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Online therapy allows more people to access mental health and couples counselling support than ever before.
Research has indicated that Telehealth services, including online psychology services, can be just as effective than in-person.
While in-person therapy allows individuals and couples a neutral space, online therapy can be done from the comfort of your own home.
If you are unsure whether online therapy is a right fit for you, we recommend booking a Discovery Call with one of our therapists to discuss further.
Online therapy is very easy and convenient. We have tried to streamline the process to make it as seamless and straightforward as possible.
You will need a secure internet connection and a device (desktop computer, laptop, smart phone, or tablet) which offers video teleconferencing features.
Once your appointment is scheduled and confirmed, you will receive an email with the steps clearly outlined to support you to login and interact with your therapist.
We have chosen a very secure meeting platform to ensure that we offer a safe and accessible service. However, like any system on the internet, there may be some risk included, which your therapist will discuss with you during your initial consult.
There are telltale signs that signal you and your partner could benefit from relationship counselling:
The Gottman Method is a gold standard form of couples-based therapy and education that draws on over 40 years of research by psychologists Drs. John and Julie Gottman. The Gottman Method includes a thorough assessment of a relationship and integrates research-based interventions based on the Sound Relationship House Theory, a model that endorses nine components of healthy relationships. Couples who do these nine things well endorse feeling satisfied within their relationships.
The goals of Gottman Method Couples Therapy are to disarm conflicting verbal communication; increase intimacy, respect, and affection; remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy or gridlock; and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship. It is a structured therapy focused on developing understanding and skills so that partners can sustain positive change well beyond relationship therapy.
The Gottman Method is suitable for all types of relationships across all phases of life. This means it is suitable for committed partners in the early stages of a relationship, as well as to restore healthy functioning to distressed couples, whether stuck in chronic conflict, coping with infidelity, or engaging in other destructive behaviours or patterns. The Gottman Method is predicated on observations and predictions demonstrating that there is a real science to the most ineffable of experiences, love.
Proper relationship therapy is a commitment and thus requires couples to hold reasonable expectations when it comes to timing. It is not possible nor practicable to expect that you will repair or correct a poor relationship in a ‘couple of sessions’ or with a spattering of sessions ‘here and there’. The Couples Clinic tailors your treatment plan to your relationship and therefore, the length of treatment depends on a number of factors. These include what your presenting issues are, how committed you are to the process, and if you both undertake the between session activities (homework) tailored to your presenting issues. Following the assessment phase, we typically indicate the following as a treatment guide for relationship counselling:
For those seeking relationship enhancement or pre-marital counselling, it averages 5–10 treatment sessions; for distant and / or distressed couples, 15–20 treatment sessions; and for couples with serious co-morbidities or a recent extramarital affair/s, therapy averages 28+treatment sessions. Termination is handled by talking to the clients in the first session about phasing out the therapist toward the end of therapy and following couples for 2 years after termination.
Fortunately, empirically-based couples therapy such as The Gottman Method has demonstrated that couples therapy provided by an appropriately trained professional can create a positive change for 70% of couples. And these changes actually last.
Gottman Certified Therapists have the highest level of therapeutic training in relationship counselling and are able to predict with 90% accuracy which couples will likely stay together and which will separate or divorce. They have been trained in how to remedy relationships of all presentations and challenges based on destructive patterns of conflict, communication and disconnect.
An assessment phase precludes all treatment at The Couples Clinic and this involves a comprehensive history taking process by your Certified Gottman Therapist (CGT).
Following the assessment phase is the Treatment Phase, whereby your therapist will work collaboratively with you both to agree on session goals and treatment planning. The Treatment Phase session plan depends on the intensity that is required and the complexity of the challenges that we are addressing. Typically, the first several therapy sessions run for 2 hours each in a weekly to fortnightly schedule.
Once the relationship is showing consistent improvement in line with treatment goals, we move into Maintenance Mode. Sessions are then spaced out further until therapy is no longer needed beyond a check-in, sometimes once or twice each year, to the couples’ preference. These serve as relapse prevention sessions, and spaced 6 – 9 months apart, have been scientifically demonstrated to improve skill-retention.
It is painful for partners to acknowledge that their relationship hasn’t turned out the way they might have planned for and often most will try many informal strategies in an attempt to ‘fix things’. Given this, the average couple waits for just over 6 years before asking for professional help. Most couples have never been taught how to deal with conflict, communicate influentially, show insight to your attachment needs and integrate opposing beliefs and values in a way where understanding a compromise is possible. This is where a trained marital and relationship therapist offers great benefit and support in helping you both identify and address core issues and regain a deeper and more lasting positive connection.
Absolutely. We are an inclusive practice. Our therapists are diversity-trained, open-minded, neuro-affirming and non-judgemental. Our client is always the relationship – in whichever form it is brought to us.
Professionally trained relationship therapists will never make the call on the success and / or failure of your relationship and they will only work with you both on developing healthy communication, connection and conflict management. We are specialists in this space and no relationship is too hard or too complex for us. We have heard stories of couples having experiences where they have been told to ‘end their relationship’ or that ‘they won’t last’ and this has absolutely not been the fault of the couple. Often this comes down to a couple engaging with a therapist who has felt overwhelmed by the couples dynamic or presentation. Most often the therapist do not have the relevant skills, knowledge and / or formal training and experience to navigate the couples issues competently or safely. We submit that no therapy is at times better than bad therapy. We urge all seeking relationship counselling to ensure they are working with a specialist who has undertaken extensive training in the space of relationship therapy and not a generalist who merely has an interest or passion for the space.
There is often the misconception and fear from one or both partners that the therapist will side with one partner or gender over the other. Your therapist at The Couples Clinic views your relationship as the ‘client’ and we work in a positive and constructive way for the relationship. Choosing or taking sides is not at all part of our process with any couple and we work to make you both feel incredibly comfortable, heard and valued in the clinic space at all times.
