Common Questions
OUR NEW PATIENTS ASK
Before couples arrive for their first session, they typically have questions about starting therapy. We hope to address your questions here on the website, but if we do not, please do not hesitate to contact us with any additional concerns you may have.
How Can a Couples Counselor Help?
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Whether we are seeing an individual patient or a couple, we always endeavor to begin with the most pressing problem. We seek to alleviate any unnecessary suffering as soon as possible so that patients may continue their lives in a healthy and adaptive manner.
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Stonebridge works on a number of levels, but the most important outcome is to help solve the problems that patients see as most important. This usually involves focusing on emotional well-being and identifying any emotions that seem conflicting to the situation.
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Focusing on the emotional details of life helps patients to resolve the emotional issues that they bring to therapy so that we are able to resolve the problem(s) in their relationships.
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What Can I Expect When I Start Therapy?
Therapy is about you. We begin with the most presenting concern and then explore any related feelings, behaviors or thoughts associated with them.
The process of therapy is straightforward, and we try to be as transparent in our expectations as possible. Usually after a few sessions, we are able to collaborate with our patients to identify the goals of therapy, as well as give them ideas about how many sessions it may take to resolve the presenting problem(s).
From there, most patients can expect to come in each week and talk about the things that are important to them as they relate to our agreed upon goals.
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What if My Partner or Spouse Won’t Come to Therapy With Me?
This is often a question that we get when there is trouble in a relationship. The best answer is to start therapy anyway. There are tremendous benefits in seeing a licensed couples therapist, even if the problem seems to be someone else.
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As we tell our patients, the only person you can control is yourself, anyway. By actively participating in therapy, we can help you cope with the relationship, seek additional resources if necessary, and possibly even get your partner to come in for a counseling session.
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While there are no guarantees your partner will come, you will learn how to handle a difficult situation in times of stress, as well as gain understanding about how you may be contributing to the problem.
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