What to Expect with Couples Counseling
Break the Loops, Meet the Needs, & Build on Your Strengths!
I will want to know about your struggles and victories. I’ll ask if you have any questions about me. Then I’ll want to look at issues you’re facing and will begin equipping you to have good dialogue about them. I’ll teach you many techniques to repair broken communication. I’ll help you to break the “loops” or subtle power struggles.
For example, I’ll help you to “turn complaints into requests” and to find out the meaning of what people say and do (“What did you mean by that?” or “What did you think I meant by that?”). These are examples of many basic communication skills that anyone can learn and improve upon.
Also, if you’re doing anything “right,” such as having an occasional date or listening to each other in session without interruption, I’ll want you to notice the positive. It’s good to find out whenever you’re “having the solution,” rather than the “problem,” and then simply have it more often!
Exploring Needs
Because negative marriage patterns are symptoms of deeper issues, I will want to explore what needs aren’t being met in the marriage, as well as what needs you may be good at meeting. After a couple of sessions, I’ll give each of you a simple assessment (self-scoring test) to discover your top three intimacy needs, and I’ll help you figure out how to meet them. I enjoy helping couples get on the same team and “hold a crown” over each other’s head, looking for the good motives and thinking the best of each other.
Exploring Strengths
Every couple has strengths to build on. They’ve just forgotten them, haven’t noticed them, or haven’t built on them enough. To whatever degree your relationship with God is a strength, I will want to help you capitalize on this strength and foster its growth.
I could have missed the pain but I’d have had to miss the dance. "The Dance"
What to Expect in Individual Counseling
Rewire Your Brain with New Decisions, Thoughts, and Strengthen Relationships!
As with couple counseling, I highly value my relationship with you. I’ll want to learn about you and your strengths. I’ll come along side of you as God allows times of trials and uncertainties in your life.
I will be interested in your family background, your thought life that produces your emotions, your health, support system, and medications that you may be taking. I may also help you to understand your early childhood decisions that enabled your survival. You may want to change some of these decisions and practice acting on new ones in order to truly rewire your brain. Old decisions that are negative probably enabled your survival as a child, but as an adult, they don’t work anymore!
I will give realistic homework assignments and design a treatment plan with your input. And for those who value spirituality, I’ll also encourage the further development of your relationship with God and help you to expand your spiritual sensitivity as a strength for change. A good example of expanding this sensitivity is to increasingly view yourself as God does: loved unconditionally and endowed with many gifts and abilities. I think you’ll really like my practical approach, the different paradigms I’ll give you to look at your problems through, and the coping mechanisms and techniques I’ll teach you.
He who seeks good finds good will.
The maintenance and enhancement of the perceived self are the motives behind all behavior.
What to Expect in ALL Counseling
In all counseling, I accept people where they’re at, and I want to help you meet your stated goals. Just as I encourage couples to “hold a crown of each other’s heads” (looking for their good motives and all that’s unique and special about them), I’ll hold a crown over your head.
If a medical or psychiatric referral is in order, I have a broad referral network. If you are referred to one of these other professionals, I will likely still do the counseling with input from them.
One More Thing!
I believe that prayer and the Word of God are our most powerful tools for change. Therefore, I integrate prayer and scriptures, as appropriate for different clients. I also integrate common sense principles and techniques of many different secular counseling models, as needed. I’ve discovered that anything that works is either mentioned or illustrated in the bible, and I believe that God gives both wisdom and common sense. I’ve taught these biblical principles to some of the secular counseling classes that I’ve completed in graduate school. Classmates of various faiths, or of no faith, were excited to see that so much of what they were learning is in the Bible! I’ve also trained over 250 lay counselors in basic counseling principles and techniques.
To whatever degree faith in God is a part of your life, I will encourage you to develop and exercise your faith (whether it’s small or large!), which will usually help to speed you toward your counseling goals.
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