Couples Therapy

Making things better

IN OUR HEARTS, we know what matters most in life is loving and being loved. When that isn’t happening in your relationship, you feel lost and hurt.

All couples face challenges. Couples often get stuck in negative cycles of attacking and emotional withdrawal.

“I look for attention. You don’t recognize my need. I feel abandoned and attack. You withdraw, and I attack harder. You withdraw more.”

Sound familiar?

If there’s hope of making things better, chances are that your relationship can be rebuilt. As you and your partner move forward, feelings from long ago can be recaptured and new feelings of fondness discovered.

Through this process, both of you will achieve a better, healthier, and happier future together.

As marriage counselors, our goal is to help you get to the heart of the matter. We want to help you and your partner strengthen bonds of love, trust, responsiveness, and safe connection.

Why choose the Wright Counseling Group?

Our approach to couples counseling helps you address fundamental issues of trust and safety.

You are guided to identify and address any issues or behaviors that prevent the possibility for trust and safety to be rebuilt.

You are helped to create a sense of safety, so that you can begin to heal the emotional wounds caused by loss of love and trust.

Our goal is to restore the relationship as a safe-haven for both of you. Hurts from the past become a memory, rather than a reflection of your current reality of renewed love and trust.

Our background and approach

The NY Times once compared couples therapy to “piloting a helicopter in a hurricane.” The dirty little secret of many therapists is that they do not like doing couples therapy. They are scared it will inevitably end in fighting.

Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), disagrees. Couples therapy is more like a safe, comfortable Air Canada flight. There may be some turbulence, but the pilot has a map and is confident they will all arrive safely.

Our practice is the only one in the Mid-South with specialized training in relationship counseling based on The Gottman Method and EFT.

Research has shown that 85 to 90% of couples undertaking, committing to, and sticking with a therapist trained in these methods report significant improvement, and 70 to 75% of couples recover from their distress.

The task of an EFT-trained couples therapist is to make clients feel safe and supported. The empathic responsiveness of the therapist creates safety.

Couples usually experience substantial change, even in relationships with a history of significant pain and heartache. Overall, couples usually like the approach!

A little about EFT

With Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), you are helped to escape hurtful patterns, so you can understand one another, get to the heart of the matter, and move forward together.

EFT can help you answer key questions of your relationship.

Are you really going to be there for me? Do I really matter to you?

Can I turn to you for comfort and strength? If I am hurting or afraid, will you come to me? Do you value me for who I am?

Can I be my real self with you? Are we in this together? Can I count on you to “have my back”?

Couples are helped to identify and change patterns in relationships. They learn to speak with one another in kinder and more genuine ways.

Old conflicts are resolved, and more loving interactions are created. An improved relationship of trust and mutual support is formed.

Our first steps

Together, we first create a detailed painting, rather than just a sketch, of your relationship. Creation of this painting will develop through our evaluation process, which will occur over four separate sessions.

The first session is for information gathering and to obtain a feel for your relationship.

During sessions two and three, each of you will meet separately with your counselor. Unless there is a specific need, these are the only times that we meet separately. These are very important sessions, because we have a chance to learn about your family backgrounds.

Both of you will be asked to complete online questionnaires prior to sessions two and three. They are long and extensive but are necessary ingredients for creating an accurate painting.

You’ll meet again as a couple with the counselor during the fourth session. Based on the information gleaned from the previous sessions and your questionnaires, the counselor will provide feedback about your relationship, its strengths, and areas of concern.

Together, you and your counselor will make a plan and begin the in-depth work toward healing your relationship. The number of future sessions will depend on the issues involved and your commitment to the process. Couples who are dedicated and committed to their regularly scheduled sessions will heal faster and will begin to re-experience the love in their relationship.

You’ll remember why you fell in love.