Do you feel at a loss with where your relationship is heading? Do you feel that you and your partner are leading separate lives? Has your relationship stopped being as intimate and fulfilling as it used to be or you would like it to be? Do you find yourselves engaging in constant and repeated negative interactional styles characterized by criticism, conflicts, disengagement and hurt? Do you feel parenting your children has become a burden to you and an unsatisfactory task? Or if any of the issues below are familiar to you and your partner and you want help with the challenge of maintaining satisfying long-term relations, then couple therapy could help to renegotiate your relationship and life plan.
In my practice, I meet with couples (cohabiting, dating, married, same-sex, etc.) who are suffering from any of the following issues:
• Communication and problem-solving difficulties
• Repeated negative and conflictual exchanges: arguments and fights
• Feelings of disconnectedness (physical and/or psychological), loneliness, ambivalence, mistrust, anger, jealousy.
• Divorce or separation concerns
• Issues of intimacy versus autonomy
• Psychosexual problems
• Problems with infidelity and forgiveness
• Disagreement on parenting styles
• Life Transitions and related stresses
• Domestic violence
Distressed couples tend to have more physical health problems and unhappiness than non-distressed couples. They also appear to have more difficulty with parenting and, in cases they have children, their children tend to present more adjustment problems. Couple Therapy contributes to a better understanding of distressing intimate relationships by taking account of the specific behavioural patterns, belief systems, family-of-origin experiences or wider cultural factors in the formation and maintenance of the couple’s problems.
I offer confidential therapeutic sessions to couples to address mutually agreed treatment goals. I utilize a selection of therapeutic techniques stemming from years of training and practice. Following an eclectic therapeutic orientation stemming from narrative, solution-focused, cognitive-behavioural and race/culture/gender-sensitive therapy, I offer couples a nonjudgmental and supportive environment to enhance their partnership and intimacy, improve their communication and form a deeper and more satisfying relationship. I enable each person to be heard and hear one another, as well as to voice concerns and state desires and needs. In this way, I offer them a rather practical approach to their problems as well as a structured and goal-oriented therapeutic process.
Copyright © Systemic Therapy - Amaryllis Kontostavlaki