Marriage Counselling & Couple’s Counselling

The clients we see for marriage counselling & couple’s counselling seek us out because we provide a different form of therapy to regular relationship counselling.

Regular relationship counselling, in a nutshell, is all about awareness, analysis and basically conscious logical mind work to explore and manage relationship issues. This is all great stuff, if your aim is to just manage your relationship using tools.

What we do in contrast though, is in addition, work with and resolve subconscious influences that may be tainting your communication as well.

Couples typically come for therapy because they are experiencing problems, communication breakdown, arguments over the same issues – money, division of labour with household chores, intimacy and sex, parenting styles, time and how it is spent, expectations of each other – lack of trust, etc. Often these problems have them on the precipice of ‘make or break’. Sometimes one party wants to continue working on the relationship and the other doesn’t. Many times neither is certain that the relationship will work, or is worth fighting for. One thing that the majority, if not all of our clients agree with is that their relationship/partnership/marriage cannot continue as it is.

Relationships involve communication and being able to logically navigate your way through difficult conversations and conflict is both a skill and an art! Openly discussing what is going awry with a neutral party like us at North Shore & City Hypnotherapy can be really helpful in identifying and resolving individual issues that are potentially causing problems in your marriage/partnership.

We all have a communication ‘style’, and your style is unique to you (please note the style we refer to is not determined by a questionnaire!). There are many subconscious influences of your communication style, and your feelings, intentions, attitudes, expectations, and perceptions stemming from your beliefs, etc., will invariably filter through depending upon where you are and subject matter.

Communication, though, is a two way street.
How you receive communication, process the information, interpret and respond to it is also highly influenced by your subconscious mind, and any unresolved issues from the past. These issues may have been festering since early childhood, via messages from family, for example to behave a certain way.

As a simple example, if you as a boy you were told ‘boys don’t cry’, and you interpreted that as ‘boys who cry are weak’ and you make the decision ‘I am a boy, I have cried therefore I am weak, and must not show weakness’ this can lead to over compensatory behaviour when it is perceived you may be judged to be weak, so you become direct and domineering in your communication style, which may intimidate or challenge your partner.

Similarly if you as a girl observed your mother helping and nurturing others, and you were rewarded for the same behaviour, you may make the decision that ‘nurturing is helpful, it’s the right thing to do’. Later in life you may become overprotective, smothering or controlling and this may disempower your partner, and challenge them to assert their own independence. This can lead to conflict.

These are very simplistic examples to demonstrate how messages overt or covert, become beliefs, generate thoughts and feelings and can result in communication difficulties.

We like to explain relationships like this: you are born with a suitcase (your subconscious mind!). Throughout your life you fill up your suitcase with your issues, and it goes everywhere with you. You communicate via everything that is in that suitcase. Let’s say your grandmother made you the most delicious apple pie every time you visited. The smell, the taste, the love, the look of the apple pie is all in the suitcase. Every time you think about, talk about, smell, taste an apple pie, that memory comes instantaneously out of the suitcase and you recall your grandmother!

When you get involved romantically with someone both of your suitcases are open in front of you and you have a relationship over the top of all of your issues.

So how can we help? I’m glad you asked!
Whether you want to resolve big issues or small issues in your marriage/partnership, whether you are committed to staying together or not, if you want a way forward we can help you!

Through hypnotherapeutic counselling, we take a comprehensive marriage/partnership history and observe the dynamics between you as we discuss the issues you face. From there we identify key areas that need to be resolved in hypnosis individually for you both to be the way you want to be, and express yourself the way you want to in your relationship. These encompass old beliefs that no longer serve you, as well as thought patterns, feelings and self-talk.

And just like no two Hypnotherapists were made equal (click here for more on how to choose a competent Hypnotherapist), no two relationship issues are the same, though the snapshot may appear identical, what is driving the behaviours and feelings are going to be entirely different because your life experience is unique.

So how do we resolve your issues? Easily and effectively!
We take you into hypnosis and use various techniques to unlock and resolve deeper issues, build and reinforce coping strategies, self-esteem, positivity, optimism and seal the deal with a zen-like logical, rational, detached calm.

Every client is different and every session will be unique, depending on the goal and techniques used. We have been described as the ‘mixed martial arts’ of therapy! See Unique Approach.

We also recommend, where applicable, CDs to support you throughout your transformation. (Discounts are available for existing clients!)

… Read more about COUPLE’S THERAPY