Couples therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which the couple attends sessions together with a psychotherapist. The meetings are weekly and last for 1 hour . Couples who seek couples psychotherapy are usually facing challenges in their relationship .
The most common challenges are:
A terapia de casal tem como principais objetivos:
Specificities of Therapy for Multicultural Couples
Couples Therapy for multicultural couples is my passion. I currently work with couples who speak Portuguese and English. This practice enables me to work with couples of different nationalities who use English as a communication tool within the home environment.
We know that the challenges of true communication – speaking and being effectively understood – are some of the greatest challenges for all people. What we communicate is not always effectively understood, in the way we would like. We are not always able to be clear about our demands. Our emotions get in the way and we are led to act and/or react in ways that take us further away from the desired objective when communicating our demand.
A very common example is when one of the partners comes home, wanting to be welcomed, hugged, and spend quality time, and sees their partner immersed in their own private world, “inwardly” looking at their cell phone. This scene can be a trigger for many people, as it can generate frustration, anger, sadness… depending on the emotion that the person is experiencing, they will react in a certain way, which will bring them closer or further away from the goal/desire of closeness with their partner.
How can I communicate at this moment? If it is already difficult in our native language, imagine in a foreign language, where I will have to do a harder job of finding the right words to express my frustration, without sounding too aggressive or frustrated?
This situation is just a small sample of a much larger universe of challenges and potential conflicts in a multicultural partnership. The ones I see most in my practice are:
Couples therapy for those who are dating, is it possible?
Without a doubt. Couples therapy is recommended for any and all romantic partnerships. One of the biggest challenges in any relationship is assertive communication. What is assertive communication?
Assertive communication is the ability to communicate needs and/or desires clearly and in a way that is consistent with what you want to achieve. In order to communicate something clearly, we first need to know what we want, how important it is to you, and feel worthy of receiving something that we understand to be precious.
However, when we have difficulty understanding how important this is to ourselves, when we don’t feel that the other person will understand, or when we simply expect the other person to guess what we want… we easily get upset and can enter into cycles of repetitive resentment that are difficult to break.
Couples therapy provides a space for safe and empathetic listening, in which each partner feels comfortable expressing what they want and/or need, without feeling inadequate or vulnerable to the other person’s lack of understanding. By doing this exercise, you will be working on a very rich process that goes in two directions: self-knowledge (knowledge of yourself) and knowledge of the other (of the partnership in question). Couples therapy helps develop empathy, which is the ability to understand the other person’s point of view, within the context of the other person’s life. In addition to caring for the relationship, therapy cares for the individuals who, in this process, develop the ability to better understand their emotional needs and communicate them assertively and respectfully. Many young couples ask me: will this relationship work? To which I usually respond: there are many causes and conditions for this relationship to last in the future. However, the future does not happen without ACTION IN THE NOW. And the more self-aware we are of who we are, in the PRESENT, the clearer the answer becomes. Therapists do not have a “crystal ball” for the future, but they certainly offer clarity about the decisions made in the present.
How can marital wounds affect the relationship?
Being in a relationship with another person is one of the most complex conditions in society. We need to be aware of our emotional needs, as well as those of our partners. The idea is well summed up by Saint Exupéry’s phrase in “The Little Prince”: “you are eternally responsible for those you have tamed”.
This phrase translates, in a few words, the power of falling in love: when someone falls in love with you, they give you a “power” above that of other people, because anything you do that could hurt them will cause much greater pain. The person we love can hurt us in a much deeper and more painful way than any other person in our lives.
Therefore, the responsibility within a relationship in which there is a conjugal agreement is much greater than in any other type of relationship (not to mention the relationship between parents and children).
Marital wounds are painful situations experienced by one or both partners in the partnership, which alter the pattern of trust and security within the conjugal relationship. Examples include: betrayal, financial decisions not previously agreed upon, decisions that impact the lives of children; acts of violence (verbal and/or physical).
These wounds, if not worked through and dealt with in a therapeutic context, can serve as input for unhealthy dynamics within the context of the partnership, depending on how each person processes this experience. It can generate guilt and shame, which undermines the self-esteem of one of the partners; it can generate anger and a desire for punishment, which can start cycles of violence, visible or invisible.
It is highly recommended to seek help in these cases. There is no way to overcome an emotional wound without support if one wants to have a relationship that is a source of well-being. It is a decision that takes into account the care of both partners in the partnership.
