Couples Therapy
Are you looking for help to improve your relationship or just achieve better communication? Then our competent couple therapists can offer couples therapy for you and your partner, using the Gottman method and systemic approach of counseling. These are evidence-based approaches, which you can read more about below.
- More than 50 years of experience
- Phone and online consultations
Co-occurring Problems
Each couple is different and often faces a unique set of circumstances. Some couples come into couples therapy to deal with specific difficulties early in their relationship, while others search out couples therapy when the relationship has turned negative and the concerns are more entrenched. Finally, some seek couples therapy in the process of ending their relationship.
During couples therapy, the therapist will also look for individual concerns. It is important to be aware of specific individual difficulties that have become part of the current relational or marriage difficulties. We often see relationships that are struggling where one or sometimes even both individuals also are suffering from depression or anxiety. Similarly with outside stressors. Difficulties in careers, living situations, culturally dependent stressors, and so on, can cause significant stress on the couple as well. In couples therapy it is vital to understand and treat all these difficulties, concurrently.
Goals of Couples Therapy:
- Identify negative patterns that are hindering the quality of your friendship with your partner
- Stop blaming each other so you can work through problems without power struggles
- Disarm conflicting verbal communications
- Increase intimacy, respect, and affection
- Remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy in conflicting situations
- Recognize the damaging cyclical patterns in your relationship
- Handle daily stressors that interfere with romance and intimacy
- Repair your relationship after a breach of trust
- Aside from the work in session, you will often be given homework so that you can continue the work throughout the week.
Target Areas for Change
Communication
While all couples argue, it’s not so much the conflicts themselves that indicate a bad relationship, but instead the manner in which the arguments are communicated. Some of the big communication offenders are:
Defensiveness
Criticism
Contempt
Stonewalling
Most relationships will have some of these, but healthy relationships don’t use them nearly as often and do more to repair them when they are used. When we criticize, use contempt, become defensive, or stonewall, we are not creating a healthy place from which to discuss issues and consequently will not be heard or listened to.
In couples counseling, we will help you to see how the unhealthy patterns have affected your relationship; we will assist you in implementing changes.
How to manage conflict
Many couples make the mistake of assuming that conflict is bad when it really isn’t; it’s a natural, unavoidable part of a relationship. In fact, conflicts, when communicated in healthy ways, can result in increased growth and greater closeness with your partner.
However, it is often not possible, or even important, to solve every problem that comes along. Actual solutions to problems are less important than the manner in which they are communicated. In the therapy sessions, the couples therapist will work with you to develop new skills around conflict processing.
Types of arguments
How to repair your relationship after an affair
Repairing a relationship or marriage after an affair can be one of the hardest things to do and often requires significant commitment and work. You may no longer be working on the old relationship, but instead on a new way of being together; the relationship is no longer the way it was. That can be a daunting task, but after the work is done, the relationship can become closer and more intimate than it ever was before the affair. In couples therapy we will help you to think about the work after an affair in 3 phases:
Atonement:
Attunement:
Attachment:
Contact us
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- Secure and confidential
OUR THERAPISTS
Hanne-Berit Hahnemann, M.A.
Couple therapy, anxiety, abuse, personality disorders, depression and stress.
Anastasia Tesler-Larsen, M.Sc.
Anastasia sees adult individuals and couples in all topics, including LGBTQI+ and polyamory. She works mainly with systemic and cognitive (CBT) therapy approaches.
Larissa Köhler, M.Sc.
Larissa is a licensed psychologist with a specialization in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She has therapeutic experience with various mental disorders and different patient groups.
OUR TREATMENT AREAS
We offer one-on-one therapy for adults and children, couples and families. You will be assigned to a therapist based on your wishes and needs. This way the therapist can best help you through your specific issues.
Personality Disorders
Understand yourself and learn to deal with emotional reactions
Child therapy
Understand what your child's behaviors mean.
Anxiety
Get control of your anxiety through psychotherapy
Eating Disorders
Treatment of all eating disorders
Depression
Depression can be many things and deserves proper assessment and an individualized approach
Couples Therapy
Identify patterns in the relationship and achieve better communication
Stress
Find causes and see solutions with therapeutic help
Trauma
Get tools to process traumatic experiences
