By In all honesty, when you work with an experienced counselor, therapy will improve most areas of your life. Working on yourself, bettering your communication and increasing your self-awareness, all tends to have a spillover effect onto other aspects of your life such as work and relationships.
As far as individual counseling for relationship issues, most therapists agree that it can be a powerful tool for reclaiming your life and happiness. Not only that, but the skills you learn can improve your relationship, and the positive changes in your life may influence your partner to join you for a session or agree to couples therapy.
We met with an experienced Scottsdale relationship therapist to talk about how individual therapy can help with relationship issues and here’s what we learned.
How Individual Therapy Helps Relationship Issues
Couples counseling is an ideal setting to help you work through issues that involve both people and learning how to meet each other’s needs. Some of the most common relationship issues surround money, finances, parenting styles, and infidelity. A couples counselor will create a safe space for both people to be heard and validated and so a healthy compromise can be reached.
One person may feel, however, that they need one-on-one time to work on more personal issues related to how they react or behave in the relationship. That being said, becoming more aware of yourself and how you show up in the world, can dramatically impact the relationships you have with everyone in your life. A trained therapist can teach you how to fight more constructively, identify your triggers, stop toxic behaviors, and improve your self-esteem which will only result in a happier and healthier relationship.
If your partner doesn’t trust the counseling process, they may have a change of heart when they see the positive changes in your life. If not, you will gain tools and techniques to bring home and introduce to the relationship which can also have a positive effect.
What Type of Therapy Works Best for Individual And Relationship Issues?
The relationship experts we have talked to all agreed, EFT is a great choice for both individual and relationship issues because it aims to build empathy, compassion and stronger bonds between people. This process involves understanding why each person does what they do and how that behavior is motivated by an unmet need. Over time, you will begin to make sense of your partner’s reactions, and learn how to better anticipate and meet their needs to prevent or ease conflict.
This same approach and technique can also help individuals work on emotional regulation and creating healthier attachments and bonds with the people in their lives.
Therapy Works
No matter what, consistently working with an experienced therapist will improve your quality of life and enrich your relationships. Even if your partner is reluctant, working on yourself can have a ripple effect you both will benefit from. Not only that, teaching your partner the tools you learn in therapy can also be healthy exercise that brings you closer together.
Once your partner sees the benefit of counseling, they may eventually agree to couples counseling. Either way, therapy works.
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