Therapy that focuses solely on active listening and conflict resolution doesn’t work with couples in pain

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“When marriages fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause. It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness...”

-Sue Johnson


Couples Counseling

We couldn’t agree more with this. Typical couples counseling focuses on increasing communication skills and learning healthier ways to reach conflict resolution. Relationship expert, John Gottman, states that 69% of all conflict will never be fully resolved and so the goal isn’t to resolve it, but rather manage it, while also creating healthy connections through emotional attunement and adequate repair of harms. At the Trauma & Therapy Center of TN., our therapists are informed by the work of Sue Johnson (Emotionally Focused Therapy) and John Gottman (Gottman Method). These methods have guiding treatment philosophies and principles with decades of research to support their effectiveness.

When working with couples, our therapists meet with the couple for the first session. For the second and third session, we will meet individually with each partner to assess attachment style and family history.

“When we make our relationship a priority by showing that it’s a priority, we build trust and demonstrate our loyalty far beyond any words we say in our wedding vows.” -John Gottman

The couples we see are generally struggling from high conflict, betrayal (think affairs and addictions), and/or being emotionally disconnected, which often leads to being sexually disconnected. In couples therapy, the RELATIONSHIP is the CLIENT. After all, we know that there is more than two sides to the story and the relationship itself will reveal the negative cycles and ruptures. We will then work to identify each partners position in the cycle and work on ways to create a sense of safety, security, nurture, comfort, and fun as this allows for healing within the relationship. Since we are treating the relationship and not an individual with a mental health diagnosis, we are unable to bill insurance for this. Our treatment is attachment based and relational, which doesn’t qualify as “medically necessary.” We offer both in person sessions as well as HIPAA compliant telehealth sessions. Additionally, we recently started offering neurofeedback services to our couples and find that this is an excellent complement to therapy and may even shorten the amount of overall sessions needed!

Counselors Offering Couples Counseling: