Our world is rapidly changing and evolving, further complicating relationship dynamics. Couple counselling, however, can provide us with the support we need, offering the opportunity to explore and resolve dysfunctional relationship patterns.
Shifting attitudes towards gender and sexuality and increasing financial pressures are just some of the many factors that might influence modern relationships. In a contemporary world, we need contemporary ways to counsel couples and help maintain healthy and functional relationships.
Cultural differences can also impact how we relate, requiring a culturally and emotionally sensitive counselling approach. LGBTQIA+ couples require support that meets their needs, as well as couples who might be navigating intercultural partnerships, blended families or going through a divorce.
In this article, we’ll discuss couple counselling and some of the challenges couples face and give an overview of common therapeutic modalities.
What is couple counselling?
For starters, it can be helpful to define counselling. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the provision of professional assistance and guidance in resolving personal or psychological problems.” Therefore, couple counselling has the same health promotion aims as individual counselling. However, in this case, more than one person is involved.
Every couple is different, so we need a customised approach to help them resolve their unique challenges. Couple counselling is beneficial because it allows couples to understand negative relationship patterns and learn how to create more functional ones.
What challenges do couples face?
To better understand counselling, it’s helpful to understand some of the challenges modern couples face. Recognising broader themes in couple counselling can help us understand what modalities could help resolve specific relationship issues.
Some of the challenges which we touched on above include the following:
Blended families
A blended family includes children from previous relationships. Navigating relationships with former partners, co-parenting, dealing with financial issues, and building a new family ethos can be tricky. Many couples may need assistance in creating a constructive blended family dynamic.
Cyber relationships
Some people may pursue cyber relationships or long-distance relationships with minimal physical contact. Not interacting in person involves a very different dynamic, requiring more structured communication, which may be more difficult for some.
Libido differences
Couples might struggle with varying levels of libido and feel like they want more or less physical intimacy. A couple counsellor can help couples more openly express their desires and find creative ways to satisfy each other’s needs.
Communication
Good communication is paramount in any relationship. A romantic relationship involves many layers, from physical intimacy to the domestic realm. This complex landscape provides many opportunities for expectations not to be fully understood or met. Learning how to communicate better can help resolve underlying issues that could be causing conflict in a relationship.
Finances
Financial pressure can strain any relationship. Learning to work together to achieve economic stability is critical. One partner working away from home can also create problems in a partnership, which counselling can help to resolve.
Children
Raising children requires both parents to share responsibility, which might be tricky if certain role expectations haven’t been discussed or aren’t fully understood by one or both partners. Couple counselling can help couples find more constructive ways to share responsibility and manage raising children.
Culture and religion
Cultural and religious differences can cause many issues as a relationship progresses. Some obstacles include role expectations, how to educate children, the level of family involvement, and problems with communication. However, a sensitive and pragmatic counselling approach can help find ways to navigate these challenges.
Trust and infidelity
Couple counselling can help people deal with the aftermath of infidelity and help to build and regain trust should a couple choose to remain together. Learning how to communicate better and meet one another’s needs can also help to create a stronger relationship.
Love languages
Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate outlines five ways of expressing love. These languages include quality time, physical touch, acts of service, receiving gifts, and words of affirmation.
By understanding which love languages resonate most with each partner, counsellors can help find more constructive ways to deepen and strengthen relationships.
No commonalities
What happens when you no longer have anything in common with a partner? Counsellors can help reignite the spark that brought people together and help develop new interests and ways of relating to one another by finding ways to communicate better.
Health and stress
Changing health can result in enormous stress within a relationship, especially if there are financial implications. As your relationship dynamic shifts to accommodate incapacity or intense stress, finding healthy ways to cope and maintain a resilient relationship is essential.
Couple therapy modalities
We’ve covered some of the many different challenges that couples can face. But how do we deal with them? We’ll now discuss couple counselling modalities a counsellor can use to help people resolve relationship issues.
Emotionally Focused Therapy
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) helps couples rekindle lost emotional connection and develop emotional responsiveness. This modality facilitates more openness, which can help couples resolve their issues together. EFT is informed by attachment theory, based on research about how securely people are attached to their caregivers, which can affect how they build relationships.
Gottman Method
The Gottman method was developed in response to statistical research on divorce and what makes couples stay together. Counselling using this method centres around building a meaningful relationship that doesn’t include the predictive factors of divorce or the “Four Horsemen.” These predictive factors are criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an approach that uses mindfulness to deal with what comes up in the present moment. This type of couple counselling involves being mindful of present issues in your relationship and not denying them but finding ways to take action that ensures a more positive outcome.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
Like ACT, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) helps people live in the present moment and develop healthy ways to regulate their emotions. DBT is a modified form of cognitive behavioural therapy and can help people navigate a range of mental health challenges, which could also impact a partnership.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy involves each couple member telling their story. This approach allows couples to externalise their issues. Through externalisation, couples can separate their problems from their identities by gaining a different perspective, empowering them to find ways to address issues constructively.
Learn more about couple counselling at SACAP Global
If you’re interested in broadening your counselling skills and learning more about the therapeutic approaches discussed above, register for the Intro to Couple Counselling short course.
This short online course aims to equip mental health practitioners with culturally competent skills and practices for addressing the many challenges faced by diverse couples.
If you’re interested in broader counselling courses, browse our course list or take a look at our related foundational online short courses below: