Individual vs Couples Therapy in San Francisco, CA
In a relationship, how do you know if you need to work on yourself, or if the issue is relational and couples therapy is in order? How to choose a couples therapist (various approaches: EFT, Gottman, etc).
When is couples therapy the right choice for you?
Individual therapy can be a meaningful place to sort out all kinds of experiences in a nonjudgmental space. Sorting out those experiences can lead to the kind of growth and change many people seek in their life. Much of this growth has to do with our relationship with ourselves – which is arguably the most important relationship we have.
Often, our next most significant relationship is the one we have with our partner. And like individual therapy, couples therapy can help us sort out experiences as well. Our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors don’t happen in a vacuum. They often happen in response to another person. At its best, couples therapy can be just as meaningful a place to sort out difficulties. Not to mention, in couples therapy, you are building skills around communication and empathy that you can bring home. You are also creating a supportive environment within your relationship. Learning how to be supportive and validating within your relationship can foster a deeper connection – one for which many of us are searching.
Most commonly, I see people enter couples therapy to improve communication and rebuild trust. Both communication and trust are two-way streets. So having all concerned parties present can lead to effective growth.
Experience growth through therapy in San Francisco, CA
Rebuilding trust and improving communication must grow together. Trust can not happen without communication. Good communication does not always, in and of itself, build trust. Depending on how the bond of trust was broken, you may need deeper emotional attunement to move forward. Emotion-Focused Therapy is based on attachment theory and can be hugely effective in helping couples heal wounds. Deepening your emotional understanding of your partner can rebuild an even stronger connection. By uncovering how this break in the trust occurred, you can work together to prevent it from happening again. In this way, you can learn how to use conflict and communication to increase intimacy.
I have also seen couples therapy work well for people who have an individual problem or at least seem to have one. In individual therapy, we’re much more likely to see issues like work stress, a mental health diagnosis, substance abuse, or grief. But, these individual issues don’t occur without outside influence. When in a relationship, it is important to begin learning how to support one another and communicate with one another. Further, I find it crucial to work on your ability to empathize and share your needs and feelings with one another. Working on these skills can be an effective way to strengthen your support system. And, it can help establish more lasting environmental change. Strong communication skills will, of course, improve conflict within the relationship. But these skills can also help you feel like you have a teammate in the battle against life’s stressors. This is much better than feeling like life’s stressors are pushing your partner further away. Using techniques based on the Gottman Method or Nonviolent Communication can be incredibly helpful. These techniques aid in building relationships that last a long time and endure life’s tough stuff.
Work on your goals together
It helps to know your goals when entering into any kind of therapy. As Lewis Carroll puts it, “if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” This remains true for couples therapy, as well. In fact, it may be more important, because there are more peoples’ dreams and emotions to consider. If you and your partner have different goals, then it is important to acknowledge that. Working through this will likely change what therapy looks like. If you’re entering into therapy with different agendas and are not honest about that with one another, therapy will seem more challenging. It will likely feel a bit like taking a tense carousel ride, repeating the same patterns over and over.
If one or both of you is interested in using couples therapy as a way to “figure out” whether you should remain together, Discernment Counseling could be a really good fit. Discernment counseling is focused on determining if the relationship is salvageable. However, many other therapies are focused on how to salvage things.
I believe wholeheartedly that couples therapy can make your life better. Feeling supported, loved, and cared for in your relationship expands our capacity to deal with life’s stressors. At this point, it’s common knowledge that married individuals have a longer life expectancy. And, people with strong social support have improved mental health outcomes. Learning the skills to strengthen your relationships can improve many other areas of your world. Whether you decide to move forward with individual work or couples work, making a choice to honor the relationships in your life is an admirable one.
Start Couples or Individual Therapy Today
Whether you are ready to work through things with your partner or want to start by exploring your past on your own, we are here for you. Our couples therapists are ready to support you and your partner on this journey. Or, see our individual therapists for a chance to work one-on-one with a therapist at our San Francisco, CA-based therapy practice. Not able to make it to the office? We offer online therapy for anyone residing in the state of California. Contact us today to get started on your healing journey.
Other Services at California Integrative Counseling Center
Our therapists can help with more than couples and individual therapy. We are trained in ADHD treatment and help for rejection-sensitive dysphoria and therapy for life transitions as well. If you aren’t quite yet ready for therapy, consider reading some of our other blog posts.
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