Marital therapy is treatment designed to bring about changes in your marital relationship. Its goal is to assist you in developing a more satisfying and meaningful partnership with your spouse. Marital therapy will assist you to develop the ability to resolve problems that trouble your relationship and rob you of the joy you once found together. It may also deal with how you, as a couple, interact with your children.
A primary focus of marital therapy is placed on the interactional dynamics of your marriage. Marriage therapy involves such tasks as: clarifying spousal roles, making expectations of one another explicit, sharing personal histories, analyzing communication patterns, discovering your individual triggers of conflict, learning new communication techniques and developing new ways of solving problems.
You will be able to use the therapy sessions to develop appropriate boundaries within your marital relationship and you will be assisted in learning how to constructively maintain those personal boundaries. Obstacles to the formation of appropriate boundaries - such as unresolved anger, beliefs in entitlement to revenge, lack of forgiveness, or inadequate personal individuation - may be explored in detail. A course of individual sessions may be required to address some issues where increased privacy may be necessary to provide an appropriate level of personal safety and trust.
Finally, if there has been a significant breach in trust or marital infidelity, you and your spouse will be guided through steps to repair the marriage relationship in a gradual and controlled manner.
The tasks listed above are designed to foster ownership of responsibility for your own behavior. This focus requires each of you to learn how to be thoughtful about your individual contributions to the relationship. Dr. Veurink will facilitate this by making observations and interpretations regarding your interactions in the sessions. Guidance will be provided when needed to assist you in developing new ways to relate to your spouse.
Normally, marriage therapy involves one or two sessions per week until the marriage is stabilized and your presenting complaints have been adequately addressed. Commonly, some sessions will be with spouses seen separately.
