Couple’s Counselling is a means to rescue, repair or to enhance our relationships, help us make sense of our struggles and re-connect again, so we can get what we want and need from each other, and provide a safe and secure ‘playground’ for our children. According to Esther Perel, it can be one of the most useless forms of therapy, but given the challenges of coupledom, good therapy is a powerful, worthwhile and often necessary challenge. A useful position to take is to see conflict as “growth trying to happen”; or another way to view it is that the shit in relationships is actually there ‘auditioning to be compost’, so the true benefits of coupledom can grow. Relationships are an amazing crucible for us to resolve old conflicts and rediscover our wholeness, where both people in the relationship can learn how to truly be there, appreciate each other as their ideal partner in growth, and become all they are capable of being.
Some goals of Counselling
Whatever model you work with, the essential ingredients for creating safety and bringing intimacy back into the relationship, are likely to include the following.
Being present to yourself and your partner
This eventually leads to a transformation of consciousness in which one becomes aware of one’s own “here and now” experience in body, mind and emotions, and seeing your own contribution to your difficulties and relational tangles. At the same time, you will be able to stay present with the wonders of the “other” as just different and not you. This promotes progress toward the important developmental leap known as differentiation.
Learning the true ‘art of listening’ and the true ‘art of speaking’
That is, turning the conversation from an exchange of parallel monologues into a dialogue of deep listening. Dialogue creates equality, safety, and connection. Safety is the critical ingredient and involves slowing everything down and calming the “old brain” that gets in the way of us understanding and being understood.
Eliminating negativity
Negativity in its many forms – criticism, judgement, sloppy communication, avoidance, reactivity, contempt and stonewalling – destroy intimacy, stimulates anxiety, signals danger, activates defensiveness, and creates pain and distance. Becoming more conscious in our relationships, being more curious and empathic, growing in awareness, mindfulness and heartfulness builds safety and deepens connection.
Infusing the relationship with positive feelings
While the main purpose of relationships may be for all of us to evolve (my take on it), many of us just want to be able to feel good again, and becoming more conscious means doing less of the things that harm and more of those things that help (isn’t that a definition of wisdom?). These include appreciations, acceptance, and seeing the positive in the other. Deliberate positive verbal expressions (appreciations) are among the building blocks of authentic love, so we can feel valued and the good in us is seen, opening the door again to what most of us want in a relationship – safety, security and genuine care.
One of the primary tools we use is the Intentional Dialogue:
There are three core ingredients in the Intentional (or Imago) Dialogue – mirroring, validation, and empathy. Mirroring refers to genuinely hearing and accurately sending back the message being given. Validation means understanding the other person’s message and their point of view from their perspective (even though yours may be different), and Empathy encourages you to imagine what it is like in the other person’s shoes, and see what they might be feeling from where they are standing. Learning these methods of communication and new ways of behaving supports a relationship to move from feelings of disconnection back to connection.
Couples counselling sessions will be enhanced by the weekend intensive, which is a safe, confidential and powerful group learning experience, to turbo charge your learning and transformation of your relationship (if you are prepared to work on it).