Marriage and family counselling is a form of psychotherapy which mainly addresses the behaviors that affect relationships between couples and members of a family. Topics that are addressed by this form of counselling include couple and marital conflict, alcohol and drug abuse, child behavior problems, depression, various mental health issues affecting a particular member, or anything that will negatively impact their relationship. It is always important to put these issues to light as they cannot be kept away. Many people who decide not to try and fix these relational issues will find that they can no longer put up with whomever they are having problems with, resulting in long term depression and stress or separation.
How is it done?
This form of counselling is usually done through about an average of ten to twelve sessions depending on the severity of the relational problems. The therapist will usually meet with the family or couple for the first few sessions to try and understand how each person feels about the situation and exactly what is the main problem of the relationship, then eventually split them off into individual sessions . Individual sessions help determine family roles and behaviors that add on to the problems within. They will also help to explore ways to resolve the issue and actively keep on top of it so that these problems will occur less in the future.. Getting more family members involved in the situation is usually a better solution however as they can learn to work together to solve the problem such as trying to understand the other’s feelings and thoughts.
Emotionally focused therapy is a study and solution of the adult bonding process in couples. It is designed to solve and understand the distress and difficulties within adult relationships. Couples who may want to benefit their relationship or solve any particular problems may go for this approach to understand their own emotional thoughts and feelings, and also to better understand their partner’s. Therapists will usually make sure that during this process, the couple will create a strong bond and feelings of understanding that will make sure that their relationship is secure, close, and strongly bonded in the future by taking them through this process.
How is it done?
Emotionally focused therapy goes through different phases, some of the first steps will figure out how to decrease the amount of emotional tension between the couple and decrease conflict. The next steps include finding ways to create stronger bonds within the relationship. Couples may start therapy through learning how to solve common problems that may lead to conflict such as finances or lack of trust. When couples are able to identify certain problems that are straining their relationship and how they can work together to solve them, this usually helps to bring them closer together. At the later stages of these sessions, this will eventually help them to independently identify problems in the future and know how to communicate and deal with them in the proper way. The therapy is considered complete when couples can eventually approach certain problems and conflict in a peaceful manner, and have an evident positive change in attitude towards one another.
Stages of Emotional Counselling:
Stage one:
-Identify areas of concern
-Identify negative patterns of behavior during conflict
-The therapist underlines key behaviors and emotions that contribute to the negative effect
Stage two:
-Individual's voice out their deep emotions and needs
-Couples are taught to express ways of compassion and understanding for each other’s needs
-Couples are taught how to communicate needs and feelings
Stage three:
-Therapist discusses old problems that the couple has had and new solutions on how to fix them
-The couple learns ways and skills on how to approach problems that might occur between them in the future.