Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Pre-marital Counseling
Call 512-983-1120 to schedule a free one hour in office consultation with Dr. Ross
You may benefit from couples counseling before you get married (pre-marital counseling) or at any time during the lifetime of your marriage along a continuum between enhancing a “good” relationship to saving a marriage in trouble.
Consider couples counseling if you want to:
Improve your communication
Improve your intimacy
Increase your feelings of friendship
Decrease intensity of disagreements and come to some resolution
Be able to discuss your concerns more constructively
Feel more love and passion in your relationship
Have a more satisfying sex life
Effectively work through life stresses and transitions (employment, children, blended family, deteriorating marriage)
Rebuild your relationship after a loss of trust in your partner
Rebuild your relationship after an extra-marital affair
- Save your relationship
Overview of the process for couples counseling:
Dr. Ross participates with you in comprehensively assessing your couple's relationship to identify strengths, areas for improvement and meaningful goals.
Couples counseling is a safe place to openly discuss your relationship. In general, Dr. Ross will use scientifically validated interventions to help partners to achieve their goals identified in step 1. Typical goals may include increasing marital friendship, improving and increasing intimacy, improving communication, improving problem solving, improving interpersonal interaction and establishing more positive feelings and behaviors. The scientifically proven principles that I use are based on the research and practice by those pre-eminent in couples counseling including John M. Gottman, Leslie S. Greenberg, Susan M. Johnson, Andrew Christensen, and Neil S. Jacobson.
Dr. Ross will make suggestions of homework that you and your partner can address between counseling sessions. It shouldn't be surprising to expect that additional effort outside of the couples counseling session will enhance and re-enforce your progress.
As you are approaching the end of counseling sessions, Dr. Ross will help you to consolidate gains. Thus, you should have the ability to continue improving your relationship and work through new challenges on your own. Also, you will have strategies to help prevent relapse. If needed, you can always schedule a follow-up appointment to help address specific issues and to enhance ongoing progress.
More details of couples counseling for those wanting to know more:
It is best to seek couples counseling sooner rather than later, but later is better than never. That is why I offer a free one hour consultation to give you an opportunity to discuss your concerns and learn more about whether or not couples counseling may be helpful to you. To schedule a free consultation appointment please call 512-983-1120.
As humurously depicted in the cartoon below, consider couple’s counseling before it is too late!
Our relationship with our partner is often one of the most salient in our life; therefore, it is no wonder that it can invoke the strongest of our emotions from happiness to anger. Couples counseling is a serious business. Thus, I only use scientifically validated theories and strategies in working with couples. The scientifically proven principles that I use are based on the research and practice by those pre-eminent in couples counseling including John M. Gottman, Leslie S. Greenberg, Susan M. Johnson, Andrew Christensen, and Neil S. Jacobson.
Often couples feel that the only way their relationship will improve is if their partner changes. Not surprisingly your partner may not agree. One thing you may have in common is that you both feel stuck in being able to change or improve your relationship.
If you feel this way, you are not alone and help is available. So how can couples counseling help? Sometimes individuals believe that each partner will discuss their perspective of the relationship with their counselor and then this “objective” couple’s counselor will identify the problem and make suggestions to correct it.
The following is a brief description to clarify the process of couples counseling.
1) Dr. Ross participates with you in comprehensively assessing your marriage relationship to identify strengths, areas for improvement and meaningful goals. You wouldn’t trust a physician’s evaluation and treatment without an adequate assessment would you?
2) You each have perspectives that affect your relationship. Couples counseling is a safe place to compare your notes and to openly discuss your relationship. In general, Dr. Ross will only use scientifically validated interventions to help partners to achieve their goals identified in step 1) above. Typical goals may include increasing marital friendship, improving and increasing intimacy, improving communication, improving problem solving. Often interpersonal interaction is problematic in distressed couples. Through guidance from Dr. Ross, you will have an opportunity to explore and identify problematic interactions and practice more helpful ways of interacting to improve your relationship to meet each others needs.
3) Dr. Ross will make suggestions of homework that you and your partner can address between counseling sessions. Often this homework may be something fun that you can do with your partner or be an opportunity to learn more about yourself or your partner. It shouldn't be surprising to expect that additional effort outside of the couples counseling session will enhance and re-enforce your progress.
4) As you are approaching the end of counseling sessions, Dr. Ross will help you to consolidate gains. Thus, you should have the ability to continue improving your relationship and work through new challenges on your own. Also, you will have strategies to help prevent relapse. In conclusion, my philosophy is along the lines of this saying, "you can give a person a fish and feed them for a day or you can teach a person how to fish and feed them for a lifetime." Thus, my philosophy in couple's counseling is to help you achieve greater awareness and insight into how you can continue to enhance your relationship for a lifetime rather than merely solve one particular problem. If needed, you can always schedule a follow-up appointment to help address specific issues and to enhance ongoing progress. Ultimately, my purpose is to help you to achieve your goal(s).