Couples counseling is one of the best tools available to heal a struggling relationship. Couples therapy is real therapy – researched, effective, and a great way to address marriage and relationship difficulties.
But it’s also important to remember that a relationship is made up of two individuals. You are one entity, but you are also two people with two different backgrounds, needs, and more. As such, it’s important to remember that sometimes, the best approach to healing a relationship is not healing the relationship, but healing yourself.
Trauma and Relationships
Anxiety, depression, stress – there are many things that affect our ability to be present in relationships, to handle stress, and more.
Past traumas can be especially problematic. There are many situations where a person’s unresolved traumas affect how they feel and how they act in their relationship. For example:
- Past infidelity in an past relationship can cause people to struggle to trust their current partners, even if their partners are not giving them any indications of infidelity.
- Parental issues can cause people to have stress about abandonment, or about how relationships should work. Divorced parents that fought often may lead to children that grow up struggling with affection or stress.
- Assault can lead partners to have trouble with intimacy, which in turn can hurt a relationship over time.
These are all examples of ways that a person’s past traumas can influence how they give and receive love, how they handle stress, and much more. When these situations occur, it is possible to heal them in a couples counseling setting. But it may also be valuable to look at these as an individual issue.
Perhaps, instead of seeking treatment as a couple, you may benefit from receiving your own personal treatment for these past traumas.
How We Address Unresolved Trauma in Therapy
We can use individual counseling, rather than couples counseling, to address these unresolved traumas. We can try to help you process things that maybe you were not able to process in the past, or confront emotions that you haven’t been able to address. There are therapeutic modalities that are very effective for dealing with childhood trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, and more, all to help you address these issues in the short and long term.
We can also help you learn coping skills that can help you in your relationships, so that you are able to still address the challenges of your marriage.
Couples Counseling vs Trauma Therapy
Couples counseling remains a highly effective way to address issues in a relationship. But sometimes, what you need most to help your marriage is support for you as an individual. If you would like to learn more about either couples counseling or individual therapy, please reach out to Flourish Psychology, today.