Couple's Therapy

Marriage counseling, also called couples therapy, is a type of psychotherapy. Marriage counseling helps couples of all types recognize and resolve conflicts and improve their relationships.

Couples therapy at CCP begins with a confidential relationship survey that you will complete online, which will help your therapist clarify the issues that you and your partner want to discuss/change. Next, your therapist will schedule an initial appointment, often referred to as an intake interview, which each of you individually. During this appointment, you will describe what brings you to therapy. The therapist will then ask questions to help clarify the nature of the problem, and its duration and severity. S/he will also try to determine your goals for therapy, and will develop a treatment plan. After these first two individual sessions, the couple will begin meeting with the therapist together on a weekly basis.

Some couples seek marriage counseling to strengthen their partnership and gain a better understanding of each other. Couples counseling can also help couples who plan to get married. Premarital counseling can help couples achieve a deeper understanding of each other and iron out differences before marriage.

In other cases, couples seek marriage counseling to improve a troubled relationship.

You can use marriage counseling to help with many specific issues, including:

Communication problems
Sexual difficulties
Conflicts about child rearing or blended families
Anger
Infidelity

CCP couples therapists are trained to help both partners see the relationship in a more objective manner. They will help you stop the "blame game," modify dysfunctional behaviors, and change the way that the partners actually behave with each other. Using specific tools, the therapist will also “coach” you to improve your communication skills, and can help you to identify and heal the core/repeating issues in your relationship, that are often based on your early childhood experiences.