Individual Couples Counseling Makes Sense
Your first couples counseling session is traditionally something that both you and your partner will attend together. After all, there are two of you in the relationship and healing that relationship will require work and dedication from both of you. As with any relationship-related process, couples counseling won’t work if only one of you is trying. There are times, however, where it is helpful if you meet with your couples counselor individually for the first fifteen minutes or so before the start of your joint counseling sessions.
The reasons for meeting with your counselor one-on-one during the first session are very logical, even though it seems to fly in the face of the joint counseling dynamic.
First of all, the initial contact with the counselor is an important step in ascertaining the individual thoughts and feelings as well as the personal viewpoint of your position in the relationship. There are things that a person would feel uncomfortable divulging in front of their partner during the first few sessions that are actually vitally important to the full understanding of the relationship. For instance, Sara, at her first counseling session, was happy to be able to speak to her counselor alone because of a specific issue she was having with her partner, John.
John gets angry and starts throwing things around. He has never hurt me, but I’m scared of him during arguments. I can’t help it. I’ve never told him, but I avoid conflicts with him because I’m afraid to fight with him.
This was an incredibly important fact that the counselor needed to understand before he could begin to address the trust and conflict management issues in this couples’ relationship. Sara would not have been able to talk about that issue in front of John at that time, because she was afraid of the consequences.
The couples counselor in this case was able to gradually get John to talk about his anger issues and the ways in which it affected those around him.
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