What if you and your significant other had regular opportunities to revive and deepen your relationship, focus on each other’s needs, emotionally invest in one another, and practice healthy, open communication skills — all in a non-judgemental, compassionate environment? How might that change the dynamic of your relationship? Even if your relationship is still going strong, every committed couple deserves to reap the wide-ranging benefits of couples therapy.
Why Couples Therapy or Relationship Counselling Can Help
Couples therapy?! Isn’t that only for marriages on the brink of divorce? No—in fact, those couples may have avoided the edge of the cliff, where it seems like divorce is the only option if they had addressed negative communication patterns earlier in their relationship with the help of a trained couples therapist. At Bhatia Psychology Group, we encourage you to see beyond the societal stigma attached to couples therapy and take the time to invest in the most important relationship in your life with the help of a couples counsellor.
Every Team (or Relationship) Needs a Good Coach
All of the hockey fans out there are aware that Mike Babcock spurred the Detroit Red Wings on to unimaginable success and became their top coach. In contrast, a few years ago, he also patiently coached the Toronto Maple Leafs through their last-place league finish. Just like a good coach, our couples therapists patiently work with both extremely functional and dysfunctional marriages—with great success. They tailor their knowledge of healthy relationship patterns to each couple, accounting for individual strengths and weaknesses, length of the marriage, and communication styles. Even the teams with the best individual players—think Olympic teams—may not perform well without a coach who understands how vital teamwork is to overall performance.
Our counsellor-coaches build cohesiveness, creating a team-based approach to life. If your relationship is “good” right now, don’t you want it to be “great?” A couples counsellor can optimize partnerships and help to transform adversarial relationships into high-functioning teams.
Outsider’s Perspective
BPG’s couples’ therapists approach each relationship with an objective, outsider’s perspective. If you and your spouse feel frustrated with your relationship, the counsellor can help you find a way out. A couples counsellor may even present you with life alternatives that you have never even considered.
Revive/Deepen your Relationship
Especially when there are children involved, it is easy to neglect your marriage. But when children leave the house and you become an empty-nester, you may discover that there is a stranger sleeping in your bed. You and your partner don’t have to grow apart while you raise children. View couples therapy as a time to invest in each other and strengthen your relationship.
Open Communication
When life gets busy and you want to avoid spousal conflict, some issues might simmer below the surface. As you subconsciously resent your spouse, your spouse is unaware of a problem. Couples therapy provides a nonjudgmental platform to air grievances, compliments, and observations. A couples therapist facilitates open, healthy communication patterns and teaches conflict resolution skills.
Leave Childhood Trauma in Childhood
The sad truth of the matter is that humans carry unresolved childhood trauma into future relationships. The way you reacted to your childhood environment (whether stressful or not) is the way you naturally react as an adult. Oftentimes, this behaviour is modelled on parental behaviour. It can be scary to go back and address old traumas or abuse, but doing so is vital to a healthy marriage relationship. Don’t let festering childhood wounds control your adult relationships any longer.
Cohesive parenting
Now that you understand how your parents have influenced you, think about how your behaviour affects your children. To shield them from experiencing their own childhood traumas, take time to thoroughly consider your parenting approach with your spouse. Conflicting parenting approaches send mixed messages to a child, leaving the child feeling unstable. Let a therapist help you to unite as one in the challenging arena of childrearing.
Better Physical Health
Did you know that a healthy marriage is the cornerstone of mental and physical health? But on the flip-side, a marriage with unhealthy patterns can cause chronic depression, anxiety, immune system dysfunction, poor cardiovascular health, hormonal imbalance, and even early death. With couples counselling, circumvent unhealthy relationship patterns and grow old together! So whether you want an experienced, winning coach for your marriage or an objective, listening ear, contact us today to set up an appointment with our couples therapists.