Couples & Pre-mARITAL THERAPY

Couples Therapy, defined:

Couples therapy is a modality of talk therapy where the relationship is the client, rather than the individual people. Couples seek out therapy for a host of reasons, including escalating conflict/arguments, infidelity, sexual intimacy issues, external stressors, parenting challenges, and emotional disconnection. Couples therapy offers people the opportunity to discuss and resolve issues. It can be beneficial at any stage of a relationship, and it can help couples re-engage in romance, partnership, and commitment, or help them commit to those practices for the first time.

Pre-Marital therapy is typically a shorter term course of couples therapy taking place in the lead up from engagement (or contemplating engagement) to wedding. Engaged couples often seek it out because they want to enter into their long-term or lifelong commitment to each other on a solid foundation of healthy relating and common goals. Engaged couples may also seek it out because one or more of them feel ambivalence (conflicted feelings) about getting married between engagement and the big day. Marriage is a big life transition, regardless of how long you’ve been a couple, and planning a wedding is stressful and time consuming. Making time to participate in pre-marital therapy can give a couple dedicated time to focus on the relationship, co-create a shared vision, and according to research, reduce the risk of divorce (by about 30%, according to NIH-sponsored research).

What Couples Therapy can help with:

  • Understanding and shifting Relationship Roles or dynamics

  • Learning about and working with collective and individual Beliefs and Values

  • Understanding and working with differing Coping Strategies (most couples have opposite coping strategies)

  • Promoting open dialog, compromise, and planning of shared Finances

  • Ensuring increased Quality Time spent together

  • Creating a shared vision of whether and/or how to raise Children

  • Problem-solving challenging Familial Relationships beyond the couple, such as elder care and sibling relationships

  • Creating a safe space to discuss issues and needs relating to Sex and Intimacy

  • Navigating challenging External Stressors or Life Transitions

  • Processing Grief and Loss as a couple

Who might benefit from it?

  • Couples where, both of whom:

    • Are invested in trying the therapy process

    • Able to participate equally due to relatively stable cognitive or mental health

  • Couples who are not actively engaged in an intimate partner abuse/violence cycle

  • Couples who identify with or practice any relationship orientation (monogamy, polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, etc), or are contemplating a shift

What model of couples therapy is used at Cultivating Connections?

Here at Cultivating Connections, I practice couples and pre-marital therapy based on Imago Relationship Therapy model and principles of trauma-informed attachment-based psychotherapies. Imago Relationship Therapy is a structured approach that emphasizes understanding the impact of past relationships on your current one, identifying unmet needs, and practicing dialog strategies that promote connection and healthy responses to conflict.

Trauma-informed attachment-based psychotherapies are an umbrella descriptor of several therapy models, each of which emphasize the importance of recognizing, honoring, coping differently with relational traumas of the past, and building new healing relationships with the self and others. To quote renowned trauma expert and physician, Gabor Maté, “Safety is not the absence of threats. It is the presence of connection,”. While Imago Relationship Therapy is the foundational model of couples therapy at this practice, my training and experience in other models offers expanded insight and tools.

How can I find out more or sign up?

Consultations, which are free, are a great way for you to find out if the Imago model of couples therapy might be a good fit with the issues you wish to address. Click the button below to request and schedule a consultation. The presence of both parties is required at the consultation.