This Therapist's Therapy

  Why Go to Couples Counseling? - Part 5 While mental health awareness has improved, especially over the last few years through the pandemic.  And some of the sitgma around therapy has decreased.  But so many people still wonder why they should participate in couples counseling. In my mind, there are several "levels" of couples' counseling. 1)  Dating Relationships 2)  Pre-Marital Counseling 3)  Marriage/Couples Counseling 4)  Stage of Life Couples Counseling 5)  When Things Aren't Working Today, I'll talk about going to Couples Counseling When Things Aren't Working This is the most common reason why most couples go to therapy.  They seek help when things have gotten so bad, they aren't sure there's a way out.  Couples Counseling at this point is often a last ditch effort.  And it's also this level that causes people NOT to want to go to Couples Counseling...they hear all the horror stories. Let me preface this by saying that this level of counseli

  Why Go to Couples Counseling? - Part 4 While mental health awareness has improved, especially over the last few years through the pandemic.  And some of the sitgma around therapy has decreased.  But so many people still wonder why they should participate in couples counseling. In my mind, there are several "levels" of couples' counseling. 1)  Dating Relationships 2)  Pre-Marital Counseling 3)  Marriage/Couples Counseling 4)  Stage of Life Couples Counseling 5)  When Things Aren't Working Today, I'll talk about Stage of Life Couples Counseling. As I was thinking about this blog post, my first thought was about the transition to Empty Nest.  But the more I thought about it, I realized there are several possible transition points in a marriage or long term relationship. So, I'll break it down into sub-stages.   Casual Dating to Living Together The first stage is the transition from casual dating to living together.  This stage may happen at different times for

  Why Go to Couples Counseling? - Part 3 While mental health awareness has improved, especially over the last few years through the pandemic.  And some of the sitgma around therapy has decreased.  But so many people still wonder why they should participate in couples counseling. In my mind, there are several "levels" of couples' counseling. 1)  Dating Relationships 2)  Pre-Marital Counseling 3)  Marriage/Couples Counseling 4)  Stage of Life Couples Counseling 5)  When Things Aren't Working Today, I'll talk about Marriage/Couples Counseling. For many people, after being together or married for some time, things start to fall into habits and patterns.  And we don't always notice right away because, let's face it, life gets busy.  There's work, kids, activities and everything in between, and then suddenly you realize that you and your spouse/partner aren't really spending time together or aren't really talking.  Maybe your intimacy has decreased. 

  Why Go to Couples Counseling? - Part 2 While mental health awareness has improved, especially over the last few years through the pandemic.  And some of the sitgma around therapy has decreased.  But so many people still wonder why they should participate in couples counseling. In my mind, there are several "levels" of couples' counseling. 1)  Dating Relationships 2)  Pre-Marital Counseling 3)  Marriage/Couples Counseling 4)  Stage of Life Couples Counseling (Empty Nest) 5)  When Things Aren't Working Over the next few weeks, I'll discuss each of these levels in detail.  You may find that this leads to more questions.   If that happens for you, please leave a comment, visit my website, or send me an email. So, let's move on to the second level of couples' counseling... Pre-Marital Counseling There are several reasons why couples opt to participate in pre-marital counseling. 1)  It's required by their church/religion 2)  They want to make sure they'