Couples Therapy vs. Marriage Counseling: Choosing the Right Support
Relationships can be tricky to navigate at times—anyone who's ever been in a healthy, long-term relationship can attest. Fostering a healthy relationship takes a lot of hard work, communication, commitment, and dedication on both sides. And sometimes, that undertaking can be easier to achieve with a little outside help.
Therapy is perhaps one of the most valuable tools we have for strengthening our relationships. Both couples therapy and marriage counseling—essentially two different names for the same supportive service—exist to encourage growth and healing within a relationship.
At Insight Northwest Counseling (INC), our team of licensed marriage and family therapists and mental health professionals work to provide a unified, tailored approach to relationship help. We listen intently, ensuring that both people in the relationship feel safe, heard and valued. We then help you process past hurts and challenges, in order to set you free of them to move forward in a healthy and stronger way.
What Is Couples Therapy/Marriage Counseling?
Couples therapy, as well as the various reasons for which partners might choose to pursue it, can look different for everyone. Overall, though, couples therapy is simply intended to provide a supportive space for partners to navigate challenges and strengthen their bond.
Maybe you and your partner have found yourselves repetitively butting heads over the same issues, and you’re looking to improve your communication and conflict resolution skills. Or maybe you’re hoping to be able to rebuild a sense of trust, intimacy, and understanding within your relationship again. Or maybe life has just been throwing y’all for a loop of late, and you’re looking for guidance.
Whatever your goal is… Therapy can help.
Our licensed mental health professionals at Insight Northwest Counseling are in your corner. We get it: things happen, issues arise, and life gets in the way sometimes; we’ve seen it all, and are eager to provide couples with the tools you need to better navigate life’s transitions and stressors.
A few issues commonly addressed in couples therapy include:
communication breakdowns
trust issues
differing values
parenting struggles
In order to help couples work through these very common concerns, we utilize an evidence-based approach, using modalities like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and cognitive-behavioral techniques. EFT is a short-term therapy that helps people improve their emotional connections with themselves and others. It’s based on the idea that emotions are central to the human experience, and can help couples improve their relationships by rekindling their emotional and physical bond. Cognitive-behavioral techniques, on the other hand, are a set of strategies that help people identify and change inaccurate or unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. Depending on the situation, your therapist might employ clinically proven, research-based treatments like these in order to bring your partnership closer together.
Common Misconceptions About Couples Therapy
Now, let’s go ahead and debunk some common misconceptions about couples therapy. But before we do that, we’d like to point out that we as a society have made some pretty decent strides when it comes to destigmatizing mental health. Not only has the notion of individual therapy become almost commonplace—it’s often applauded as a step towards personal growth and self-improvement (which it very much is). So, why is that any less true when discussing couples therapy? Some might argue that couples therapy is an even bigger personal undertaking—one that pushes you to work on yourself and how you show up in a relationship.
But, anyways, let’s get to debunking:
Myth: Therapy is only for relationships in crisis.
Truly any couple can benefit from couples therapy. Many couples seek out therapy as a form of preventative care for the good of their relationship. Your partnership absolutely does not have to be actively in crisis to seek therapy.
Myth: Marriage counseling is just for married couples.
Marriage counseling is for married couples, yes. But really, it’s relevant for all relationships, including those in early stages or long-term partnerships.
Myth: Therapy signals failure.
The truth is, therapy signals strength. Attending couples therapy signals that you want to better your relationship, that you want it to succeed. It means that you and your partner have made a decision together to commit to becoming the best versions of yourselves for the sake of your relationship. Therapy is a proactive and utterly courageous step toward growth.
When Should You Seek Couples Therapy or Marriage Counseling?
Alright, we’ve covered what couples therapy is, why partners might choose to pursue it, what approaches a couples therapist might utilize, and some common misconceptions surrounding couples therapy. So… How do you know when it might be time to actively seek support in the form of couples therapy or marriage counseling? Well, as we’ve mentioned, we believe that truly anyone can benefit from therapy (coupled or not); so take the following information with a grain of salt.
There are, however, some more common indicators that it’s time to seek support, including:
repeated conflicts or miscommunication
lack of intimacy or emotional disconnect
significant life changes causing stress (e.g., parenthood, job changes)
rebuilding after betrayal or major challenges
At times, additional outside factors—past traumas, addiction, substance abuse, mental health issues, grief, loss—can even work together to compound pre-existing relationship issues.
A good majority of partners who seek out couples therapy are actively dealing with an issue of some kind, and are searching for immediate assistance. This is called reactive therapy: a state of relationship crisis brings all of a couple’s issues to the forefront, causing them to need to seek immediate help from a therapist. Now, sometimes that can't really be avoided—factors outside of our control come up and impact us and our relationships all the time.
However, we cannot understate the immense benefits of starting therapy early when you can. With proactive therapy, couples work with a therapist before they think they “need to,” in order to build a strong foundation for their relationship. That way, when issues do (inevitably) arise, they’ve laid the groundwork for constructive communication and conflict solving going forward. Though, whether reactively or proactively, INC commends couples for seeking help; and we aim to tailor therapy to the unique needs of each couple.
What to Expect in Couples Therapy
If you decide to seek therapy from Insight Northwest Counseling, here’s what you can expect:
First, one of our client care coordinators will help provide an initial consultation for you, your partner, and your collective relationship—helping to match you with a therapist who aligns with your goals. During your first session with your therapist, they will ask questions to better understand you and your partner’s dynamic, challenges, and goals. From there, it’s largely a collaborative process where you’ll work together to: develop shared goals and actionable strategies, learn communication and conflict resolution skills, and build upon emotional and physical intimacy with your partner.
For our part, our role as therapists is to provide a neutral, supportive environment for both partners to feel safe, heard, valued, and understood. Our approach centers around compassion and intentional listening—giving both people in the relationship the opportunity to speak freely and safely to one another and the therapist. We assist couples in processing past hurts and challenges—and offer suggestions to the couple that they can carry outside of the session—with the goal of setting them free to move forward in a healthy and stronger way. We’re also very aware that each relationship comes with its own set of unique challenges. To best assess, we listen intentionally to your background as a couple, look deeply at the issues you are having today, and collaborate in finding the best way to heal and strengthen your relationship.
We understand that seeking couples therapy can be a very vulnerable and sensitive process for some, and we do not take that lightly. That’s why we aim to promote a comfortable, welcoming, counseling space for our clients—with the ability to seek support from the comfort of wherever you choose: whether it be an in-person or virtual therapy session. We want you and your partner to leave your experience with INC feeling like a united force with the ability to work together outside of the therapy session.
Benefits of Couples Therapy or Marriage Counseling
If you’re still wondering what couples therapy is all about, here’s our “too long didn’t read” (TLDR) version of the countless benefits of pursuing couples therapy or marriage counseling. For one, couples therapy yields improved communication and connection among partners—which is, under any circumstances, pretty crucial to maintaining a healthy relationship. Therapy also strengthens a couple’s ability to resolve conflicts collaboratively—giving you the individual tools that you need to navigate current, and withstand future, issues that may arise. For those who have faced hardships like betrayal or infidelity issues, couples counseling can also aid the healing process by working to rebuild trust and intimacy within the relationship.
Couples therapy—well, any therapy, really—works to promote a greater understanding of both individual and shared needs. Look at it this way: if each partner is able to utilize therapy to recognize their own specific needs, and is able to work independently on themselves and their growth—they will, in turn, be able to show up better for their partner. This will allow their partner to better receive them, better understand their needs, and better convey their own needs back to their partner.
Overall, both couples therapy and marriage counseling offer an opportunity for you and your partner to pursue a more resilient, stable, supportive, loving, and altogether healthier relationship. Our incredible team of licensed professionals are eager to support you on your journey to a more fulfilling partnership… That is, if y’all are prepared to do a little emotional heavy lifting yourselves.
How to Get Started with Insight Northwest Counseling
In all seriousness, we realize that seeking therapy can feel scary sometimes. That’s why we want to make the process as approachable as possible. Insight Northwest Counseling offers an encouraging, welcoming, and judgement-free therapy experience—where we do everything in our power to ensure that you feel safe, comfortable, supported, and heard.
If you’re interested in booking a consultation with INC, give us a call or schedule through our website. We’ll then walk you through a short intake process to match you and your partner with the best therapist for your collective needs.
Couples therapy is like taking your car to the mechanic for a tune-up: you might be driving just fine, but with some professional help, you’ll be able to address small issues before they cause any real damage. Take the first step toward building a stronger relationship today!
Choosing Growth for Your Relationship
Before you go, we’d just like to commend you for your strength and bravery in the act of seeking therapy. Embarking on the journey of couples therapy is a positive, proactive step toward fostering a healthy, thriving relationship—with both yourself and your partner. Couples therapy is an opportunity for growth and connection, providing a safe and supportive space for you to strengthen your bond together. If you feel as though Insight Northwest Counseling might be a good fit to help your relationship thrive, please reach out to us to begin your journey of fulfillment today.