Women Corner

Many people find it difficult to discuss their personal relationship issues with other people, and so may find the thought of attending counselling sessions very daunting, but this can be a very beneficial and productive way for couples to work through difficult and complex issues.

Professional counsellors can help bring a new and objective perspective to situations that you and your partner are finding difficult to resolve, and can help you both to take a step back from the problem, see each others viewpoints and work towards resolving the problem and moving forward. Counselling can take a number of forms, from one on one sessions through to family unit sessions and many counselling services also provide group couples workshops, which deal with more generalised issues such as starting a family or making a commitment (marriage, civil partnerships, buying a house together etc). Group workshops are ideal for those couples who are want to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of different relationship structures, and those who want to understand potential sources of conflict and how to deal with them. One to one sessions are more useful for those couples who have serious personal or conflict issues in their relationship which need to be focused on, and the counsellor will most likely want to see you both together, to understand how you interact as a couple and also so that they can aid communication between the two of you, and in some cases may also find it beneficial to set up a few individual sessions with each person as well.

The Right Time to Seek Counselling
It is important that you do not leave counselling until it is too late, and that you do not consider it as a ‘last resort’ option. Even counselling will not be able to help your relationship if you have allowed years of bitterness and resentment to build up, and the time to consider counselling is when you are experiencing situations such as:

• You have tried to communicate to your partner about a serious relationship problem, but they are unable or unwilling to consider or talk about it with you and you feel as if you have ‘hit a brick wall’.
• You both try to talk about problems, but you just go round in circles never achieving any solutions.
• Whenever you and your partner try to talk about serious issues it always turns into a shouting match.
• You are afraid to bring up a subject with your partner, because it will make things worse and so problems are left unresolved.

You should select a quiet time to broach the subject of counselling with your partner, and try to discuss this calmly and understand if they have any problems or concerns with this route. If your partner refuses to attend counselling with you, then you could try and give it a go yourself, and they may be more willing to join you at a later date. It is difficult to resolve a relationship problem if only one person is willing to attend the counselling sessions, but they can be beneficial to help the individual work out their own feelings, which can have a positive effect on the relationship as a whole.

• benefits of relationship counselling