Great Couples Counselling in Toronto, ON. Therapy to heal relationships.

Working on the relationship requires an openness to learn, grow and reflect as a couple. The focus in sessions is to shift the oppositional energy, allowing the couple to come together as a team trying to overcome challenges. In sessions you'll learn to regulate emotions, communicate more effectively, understand the underlying parts of you that are getting triggered, and bring intentional joy into the relationship to strengthen your bonds as a couple and breed deeper connection for longer lasting, healthier love. Monogamous and polyamorous couples of all genders, sexual orientations and cultural backgrounds are welcome.

If you are having difficulties in an intimate relationship, I can help by giving a therapeutic environment which is fair and promotes healthy communication between you and your partner. We can talk about barriers to intimacy in the relationship, trust, sex, fertility, infidelity, communication and more. Ideally, together, you will both find some common ground and end up in a stronger position to move forward together in your relationship.

I help clients understand the negative interactional cycles that they find themselves in. After and during this movement towards understanding, we get at the underlying emotions and attachment needs that are so critical to having a safe-haven relationship with one's partner. The goal is to be safe, secure, understood and compassionately held in a love relationship.

My approach is to help people recognize that relationships are two-sided and understand how each individual contributes to the couple’s dynamic. With that understanding, we work toward reaching a win-win situation, aiming to restore the satisfaction of the relationship. Together, we create a safe space for you to grow past the areas of “stuckness” -- that is, the old patterns that are learned when we are young and are brought to our current relationships. This is true for all of us. Therapy enables us to form new and healthy attachment patterns that are nourishing and nurturing, providing opportunities for new growth and satisfaction.

Couples therapy is not just for times of trouble, it is also important for building a strong foundation to an already strong relationship. Our couples therapists focus on learning about your unique relationship and what each of you bring to the table. We tailor this process to what your relationships needs, which could be healing from a trauma, infidelity, loss, and/or life stress. We are here to help and to support your relationship.

When a couple is in trouble, the act of seeking out a counsellor has to be motivated by the desire to stay together through hard work. Therapy is not for those who need it but for those who want it. This is even more true when it comes to working with couples. The journey is one of finding once more what brought them together in the first place. We work with forgiveness and building trust. We find ways for the couple to once again feel a sense of warmth and compassion as we break down the walls of resentment. We look at what is triggering the couple to fight. We go through the anatomy of a common and repetitive fight. i also teach the couple some body centered techniques.

I’ve been helping people lead more intentional lives for over 20 years. Couples therapy supports you in reaching a fresh connection with your partner. You have the ability to have a meaningful relationship. I can help you learn the skills to communicate in a way that will get your needs met. I’m trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, developmental models,and anxiety and depression management. I will support you in creating a set of tools to help you discover your objective. Most importantly, you're a distinctive couple, with distinctive needs. My goal is to work with you as a unique couple, and focus on YOUR goals.

One of the biggest decisions we make in life is choosing our partner. And then the real work begins. Divorce rates speak to how difficult sustaining a healthy marriage can be. Evidence-based studies have shown essential elements to a healthy and nourishing relationship. Couples counselling focuses on a variety of these areas including, communication, conflict management/resolution, and connection. Presenting issues include communication, conflict, infidelity, parenting issues, separation and divorce.

I offer couples the opportunity to explore the root causes of their relationship concerns within a safe, supportive environment. As an objective third party, I am able to facilitate enhanced communication between the couple to help them develop greater objectivity, learn to hear and meet one another’s needs more effectively, and overcome automatic defenses that may be hindering their connection to strengthen and restore their partnership.

When couples feel as though they are no longer able to communicate effectively, have lost patience with each other, have developed a lack of trust, empathy and feelings of desire, this can cause thoughts of helplessness and uncertainty about the future of their relationship. When couples are committed to working together to develop the trust, communication and time together that they once had, they can feel as though they are a partnership once again.

All relationships hit rough patches from time to time. However couples who have the skills to identify and talk in a mature and calm manner are able to manage these rough patches before they become mighty marriage mountains to scale. When couples struggle to communicate, be active and present participants in their relationship, take responsibility for their part of the problem and the solution we end up with a breakdown of the relationship. It is possible to learn the skills that will improve your relationship. Working on improving communication skills, conflict resolutions and negotiating skills, stress and self management skills and much more will help grow your relationship.

Healthy relationships and emotional connection are typically fostered by effective communication and boundaries. Therapy can help you and your partner understand the patterns you are currently feeling stuck in and learn how to communicate each of your needs and perspectives from a place of vulnerability, compassion, and care. I work with individuals, couples and families. Book a free consultation to explore if we are a good fit for therapy.

I use 9 steps of Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) to help couples identify their negative interaction cycle and each partner's role in that cycle. Steps 1-4 entails empowering the couples to access unacknowledged emotions underlying the interactional positions and to reframe the challenges in terms of underlying feelings and attachment needs. Steps 5-7 entails supporting and mediating couples to change interactional positions and creating new bonding experiences. Steps 8-9 entails encouraging the couples to integrate new solutions to old relational problems.

What are the most common couples' issues? If you are thinking "communication, conflict, sex, money, child rearing" you are correct. However, most therapists will go after the symptom on each side of the couple fence thinking that the way to effective change is by getting each party to "work" on their respective "issue". Many times the parties don’t agree but comply. Imagine if you could align the unconscious brains of a couple and stop the "working on your issues" part that has become so popular in therapy settings? Contact kevin@kevinflemingphd.com to learn how! Or call 877-606-6161. DR. FLEMING'S NEW RELATIONSHIP/COUPLES INTENSIVES. www.kevinflemingphd.com/marriage-couples-retreats.php

In the downtown Toronto area, people come to see me for help with marital and couples-related conflicts. I am very comfortable helping couples who are in straight, gay, or lesbian relationships. Conflicts often come up between partners in relation to difficulties with intimacy, conflicts surrounding extended family members, and disagreements around family goals and priorities.

You can have an even better relationship! I work with you to identify what your issues are. We learn what your communication issues are, what is working and what is not in your relationship and implement practical action plans to improve this. Further, we identify your negative patterns of relating to each other and how this is a habit that hurts the relationship, and we learn how to get out of that pattern, shift behaviors, and relate in the most respectful, loving, kind manner which ultimately often improves your sex life, your happiness, and your fulfillment.

My specialized practice is prioritizes couples. I use Emotionally Focused Therapy, the gold-standard of evidence based treatment for couples. When you invest in couples therapy, my guess is that you want to know your therapist is experienced and can fully focus on your journey together. All of my energy, time, and continued training is focused on supporting people to organize, understandm and deepen emotions internally and in their most intimate relationships. I not only believe in this approach to therapy, but I also live it in my daily life and relationships. EFT truly gets the heart of our adult attachment needs, and helps us to chart a path forward for a preferred future.

Couples counselling focusses on enhancing your relationship with your partner. You may do this type of therapy with, or without, your partner. Benefits to your relationship still can come from attending couples sessions on your own, such as, improving communication skills, developing assertiveness, overcoming resentments, improving intimacy, learning new ways to deal with your partner. When attending with your partner: * Learning how each of you are in relationships (early influences, patterns, self-defeating styles) * Increasing self-expression * Learning constructive ways to argue and fight * Better understanding of the each other (who you are really dealing with)

Satisfying relationships require effective communication, respect, mutuality, and consideration. Couples need to be responsive to the needs of the relationship and responsive to the needs of each individual within the relationship. Skills are not taugh in life and often need to be learned as we go. These relational skills need to be learned and are learned best in relationships. Some people are fortunate enough to learn some of these skills in their families of origin, the rest of us learn as we go, so to speak. A relationship therapist can be a real asset in helping to acquire these important skills. In addition to relationship skills we may also need help understanding our behaviours.