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

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.

At Chanderbhan Counselling we understand that like all individuals, that relationships too are unique. Keeping that in mind, we work with both persons to create common goals for counselling or therapy. The counsellor is an impartial advocate for both parties and can help negotiate and improve communication, and help achieve resolution for your shared goals. Some examples of issues where counselling can help couples include: Communication & Openness, Anger & Assertiveness, Intimacy, Gender Roles, Issues of Infidelity, Pre-marital Counselling, Financial Issues, Moving In Together, Parenting, Ending a Relationship, Post Relationship Work: Working Towards a Friendship.

I have worked with couples for over 7 years. Very often we are attracted to our partner because they have the qualities we don't possess. And we LOVE those things about them! For a while anyway. After a period time, those qualities become the very things that drives us the most crazy. "Why can't you be more like me!", we think to ourselves (or say out loud!). When I work with couples, I explore how our partner holds the very thing we need in ourselves. I help couples find a better way to communicate, as they explore "the elephant in the room" in a safe environment. I provide feedback on what I notice, so they can find new awarenesses and new ways of being with the other.

Are you contemplating divorce? Does your spouse want a divorce? Has your relationship reached the breaking point? Are you feeling disrespected, mistrustful? Is your spouse (or yourself) looking outside the marriage? Do you suffer from lack of intimacy or sexual desire? Believe it or not, these are all good signs that you still care and and have the intention to save your marriage, if you could. What if you found a way to make your partner understand your needs and created a relationship that was long-lasting and mutually fulfilling? Divorce Prevention has saved countless families from the harm and permanent aftermath that a divorce could inflict on your life. Even after infidelity.

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.

When someone in a relationship has an addiction to drugs or alcohol, their significant other is also affected by the addiction. The frustrated partners of addicts often despair when communication efforts and sincere efforts to help fail. It is critical for addicts to receive the rehabilitation they need, but without counseling for their spouses and partners, the addict will not return home to a healthy environment. At Valiant Recovery, we offer couples counseling and individual counseling for the spouses and partners of clients who need help processing the impact of addiction, and who are ready to embrace change moving forward.

I work with couples in the framework of the gold standard of couples work, Emotionally Focused Couples therapy. Empirically validated, it is the most contemporary method to bring relief to distressed relationships, and a loss of connection. Clients benefit from having their patterns of behaviour brought out into the open so they can have relief that "it takes two" and that we are not alone in our couples relationships.

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.

I work with both heterosexual and same-sex couples dealing with infertility, communication problems, and trust and intimacy issues. I also help couples using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) with decision making about their family building strategies. Whether or not a couple is facing a life crisis, such as infertility, communication problems often cause the relationship to break down. Often learning new ways to manage conflict can allow couples to reconnect. I try to offer couples opportunities for discovery and experience in session, as well as giving them the tools to rebuild intimacy and trust independently.

When one person is leaning out of the relationship and the future of the relationship is uncertain, discernment counseling provides clarity and confidence in order to make a decision about how to move forward. It is a short term intervention where both partners are supported to gain understanding about the issues in their relationship, and based on that understanding, make a choice about whether try to move forward as a couple or not. It is not couples therapy and "fixing" the relationship is not the goal. Discernment counseling is like taking a step back in order to help each partner assess if repairing the relationship is a feasible and worthwhile endeavor.

Relationships are one of the most fulfilling experiences a person can have in their life. Couples may find themselves faced with challenges that are not always identifiable and can cause you to question your relationship. Couples therapy can provide guidance, support and help you build upon your relationship/bond with your partner, and strengthen the connection that the two of you have so that you can continue to enjoy and appreciate your union. I work with couples in all stages of their relationship. I provide a neutral, supportive and collaborative environment so that you can feel comfortable to express yourself fully.

In working with couples, I use Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. This approach looks at the cycle or emotional dance that occurs within a couple relationship and it seeks to understand how one partner's emotions fuel their behaviors or coping mechanisms, which impact the other partners emotions and so on. Often couples get stuck in an emotional dance of disconnection which becomes polarizing as they each continue to push the other away. Couples often end up in my office once the disconnection has resulted in an affair which has been caught or some other attachment injury. Hope is found once the dance is understood. This initial deescalation can happen in as little as 1-2 sessions.

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.

The miscommunication, the ongoing arguments, the desperation to be heard, the lack of intimacy, the anger, the lack of support and affection, the dilemma, the stuckness and the longing for freedom, are all different states and feelings couple are often complaining about. Therapy makes it possible to shift the dynamic. With the help of a therapist you can connect to your deeper needs and desires, find and support that inner voice and get a chance to feel again that there is space for both of you to really hear each other. Opening to new possibilities and making peace with old or new realities will be an empowering result of therapy.

This therapy specializes in couples counseling. We will specifically address your issues, and help you both grow in your relationship, and as individuals. It is an amazing step to reach out for help, and we will work together to let go of the contention, and confrontation. Your lives will transform into mutual understanding and growth. I offer a free consultation, as finding the right therapist is really important. I look forward to helping you move past this difficult time. www.kenwalton.org ken@kenwalton.org 416-659-1617

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

Are you unhappy in your relationship? Would you like to learn how to treasure each other again? There are many ways to improve things between you and restore caring, IF you are both committed to the outcome. I believe in the work of Harville Hendrix and also in the value of agreeing to disagree sometimes, and to work around it. Forgiveness is a gift to ourselves as well as to our loved ones. Let's get started -- the sooner the better for the health of your relationship.

I use a variety of strategies to help people learn how to nurture and maintain enduring relationships. Using EFT (Emotional Focused Therapy for Couples), along with energetic, cognitive and behavioral strategies, I help people feel, think and act in ways that are most conducive to happiness and harmony in their intimate lives. Often it is more important to repair the process of communication than it is to solve any one issue. Once partners learn how to take care of each other's sensitivities and vulnerabilities, learning to respect rather than change the person they are with, it becomes easier to solve problems and resolve issues.

Our most intimate relationships are where we are often challenged the most to grow. Much of my work with couples is helping each person feel entitled to their feelings and feel able to advocate for their needs within the relationship. So often we have expectations of how our partner or spouse is supposed to be, how we are supposed to be with them and there are unspoken expectations to navigate between us. These assumptions can easily lead to very destructive patterns that we act out with the person we want to feel the closest to. Our work is to strengthen ourselves from the inside out so that we can meet our partner "full of ourselves" and then find ways to be together that are a win win!

When we run into problems in our intimate relationships, there is usually a negative pattern that has evolved. This can be painful and undermining to our connection with our partner. My first job is to help you identify and understand this pattern. Then, I will help each of you to unpack the feelings and beliefs underlying it. In the safety of my office, I will help you learn to communicate on a more intimate level. In this way, you can begin to disarm the triggers that lead to misunderstandings. Once again, you will feel you are there for one another. And you will feel a renewed sense of security in the life you share together.

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.

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.

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)

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.

So much of what life hands us can cause us to feel isolated and lonely: our partnership/marriage shouldn't. Using the framework of EFT Couples Therapy and analysis in psychodynamic psychotherapy, we will be looking at cycles that occur in your partnership and explore why they have been happening particularly in your relationship. You will learn how to communicate your needs and wants in new ways. You will begin to feel heard, understood, supported and supporting and learn how to communicate feelings and thoughts, whether they be difficult or tender, in new ways. This process will unfold quickly and the results will be lasting and palpable. Being together shouldn't mean having to go it alone.