Exploring Different Types of Couples Therapy

You and your partner haven’t gotten along well for a good while. You wonder if your relationship is headed for a breakup, and you’re thinking of trying couples therapy. Will it help you and your partner?

Happy Apple employs experienced, award-winning therapists who can help you improve and re-energize your relationship. Our therapists draw from a number of theoretical models. Following are two types of research-based couples therapy that have proven effective. 

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT)

EFT gets to the root cause of interpersonal dysfunction. Extreme neediness can result from fears of abandonment, and patterns that push your partner away may arise from fear of rejection. When your attachment to your partner is broken, your therapist works toward having you and your partner reattach and grow through expressing your needs and emotions in constructive ways. 

When you and your partner communicate areas of disagreement, your therapist observes the interactions and points out negative patterns that occur when you argue and disagree. Your counselor uses techniques to dial down the scorched-earth language you and your partner use when you argue. 

Your therapist identifies and explains your attachment styles, such as being dismissive of your partner and avoiding them or being overly anxious and needy. Attachment styles are evident in the way you express or repress emotions, and they’re based on deep, unacknowledged fears that lie beneath negative patterns of communicating. 

Your therapist works to establish a safe environment where you can discuss traumas that have led to dysfunctional communication patterns. You and your partner begin to identify and state your deepest emotional needs. 

Your therapist also teaches you how to respond to your partner with compassion and acceptance. You learn to recognize the dysfunction of previous emotional responses to your partner, and you develop new communication patterns and practice them at home. 

The Gottman Method

This approach to couples therapy is based on years of research on couple relationships by Drs. John and Julie Gottman. It focuses on knowing your partner and what makes them tick as well as actively nurturing positive interactions and admiration for your partner. 

Your therapist observes negative communication as you and your partner talk about your disagreements and lowers the temperature in the room by having you choose respectful words. 

The next step is delving deep into knowing your partner’s wants and needs. You may have known them so well 30 years ago, but each of you has grown in different ways. 

Your therapist helps you create a love map that identifies your partner’s likes and dislikes, your partner’s love language, and your partner’s needs and wants. The love map helps create a new and better understanding of your partner, their past, and the future they want. You’ll know what makes them happy.

Knowing your partner intimately helps create deep understanding and empathy for their fears and concerns. 

Your therapist also focuses on how you and your partner can increase your respect and affection for each other. How long has it been since you complimented your partner on something they’ve achieved or shown appreciation for completing a household task? Do you share any enjoyable activities? 

You work in therapy and also at home finding ways to show appreciation, admiration, and affection.

If your pattern has been to turn away from your partner or to overwhelm them emotionally, you learn new ways of responding emotionally so that you’re present for your partner. You’re able to listen to their needs and respond compassionately.  

Ready to explore couples therapy?

Call Happy Apple or send a message through our secure online portal today so we can help repair and improve your relationship with your significant other. You can also book an appointment online.