Frequently Asked Questions
How Does Couples Therapy Work?
Do therapists give relationship advice? Hopefully, the answer is no. Online couples therapy with a trained couples therapist is an opportunity for you and your partner to engage with each other in a productive and meaningful way.
Therapists that give advice to couples are sex therapists that will explain techniques and exercises based on their training. Individual therapy is about talking with your therapist, and couples therapy is about talking with your partner.
Once you get into the flow of sessions with your online couples therapist, you’ll learn to expect feeling surprised by what comes out of the session. Not knowing what your partner will express can feel scary, but an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist is there to support you in the experience.
Relationship Advice / Relationship Tips
If you’re googling for quick solutions to solve your entire relationship, you’ll likely get a quick answer. Unfortunately, there is no one “tip” that can save your marriage or relationship. You deserve real answers and real solutions.
The real solution is the dreaded “couples therapist”. Luckily, individual therapy has become normalized and we don’t think of ourselves as “bad” for participating. Unfortunately, the same old stigma still lingers for couples; couples therapy doesn’t mean you or your partner are “bad”, it only means you and your partner need help moving forward more productively.
Here is the advice: let your partner know you need to do therapy together the same way you would do therapy individually if you needed extra help. Work with a trained Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist. Setting up a session is easy and your relationship can feel better.
Learn how couples therapy with Feel Understood helps build secure relationships:
What to Expect in Couples Therapy?
What to talk about in couples therapy? How to prepare? What not to say? I can’t imagine how nerve-wrecking going into session can be. It’s hard enough to talk about our feelings to a therapist in private, it makes sense it would feel harder with our partner listening.
How to prepare what to say in couples therapy? You can’t. If you knew how to get the support you need from your partner, you would’ve said it by now. Just express yourself as you normally do.
An Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist will help you discover a deeper understanding of your experience, then help you express yourself to your partner more productively. We might feel we have our partner figured out, but we have to be open to figuring ourselves out.
How To Talk To Your Partner About Couples Therapy?
Following through on setting up a first couples therapy session with your partner can be tough. Everyone gets there differently. Sometimes you both don’t know what else to do and signing up together is easier. When only one of you feels that the relationship needs guidance it can be harder.
Many times people go to individual therapy because of their relationship. With most of those cases, unless someone is trying to break-up, participating in the couples work together would be more beneficial.
If you feel you need more support, let your partner know. That’s it. You need support in your experience and you want your partner to be there. Getting this support now would be better than letting something turn into a crisis later.
An Example of the Benefits of Doing Couples Counseling Online?
Picture an office session where you've created an understanding that you've spent years wishing for, and instead of enjoying the moment, you're back in the car stuck in traffic.
With TeleHealth, when the session ends, your moment doesn't have to.
Practice what works at home and keep the good going even when the session ends.
What is the Most Successful Type of Couples Therapy?
Many new couples therapy modalities have developed over the years for couples since the 1980s. Each modality and approach try to help couples find themselves on the same page. But being “on the same page” can mean different things. Sometimes, this just means to agree on tangible things like; scheduling, housekeeping, parenting, etc.
Tangible outcomes are helpful, but are not necessarily long lasting. Gottman Method, Imago Relationship Therapy, PACT; these modalities focus on surface level interactions between partners. When there is a crisis that needs to be averted, these can be helpful toolsets.
But being “on the same page” can have deeper meaning like, having a secure bond and secure attachment in a relationship; this is what Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy can achieve. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy is a type of couples counseling that helps partners communicate and feel more secure for long term benefits in relationships.
Learn how couples therapy with Feel Understood helps build secure relationships:
What Makes A Good Couples Therapist?
“non-judgmental, empathetic, sharp, intelligent, knowledgeable, professional and engaged.”
“a great listener and compassionate.”
“very caring and thoughtful therapist.”
“personable, patient”
How Will My Husband React To Couples Therapy with Alejandro Daniel Pina, LMFT?
“My husband and I found him quite helpful with navigating the ups and downs of the relationship prior to us getting married.“
“My husband really felt heard and has continued to use what we learned in our sessions and we both continue to grow, but truly our marriage has come around thanks to the guidance of Alejandro. He has a gift and was a gift to us.”
“Truly appreciate everything Alejandro has done for my husband and I.“
How Effective is Online Couples Counseling with Feel Understood?
“Our sessions made us better listeners and allowed us to communicate better without undermining each other's thoughts and feelings. We definitely would recommend him for couples therapy.”
“My partner and I have been going to Alejandro since August for couples counseling and it has helped our relationship and how we communicate tremendously. We are incredibly lucky we found someone so great. Highly recommended!”
“I have seen such a great improvement on how we view ourselves and each other.”
How is Feel Understood Couples Counseling Therapist Alejandro Daniel Pina, LMFT?
“Alejandro was wonderful. He was a very caring and thoughtful therapist.”
“Alejandro identifies the source of our conflicts and guides us to create new patterns of behavior. He is very intuitive and figured out the dynamics of our interactions and how to help us pretty quickly. We have had many breakthroughs in our sessions thus far.”
“I can't say enough about Alejandro. He's personable, patient, and can call the issues at hand out within minutes of listening to you which is a gift.”
“He is very serious about the subject matter yet can be very casual about his approach and delivery which makes us feel comfortable.”
Learn how couples therapy with Feel Understood helps build secure relationships:
How Does Feel Understood Couples Counseling Help Partners?
“My partner and I have been going to Alejandro since August for couples counseling and it has helped our relationship and how we communicate tremendously. We are incredibly lucky we found someone so great. Highly recommended!”
Is Feel Understood Couples Counseling with Alejandro Daniel Pina, LMFT Recommended?
“We highly recommended him to anyone who is ready to make a positive shift in their relationship or looking to improve their communication. We are grateful to have found him.“
What percentage of couples stay together after couples therapy?
Couples enter therapy at different stages in their lives. Sometimes, couples tend to try couples counseling when to much damage and time has passed, and there is too much left to try to repair. Other couples are more proactive and choose pre marital couples therapy as a preventative measure before marriage or before other life changing events like; moving in together or starting a family.
It’s impossible to give one numerical percentage that describes the success rate for couples, when there are so many different situations to keep in mind.
Emotionally Focused Couples therapy with a trained couples therapist will offer the highest probability of success. EFT can support couples at every stage of their relationship because the couples therapy work is about building secure attachment and connection.
What is the Average Cost for Couples Therapy?
An average cost of couples therapy changes dramatically when considering the ultra rich. People who can afford to pay $700 for a session with television therapist, Dr. Orna Guralnik, from the show Couples Therapy are not the average American. There are couples therapists in Palo Alto that are currently charging $550 per session. These are extremely expensive and effect the average cost of couples counseling dramatically.
Keep in mind, that couples therapy is a long term commitment, where you’re expected to meet weekly. You can imagine how the session rates for the ultra rich can accumulate to huge costs per month.
When not considering the ultra rich, the average session for couples counseling is much lower, but can still be a difficult commitment on a weekly basis. Make a commitment with a couples therapist you find beneficial first, after time if you feel your rate is too high, talk with your therapist honestly to negotiate. Therapists are more willing to offer lower rates once they know you’ve made commitment to the work.
What is the No Secrets Rule in Couples Therapy?
Depending on which couples therapy modality your couples therapist utilizes, you may encounter an officially stated no secrets rule or policy. Different types of therapy sometimes has each partner talking to the couples therapist individually, this is more often the reason for having a no secrets policy, meaning that the therapist will divulge what each partner has said. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy works with both partners in the room together, and any communication with the therapist always includes both partners at the same time.
Working separately in couples therapy is antithetical to building connection and security, which is why Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) never has partners working individually with their couples therapist.
Any concerns a partner has about the therapy process or scheduling should be brought to the group’s attention uniformly so that everyone can try to mend the situation together.
Learn how couples therapy with Feel Understood helps build secure relationships:
How to Rebuild Trust?
There is no quick solution, but trust can be regained, after past hurts are repaired. That might sound vague, but there is a ton of work that has to be done, the same way you rebuild a broken wall; brick by brick.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy is essential at helping couples repair past hurts; it’s not just about apologizing, but truly understanding all the different layers of how a partner was effected.
After the work is done between partners to fully understand the pain caused and have a beneficial apology, then the trust can begin to be rebuilt; and that takes repetition over time. Inevitably, with enough repetition, after a thorough deep dive with a EFT-trained couples therapist, trust can be regained.
Is It Worth It To Go To Couples Therapy?
Couples therapy with an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist is helpful for couples at any stage of their relationship because we’re always experiencing a dichotomy of emotion that fuels our behavior everyday.
Having a better understanding of our own emotion/behavior dichotomy and our partner’s inner world can give partners a more consistent opportunity at supporting one another.
This kind of understanding will transform a relationship for years to come, no matter what major transitions your relationship might go through.
How Often Should A Couple Go To Couples Therapy?
At the beginning stages of Couples Therapy, it’s important for couples to meet consistently. If there is a crisis, some couples therapy modalities would recommend meeting with a therapist multiple times per week. For relationships that aren’t in crisis, meeting once a week is standard.
What’s important is not letting too much time pass between sessions. Emotional interactions between partners in therapy need to be revisited and worked through, avoiding a session, and skipping a week, can cause more damage and harm in the relationship.
Unfortunately, couples that avoid sessions are likely to be avoidant in their own relationship. The irony is that couples therapy can teach partners the benefits of not being avoidant, only if the avoidant partner doesn’t avoid the session in the first place. When both partners are avoidant, attending sessions regularly is almost impossible.
Plan to make a commitment with your couples therapist and make a plan for how many sessions in a row you can honestly expect to participate in. At least a few consecutive sessions could be better than no sessions at all.
Learn how couples therapy with Feel Understood helps build secure relationships:
Is Couples Therapy Better In Person At An Office or Online via Telehealth?
Having worked in-person pre-pandemic, I discovered that genuine benefits increase when couples invest in TeleHealth sessions from their own homes.
Imagine learning how to communicate with your partner in an office. Guess when you'll utilize that new form of communication?
The answer is - back in that office.
Learn a new way of being with your partner at home, where you'll practice that skillset regularly, and imagine how much faster you'll learn how to help each other.