lives are busy and it is hard to find the time to do the work of changing ourselves. What you put in is what you will get out of this process. We all need the Safety of Unique Growth, it takes time to grow and change our feelings, thoughts and behaviors to create happier relationships.
Please know, I do not "take sides," this is not my role. I do take the information you give me (feelings, thoughts, behaviors) and show you why your approach is not working to get you the results you need and want. This is working for you, and not against you, even though it won't feel great initially. Inevitably, however, consciously or unconsciously many people come to couples counseling for the counselor to "fix" their partner or tell them that something is not "right," or in other words, that their partner is "wrong." When my husband and I went to couples counseling (before I had taken my couple's counseling classes) I can look back now and realize, I wanted the counselor to be in a power position to tell my husband he was wrong about a few things - he felt the same way. I didn't realize that was not her role. I can only empower you to take the models and let them be the power in and to your relationship. Use them! They are powerful!!!
What I've learned in 31-years of marriage and 15+ years of counseling couples is that good marriages intentionally see that the sum is greater than the two parts: (1) we need each other to focus on growing together through building psychological safety. (2) Marriage or Partnership ultimately challenges us to accept each other as we are: but also understanding this includes a healthy approach to what we dislike the most about our partner. Our partner's weaknesses, as well as our own, are there to teach us something important about them as well as something important about ourselves. This is what marriage and partnership is about: strengthening weaknesses without hurting each other and truly recognizing each other's strengths and loving them in their state of weakness as much as we love them because of their many strengths.