Couples therapy is an investment, not just in financial terms, but also in time and effort. It’s not something you can really do half-heartedly, not if you want it to help that is. From my experience, the people who get the most out of couples therapy have certain things in common. These things not only help them be in the best headspace for relationship counselling, but also create an environment where the process can work.

If you’re curious as to what helps couples therapy work best, read on:

1. They want to do couple therapy

Both come to the process committed, or at least curious. If someone is coming to get their partner off their back, or because their mum suggests it’s a good thing to do, it can sometimes work, yes, but it’s so much harder. It’s also unfair to the partner who is committed to the process. If you are discussing having couples therapy, but it feels like you are doing it for your partner, at least try to be curious about what will come out of it, and open to the sessions and whatever they bring up.

2. Clients are happy to experiment

I often set little pieces of homework in between sessions. You can look upon these as tasks, if you like, but it’s far better to see them as experiments. These experiments may be around different ways of communicating, of being, of seeing things. They are also experiments that I feel will benefit you both in some way, and are often a follow on from our work in the session.

3.  Trusting the process

Couples counselling is a process. One session can’t magically unravel what can be years of unhappiness. However, it can find one end of the tangle and start to unravel it. Then, to mix metaphors, we have the domino effect, where one positive change can create other positive changes. The beauty of Human Givens therapy, which is my background, is that the process looks to create change sooner rather than later, so you should start to notice changes pretty quickly.

4. Openness

Some people find it easy to talk, others really don’t. I don’t need you to tell me your whole life story, but being open to your thoughts and feelings as we move through the session allows us to know what’s going on. If you find this hard to do, I promise you just learning how to do this will impact your own life in many positive ways.

5. Looking after yourself

I often suggest couples take some time for a cuppa afterwards, or a nice walk in the sunshine where you talk about other (nice) things, and not what went on in the session. This helps you think of the session as a place where there is space, rather than just rushing onto the next things. If we are working online, using the time you would use in travel to do something nice can also work well too.

Of course, every couple is different, but these are some approaches that can help you get the best out of your couples therapy. If you’d like to book a chat or a session, get in touch via the contact page.