Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

5 Reasons To Have Pre-marriage Counselling Before Getting Married

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pre-marriage counselling manchesterI read with great interest last week that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to have premarital counselling before they get married in April. They will receive this counselling from the Bishop of London, Dr. Richard Chartres, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. This is a couple that will have enormous pressure placed on their marriage.  From having their relationship analysed, dissected and speculated about endlessly in the press and by demanding jobs that require long periods of time away from each other, I guess they are going to need all the help and support they can get.

But what about us ordinary mortals? Why should we bother with marriage counselling before we are even married?  Having worked with couples in crisis it is becoming more and more apparent to me that learning “relationship skills” at the beginning of the journey can save a great deal of pain, upset and distress further down the road.

In this post I will outline five reasons I think all couples, straight or gay, who intend to make a long term commitment to each other should consider premarital counselling.

  1. Pre-marriage counselling can teach you how to talk to each other. The central focus of my work with couples is teaching them how to talk to each other so both can stay safe, both feel heard and both learn to listen. Learning these skills at any stage of the relationship is going to be transformative. Why not learn it at the beginning rather than when things get tough? I teach couples Imago couples dialogue to do this, other therapists may use different techniques.
  2. Pre-marriage counselling can explain why you chose each other in the first place. In Imago Relationship Therapy, the theory is that we choose our partner to allow ourselves to heal childhood wounds. In order to do this we have to choose someone with both good and bad attributes of our parents and key influencers in childhood (read more about this in Dr. Adam Sheck’s post here) .  The down side of this is that once we have made the commitment to stay in a relationship, such as marriage, it’s likely that we are going to start noticing the negative stuff our partner displays more than the positive stuff. If we have had pre-marriage counselling and understand this will happen and why it will happen, it allows us to ride it out and appreciate that it’s at this point in our relationship that we have our best opportunity for growth.
  3. You learn about what events in the journey are likely to test you out as a couple. For straight couples this could be the birth of the first child or a new role as a step-parent, for gay couples it may be dealing with family pressures or how to manage homophobia directed your way as a couple. What ever it is, pre-marriage counselling gives you a “heads up” and creates a space for you to plan some strategies to put in place should the issue come your way.
  4. You will learn about how to resolve disagreements. We all learnt strategies to get our needs met as children. As adults these strategies may not be appropriate any more. Pre-marital counselling teaches how to deal with differences of opinion or even downright disagreements. In Imago Relationship Therapy the technique you would learn to do this is called a “behaviour change request”. It’s a safe way of communicating your needs and desires to your partner and listening in turn to theirs. It gives both partners the information needed to change their behaviour as a gift for their partner.
  5. You get to express your feelings of love and affection for your partner. That’s why you’re making a long term commitment to each other in the first place right? In Imago “appreciation dialogues” give the opportunity to thank your partner for things they have done for you that you’re really liked and just outright tell your partner how great they are! If you can get into that habit at the beginning of your relationship, you’re on the road to success straight away!

Premarital counselling is much more common in the USA than in the UK and I would love to change that. It amazes me that we go into something as important as marriage or civil partnership without preparing in any way for the emotional difficulties that are inevitable in a long term union with another human being. So, for the price of a wedding cake, go invest in a pre-marriage workshop or set of counselling sessions in your local area – it may be the best investment you could ever make.

Are There Lizards In Your Relationship?

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Your Brain and Your RelationshipWhen workign with couples I use Imago Relationship Therapy. Imago places a great emphasis on safety. An Imago couples counsellor will work hard at keeping both partners safe and ensure that they keep each other safe as they are talking. This post looks at why it’s important to feel safe in our relationships and how this allows growth for both partners.

Let’s start at the beginning, and I mean the very beginning for us humans. We are going to talk about the human evolutionary journey. There is now plenty of evidence to suggest that our brains formed in three stages;

  • First our lizard brain formed (the brain stem) – we were pretty basic creatures at this stage so needed tactics to stay alive. When under threat this part of our brain tells us to fight, run away, freeze (think rabbit in headlight) or submit.
  • Next came our mammalian brain (the limbic system) – this allowed us to have emotions, become social animals and form relationships (think wolves in packs).
  • Finally our logical brain (the cerebral cortex) – this is our thinking part, the only animal with a bigger cerebral cortex than humans is the dolphin (so don’t play chess with them ‘cos they will beat you). This is our speech, writing, maths, time and logical process centre. It’s the part of the brain that allows us to make decisions and veto those biological urges we have that may not be useful for us, e.g playing dead when sitting examinations has never been a great strategy if we want to progress up the education ladder!

I guess you can see where this post is now heading! When we apply this model to our relationships it becomes obvious that shouting at our partner is not going to get us what we want. If they get scared then old lizard brain kicks in and you may as well be talking to a gecko! Their brains are not going to have the capacity to think things through and they are just going to be focusing on survival. Logic and mammalian brain are switched off and they get ready to run away, do nothing, attack back or just agree with everything you say in an attempt to shut you up. Been there? I know I have!

Everyday strategies to avoid lizarding your loved one!

Many of these techniques are naturally built into Imago Relationship Therapy, but you don’t need to be working with a therapist to do them. Try the following:

  • Book an appointment with your partner when you want to talk about something important to you. It may be that they are ready to listen to you right there and then. If not, agree a time when both of you are in the right frame of mind to discuss the issue.
  • Avoid criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness when talking to your partner. Once you introduce any of these bad boys into the conversation you are going to be talking to a lizard faster than you can say “Godzilla”! Check out my post on these four relationship wreckers here.
  • Stick with “I” statements. Talking about yourself rather than your partner is much less confrontational and will keep your partner safe.
  • Have a soft start up. Ease your way into the discussion rather than hitting your partner full in the face with your demands! “I realise you are working really hard to bring money in for the family and I miss you when you aren’t around at dinner time” feels very different to “you are always bloody late for dinner you selfish pig”! John Gottman found that he could predict the outcome of an argument from the first sentence very accurately. Soft startups allowed discussion to happen (lizard free), whilst harsh startups pretty much always rapidly descended into arguments where both partners felt hugely wronged.
  • Repair as you go along. Once more, Gottman found that couples adept in the art of repairing whilst arguing stayed together. It was one of the most common skills found in couples that had been happily married long term. A repair attempt might be something like “yeah – I could see how you would think that, I was pretty grouchy yesterday” or “I know you are stressed at work at the moment and you don’t mean to snap at me”. It’s basically putting yourself in your partner’s shoes and validating their point of view.

If you can do a few of the suggestions above you are well on the way to a lizard free relationship. You’re not going to get it right all the time, no one does, but these techniques can make a significant difference to the feel of the relationship and make it a safer place to be. With safety comes the potential for change and growth for you both.

What To Expect From Couples Counselling

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what to expect from couples counselling in ManchesterMany people are unsure of what to expect when they come for couples counselling.  In this post I will outline what you can expect if you work with me at Manchester Psychotherapy.  I use Imago Relationship Therapy in all my sessions.  Imago Relationship Therapy presumes that you are both OK, you both have needs that you are trying to get met, and that you are both well matched to help your partner get their needs met.

One thing I will not be doing is allowing you to come and spend time arguing.  You probably do lots of that at home and there is no point paying me to watch you do it!  The vast majority of the time you will be in dialogue with each other and I will be guiding you.

A typical session will look like this:

Arrival – focusing on getting you grounded and ready to listen to your partner.

Intentions – What do you want to achieve from this session?  How do you need to be to achieve it?

Dialogue – One partner will talk (we call this sending) and the other will listen (we call this receiving).  The receiver will mirror what the sender has said back to them, validate and empathise.  Can you imagine what that feels like?  Your partner will be listening to every word you say and mirroring it back – demonstrating that they really were listening.  Contrast this with the diatribe that usually happens in a relationship where one person talks then the other person talks back, usually invalidating what their partner has just said. Being listened to, validated and understood feels fantastic! Once the sender has finished sending the roles are swapped and the receiver now sends, often responding to what they have just heard from their partner.

When sending the focus is on owning feelings, staying away from blame and keeping your partner safe.  Senders use “I feel” statements or “the story I’m telling myself..” sentences to do this.  It’s my job as the therapist to make sure both partners do not feel attacked or criticised.

Towards the end of the session couples will move into appreciation dialogues – what they like about their partner either during the session or out of it.  This brings the positive into your awareness and reminds the couple of why they are together in the first place.

If you are in couples therapy then about 90% of what you have in your relationship is likely to be working.  The trouble is that we often can only see the 10% that’s not, just like a sore toe can make our whole body feel rotten.  Imago Relationship Therapy aims to bring that 90% back into your awareness.

So how do couples resolve disagreements in Imago Relationship Therapy?  When partners have things they want their other half to change the dialogue process will focus on “behaviour change requests”.  This is a way of dialoguing about something that you want done differently in your relationship and explaining what feelings go on for you when your partner behaves in that way.  These feelings are often linked to childhood and so there is some exploration of that area too.  Once the information about the issue has been sent the sender will also suggest ways in which their partner can do things differently. The receiver gets to choose which ones they may be able to “stretch into”.  If the receiver can’t see any other way of doing things then they couple will dialogue about that.

I’m sure you appreciate that this post can only cover the bare bones of what happens in a session. Imago Relationship Therapy provides an effective way of structuring couples therapy and keeps the process safe for both partners.  It’s about healing the wounds and bringing you together.  There is no sitting around slagging your partner off to the therapist or wallowing in all the bad things that have happened between you.  The aim is for you to be leaving the session feeling more positive about your relationship than when you came.  There will be times when you want to dialogue about painful events in your relationship and this will be done in a way that your partner can really listen, stay safe and avoid defensiveness.  By doing this wounds start to heal and the couple learn that their partner is an essential key to their own growth and happiness.

I’m going to finish this article by stating that I love doing Couples counselling, I feel passionate about it.  I think the Imago Relationship Therapy model I use is beautiful and I love seeing the couples I work with connecting with each other on a deep level whilst using it.  If your relationship is under pressure then I would love to work with you to help you realise the great relationship you could have too.