Counseling couples constitutes about half my psychotherapy practice.  I have found that counseling couples requires different skills than individual counseling.  Couples usually need more than just a safe place to talk about their relationship.  They need new tools for communicating and they need competent coaching on how to employ these new skills.  Otherwise, they are likely to just repeat the old patterns that brought them to counseling in the first place.

The first session typically begins with introductions and a chance for each member of the couple to describe what they hope to address in counseling.  Then I will often ask the couple to talk about an issue that is currently important to them.  As the discussion ensues, I will help the partners identify where their communication starts breaking down.  Then I will offer new communication skills and help each partner use the new skills to successfully communicate about the issue at hand.

When resolution is achieved I will ask the couple to address another issue that may be troubling them.  Again, I will coach them in new communication skills.  After several such discussions (usually after a few sessions) certain themes are likely to emerge repeatedly.  These themes are clues to how the partners may both be triggering sensitivities in each other.  At first, these sensitivities may be what the partners find most irritating about each other.  But with greater understanding, the couple can discover that the ways they have been hurting each other can be turned into ways that they can better understand each other.  Then the relationship becomes a healing partnership rather than a repeating cycle of frustration.

In the process partners learn to be more effective communicators.  And they learn how they can be a powerful source of acceptance, intimacy, and healing for each other.

As a man myself, I have a pretty good idea of how intimidating counseling can sometimes be for men.  While I strive to always stay neutral in any conflict that a (heterosexual) couple addresses, I also use my understanding of men to help both partners identify how to make the counseling process work well for both genders.