Couple Therapy – Family sessions
Couple Therapy
Couple counselling opens-up a safe place for dialogue. It offers a confidential and non-judgmental environment that allows couples to better understand each other and helps them to deal with crises in their relationship.
This counselling is for couples, married or not, straight or homosexual. Individual sessions are also available for those who have questions about their love life or relationships.
Careful listening is an essential skill for a therapist, along with thorough professionnal training in the field of couple and family therapy.
Depending on your situation, we will decide what would be most helpful for you. I offer sessions for individuals and couples.
Couple therapy will help you to :
- understand what happens in your relationship
- deal with conflicts
- facilitate decision making
- restore an enriching and fulfilling relationship
- deal with sexual issues
- get through changes at different stages in your life : engagement, living together, birth of a child, children leaving home, parenting, teenagers, retirement
- overcome difficult situations : illness, death in the family, unemployment, other work related stress
We can also talk about:
- separation or divorce
- Parenting together
- Children’s education
- Life as a single parent or within a blended family
The first session
Systemic approach : allows a couple to understand what defines their relationship and their identity as a couple.
Psychodynamic approach : allows a couple to become more aware of the conscious and unconscious interactions within their relationship.
Rogerian approach : allows for an active and empathetic understanding of the crisis that the couple is going through.
Family sessions
Family sessions provide a forum that enables each family member to mature and grow within the family unit. Different issues can be adressed, including :
- separation or divorce
- co-parenting
- children’s education
- life as a single parent or in a blended family
FAQ
The first step is to take the time to find a safe place to address your difficulties with a neutral and non-judgmental professional. This will enable you to take a step back, help you to understand each other better, improve your communication.
- when you feel a need to evaluate your current relationship
- when you feel unsatisfied with your relationship
- when you are considering separation or divorce
- when arguments become more frequent and more violent
- when you have communication problems
- when you face problems linked to the birth of a child
- when you have conflicts regarding the eduaction of your children
- when you have conflicts regarding sharing house chores
- when you have arguments regarding money
- when you have sexual difficulties
- when there is an affair
- when there are difficulties with the extended family
- when there are conflicts regarding cultural differences
- when going through changes at different stages in your life : engagement, living together, birth of a child, children leaving home, parenting, teenagers, retirement
- when you have to face difficult situations : sickness, death in the family, unemployment, other work related stress
- when there is violence in the relationship
Yes, couple’s sessions are available for married or unmarried couples, straight or gay couples. The sessions permit a psychological approach to relationship issues.
Children are only included in sessions when the issues involve the whole familiy. For couple’s therapy it is best that the session be exclusively reserved for the couple.
Yes, couple therapy will help you to better clarify your decision. Discussing your separation will help you to:
- make this decision in a more thoughtful manner
- better address the issues of separation: living arrangements, financial issues, divorce procedures, parental authority, child support and visiting rights.
Couple counselling is a psychological process that strives to resolve relationship difficulties. Dialoging in a confidential and neutral place eases conflict resolution, before or after separation.
Mediation is a process of negotiation that generally addresses couples that have decided to separate. The objective is to organise the future, reaching a long-lasting and acceptable agreement concerning the issues of separation : living arrangements, financial issues, divorce procedures, parental authority, child support and visiting rights.
Don’t hesitate to talk about it directly with the appropriate services, if you can.
I can nonetheless meet with you to assess the situation and advise you on what steps to take.
- Individual and couple sessions : 150.- for 60’
Sessions are held outside normal workday hours. It’s possible to make an appointment early in the morning, at lunch time or after work.