Couples Counselling in the UK
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What is couples therapy?
Couples therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which a licensed therapist with experience working with couples uses a variety of therapeutic interventions to help people in romantic relationships gain insight into their relationships, resolve conflict, and improve relationship satisfaction.
Although the specifics of behavioural couples therapy vary based on the theoretical perspective of the therapist, every couples therapy entails several essential elements. Couples counselling places emphasis on a specific issue (e.g., sexual issues, Internet addiction, intimacy, jealousy) and active participation on the therapist's part in treating the relationship as a whole rather than treating each individual separately. Solution-focused, change-oriented therapies are beneficial early on in treatment, and treatment goals must be well defined.
Does relationship counselling work?
The short answer is yes… During the pandemic, it has been nearly impossible to separate our work lives from our personal lives, and our relationships in many instances have borne the brunt. Online couples counselling can help. On average, couples therapy success rates are 74% higher than that of untreated couples. If you are still feeling unsure, keep reading to learn the benefits and approaches of relationship counselling and tips on how to make it work for you and your partner.
What can you expect from couples counselling in the UK?
Don't have any idea what to expect from each couple's therapy session? The first couple of therapy sessions usually start with some basic interview questions about the relationship's history and a thorough dive into each partner's family of origin, values, and cultural background. If required, the therapist or marriage counsellor may use the initial sessions for crisis intervention.
What can relationship therapy help couples with?
Break Down the Issues
A couple’s counsellor will do an intake in the first few sessions of couples counselling to hear about your reasons for seeking counselling and to get to know you individually and as a couple. Your therapist will inquire about your childhoods, how you met, the early years of your marriage, your family, and other aspects of your personal lives from you and your partner. It's critical to realise that this step in the healing process is crucial. Your therapist will be able to assess your relationship and establish an appropriate therapy plan after hearing your entire tale. Furthermore, remembering the past can sometimes help you put your current relationship issues into perspective.
Identify Unhealthy Dynamics
When navigating the path to a happy and successful marriage or partnership, it's critical to know the difference between healthy and dysfunctional or toxic marriage dynamics. One of the most distinguishing features of a beneficial marriage partnership is an equal balance of power between the two couples, which means neither party is in charge of everything. Both are free to voice their feelings, thoughts, and opinions.
Resolve Conflicts
When trying it for the first time, you and your partner may be sceptical that couples counselling will help you address your relationship's issues. Conflict resolution may seem complicated to some couples, but with counselling, you can get past the surface-level matters and discover the deeper meaning behind your relationship's miscommunication and pain.
Miscommunication can take many forms, and it is frequently the result of unfulfilled attachment needs. A couples therapist will look at how you and your partner communicate. After identifying a communication pattern, the therapist will work with you to reconstruct how you communicate with your partner.
Revive and Reconnect
Early on in a relationship, there is usually a lot of emotional intensity and sexual desire for each other. The attraction and excitement are high during this 'honeymoon period.' As the novelty and excitement wear off, these feelings become less intense, and couples' relationship happiness may suffer.
Couples may begin to lose their sense of connectivity as a result of the daily grind interfering with quality time spent together. Some people discover that they are too weary to enjoy each other sexually. While this process of coming together and then drawing away to individuate is a natural aspect of any relationship's evolution, it may put a lot of strain on it. Through this procedure, a competent relationship or couples counsellor can assist a couple in better understanding each other and restoring lost emotional and physical connection.
Build Emotional Intimacy & Trust
Therapy can aid in the restoration of communication and the rebuilding of trust and connection between the couple. A therapist can assist by allowing the couple to hear each other in a non-judgmental and open environment.
Couples may benefit from therapy because they will feel closer to their partner after hearing their point of view in a quiet environment. A therapist can assist by not assigning blame and remaining objective, allowing each spouse to feel heard and validated.
Get Ongoing Support
Couples must continue to learn to comprehend each other's desires, feelings, and thoughts in future sessions. Therapy takes place in sessions as well as between them. In between meetings, your counsellor may assign homework or invite you to experiment with different communication and interaction patterns. It will take time and work, but it will be well worth it.
In the end, it is the effort put forth by all parties in the relationship that determines the therapy's outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
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With online couples counselling, couples can meet with a fully qualified and insured psychotherapist to help them resolve relationship challenges and address the health of their relationship. Couples in the UK can meet with an experienced relationship counsellor through live video sessions using Fettle’s secure therapy platform.
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Online couples therapy offers more flexible and accessible options for when to meet and the preferred modality of therapy. It’s important that both you and your partner feel totally comfortable with the modality of therapy that you choose in order to get the most out of the experience.
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In relationships involving domestic abuse, physical violence, substance addiction, and/or serious mental illness, relationship therapy is not usually considered appropriate. If you believe you may be involved in an unsafe or abusive relationship, an individual therapist may be able to help you assess your risk factors, access resources you need to stay safe, or seek protection.
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Meeting your therapist together as a couple is the best way to begin treatment together. Your therapist may at some point during your treatment recommend some individual sessions as well.
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Fettle online therapy’s fees are €79 for a 60min zoom session. If you cancel within 48 hours of your appointment you will be charged the full fee. Prior to the 48 hours window you can reschedule or cancel without losing any part of your fee.
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Yes! Please check the Bundles page for the latest pricing on all of our therapy packages, including discounted online Couples Counselling options.
What are some reasons for couples therapy?
The pandemic has certainly brought individuals in a relationship closer in proximity, but not necessarily emotionally. How to know if couples counselling will help is to just try it.
Here are a few situations when relationship counselling is appropriate:
Before a break-up
Before engagement
Before marriage
Before divorce
When children are involved
When one of you is a caretaker for a parent
Lack of communication
Arguing
Intimacy issues
Infidelity
Sometimes, however, relationship counselling may not be appropriate.
In these cases, seeking protection or clinical treatment is needed. Here are some of those situations:
Physical abuse
Domestic violence
Alcoholism
Substance use
Significant trauma experienced by either person
One or both have depression, anxiety, or other mental health diagnoses
What are the benefits of couples therapy?
Couples counselling benefits are a result of improved communication skills. Couples learn specific skills and methods to effectively communicate with one another. The results can lead to:
Increased understanding of one another
Increased emotional and physical intimacy
Increased trust
Discovering underlying causes of conflict
Encouraging acceptance of one another
Providing a safe space to heal
In addition to these positive outcomes, the Irish Council for Psychotherapy published an extensive review of studies that highlights, on average, the couples therapy success rate is 74% higher than that of untreated couples. The same review of studies verified that it’s unlikely that couples counselling will make things worse. Only one in 10 cases deteriorate as a result of psychotherapy.
So, what have you got to lose?
What are common approaches to couples therapy?
Depending on couple-identified challenges, certain relationship counselling techniques work better than others. We’ve provided a brief overview of some of the more common couples counselling methods and modalities to expect in sessions; however, your therapist may choose to utilize other methods more appropriate for you as a couple.
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The main goal of EFT is to expand and rearrange specific emotional responses, tighten the bond, and create new types of interactions. This method is especially helpful if one or both partners are dealing with depression.
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The main goal of narrative therapy is to separate the problem from the person by seeing issues as external from the relationship. The therapist will assist you in viewing the problems from other angles. Each person becomes part of the relationship dynamic and is empowered to change the narrative.
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This method is especially helpful if there is a great deal of criticism and anger in the relationship. This style of therapy helps each person understand that both people communicate differently.
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This method, developed by the Gottman Institute, uses techniques to increase closeness, affection, and respect through building love maps to help you both understand how your partner’s thought processes are shaped by their joys, hopes, stresses, and history. This method encourages each person to state their needs and focuses on conflict management which, in turn, builds trust.
9 Tips on How to Make Relationship Counselling Work
What if couples therapy doesn’t work? Well, it’s difficult to determine a specific reason why couples therapy may not work because every couple, therapist, couples’ issues, and methods used are unique.
We’ve collected popular tips to make couples therapy work for you:
Couples therapy works only when both individuals participate 100%. No relationship can be “fixed,” so to speak — but marriage counselling helps facilitate increased connection that leads to both individuals working together to tackle life challenges.
It’s extremely important to be completely honest with your partner and the therapist. Withholding information or hiding insecurities will lead to reduced effectiveness of couples therapy
If one individual in the couple has any mental health diagnoses, treated or untreated, it’s recommended that the individual also have a personal therapist to address needs of the person and not the couple. In some cases, individual therapy and couples therapy can occur simultaneously. However, sometimes clinical treatment for conditions such as alcohol or drug use, depression, anxiety, or suicidal risk should be treated prior to beginning couples therapy.
The very first session will feel awkward and disjointed, as could the next few sessions. After several sessions, however, you both will have settled into the routine and will feel more and more comfortable as you go along.
Follow all instructions given by the couples therapist, during sessions and at home. Hold one another accountable for completing any homework or journal prompts.
Prepare for each session ahead of time — individually or together depending on the topic. Walk in with a list of objectives. Walk out with a list of tasks.
Practice. You’ve heard the expression, “in order to become a better public speaker, you just have to keep doing it.” Skills learned in relationship counselling follow the same precept. Reserve time for practice every day.
Make a list of goals, shared and individual, you hope to meet through couples therapy. DIscuss this list with your therapist and let them suggest order of priority.
Remember that sometimes therapy hurts, but that’s the only way healing can happen. Set aside an hour or two after each session and do something together that has nothing to do with the session. This practice can often decompress and ground you both. Go for a run together, watch a funny movie, be intimate. The options are endless. Reserve time for practice later in the week.
Online Couples Counselling in the UK:
When to Get Help
Every couple has disagreements. For some, it's a lack of sex life, while for others it’s a pattern of continual bickering. You could be growing apart, clashing about money, or one of you is being unfaithful. When this situation occurs, you need to look for help if you want to save your relationship, and support can come in many forms on Fettle.
Meet Fettle’s Trusted Online Couples’ Therapists!
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