Relationship Counselor or Couple's Therapist
Licensed couple therapist may refer to a pyschiatrist, clinical social workers, psychologists,pastoral counsellors, marriage and family therapists, and psychiatric nurses. The duty and function of a relationship counselor or couple's therapist is to listen, respect, understand and facilitate better functioning between those involved.
The basic principles for a counselor include:
- Provide a confidential dialogue, which normalizes feelings
- To enable each person to be heard and to hear themselves
- Provide a mirror with expertise to reflect the relationship's difficulties and the potential and direction for change
- Empower the relationship to take control of its own destiny and make vital decisions
- Deliver relevant and appropriate information
As well as the above, the basic principles for a couples therapist also include:
- To identify the repetitive, negative interaction cycle as a pattern.
- To understand the source of reactive emotions that drive the pattern.
- To expand and re-organize key emotional responses in the relationship.
- To facilitate a shift in partners' interaction to new patterns of interaction.
- To create new and positively bonding emotional events in the relationship
- To foster a secure attachment between partners.
- To help maintain a sense of intimacy.
Common core principles of relationship counseling and couple's therapy are:
- Respect
- Empathy
- Tact
- Consent
- Confidentiality
- Accountability
- Expertise
- Evidence based
- Certification, ongoing training and supervision
In both methods, the practitioner evaluates the couple's personal and relationship story as it is narrated, interrupts wisely, facilitates both de-escalation of unhelpful conflict and the development of realistic, practical solutions. The practitioner may meet each person individually at first but only if this is beneficial to both, is consensual and is unlikely to cause harm. Individualistic approaches to couple problems can cause harm. The counselor or therapist encourages the participants to give their best efforts to reorienting their relationship with each other. One of the challenges here is for each person to change their own responses to their partner's behaviour. Other challenges to the process are disclosing controversial or shameful events and revealing closely guarded secrets. Not all couples put all of their cards on the table at first. This can take time.
Read more about this topic: Relationship Counseling
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