Are you and your partner experiencing troubles in your relationship or marriage?

Does it seem like you’re fighting all the time? Or are you distant and disconnected from each other and feel like you’re operating more as roommates? Having a hard time trusting each other? Has your sex life dwindled? Are you worried about the future status of your relationship? Will it survive all the challenges?

Consider how you maintain your vehicle…

Relationships are like our vehicles. To keep your car running smoothly and operating at its optimum peak performance, you must take good care of it by washing and waxing it, getting your oil changed regularly, keeping your fluid levels topped off, and your battery charged.  Additionally, we must get periodic tune-ups to ensure that everything is functioning as it should to keep you safe. If you neglect any of these care tactics, you run the risk of your car falling apart and becoming damaged.

The same premise lies with our relationships.

Are you at the stage of ‘fender bender’ or perhaps you’ve reached a ‘hit and run?’

Couples regrettably wait to address their relationship issues until after they’re knee-deep in pain and suffering. They most likely have hurt each other and are feeling immobilized. You may think you’re facing a mere fender-bender in your relationship, when in reality it’s a hit-and-run. It’s important to get serviced before your problems mount to the point of a head-on collision when it’s much more difficult and expensive to get things repaired. Early prevention is always best!

There is a solution to overcoming these problems!

By learning a set of important and valuable relationship skills, you will be building the necessary foundation to relate to each other better, restore trust and intimacy, and be savvy in resolving conflicts. Sometimes these skills as a stand-alone are all that’s needed to bring you back ‘in sync’ with each other. Other times, the skills lay the bedrock of what’s needed before digging deeper into underlying issues and dynamics that may be occurring in your relationship. Either way, your relationship benefits from acquiring these skills to get you started in the right direction with hope and possibility.

Where do we start in working on couples’ therapy?

One of my favorite theories about couples’ therapy comes from marriage and family therapist Dr. David Treadway, PhD. He asserts that there are three different approaches to working with couples who come to therapy.

• Work on here-and-now issues, focusing on changing behavior and patterns, and building skills.

• Focus on the past and address issues of forgiveness and making amends for hurts to facilitate healing.

• Family-of-origin work can be initiated to help partners understand how they learned to be in relationship and to address these dynamics.

Couples get to choose where they want to start in their treatment, and I subscribe to this approach.

“The Relationship Body Shop: Getting the Dents & Scratches Out of Your Partnership ©” program directly deals with the first option in helping you build those important relationship skills for success. These tools are often necessary prerequisites to have in-place before delving too deeply into troubling, sensitive topics.

Without skill in mastering communication, anger management, and conflict resolution, it can be difficult to work through painful material with each other without therapy sessions falling apart and being unproductive with all the heightened emotion that often accompanies these conversations. Give your relationship that fighting chance and sign up today!

What is the Relationship Body Shop?

“The Relationship Body Shop: Getting the Dents & Scratches Out of Your Partnership ©” program is a five-session, 45-minute-per-visit assessment and psychoeducation package that will leave you having a better understanding of your issues and treatment needs. You will become armed with a toolbox of skills and strategies for managing relationship conflict, improving communication, and creating more emotional connection and intimacy. Here’s the breakdown of what you can expect in each of the sessions:

Sessions 1 and 2 (Assessment)

The first two visits will be exclusively devoted to assessment and treatment planning/recommendations. Partners will be separated in the first session to obtain an individual assessment of each member; this will include obtaining information about the presenting issue and concerns, gathering psychosocial history, completing a mental health evaluation, and discussing goals.

The second visit will be a couple’s assessment where you will be evaluated through direct questioning, guided exercises, and completing a battery of inventories and checklists about the various dimensions of your relationship to identify your strengths and weak spots that will need to be targeted for change. A comprehensive analysis of the findings of the evaluation will also be shared with recommendations for next steps offered in the service of strengthening your relationship.

Session 3 (Skills-Building begins!)

In the first skills-building session, you will learn about listening blocks and be taught a variety of communication techniques that will assist you with dialoguing more effectively with your partner. Through instruction, and then practice, you’ll have an opportunity to implement what you’re learning with feedback for improvements.

Session 4

In this session, you will learn a variety of conflict management strategies for defusing anger and boosting your problem-solving efforts. You’ll also learn how to counteract your typical behavior chains that get you into stalemates with each other and re-write new scripts that will allow you to have more productive outcomes with your discussions.

Session 5

In this final session, you will learn a variety of strategies, grounded in evidence-based research findings, for fostering greater emotional connection with each other, identifying ingredients that constitute a healthy relationship, learning principles for building a solid partnership, and discovering methods for re-igniting spark and chemistry in your relationship to help restore intimacy.

The Relationship Body Shop is not therapy.

“The Relationship Body Shop: Getting the Dents & Scratches Out of Your Partnership ©” program is not considered therapy and is purely an assessment and psychoeducational curriculum.

It can be helpful to work with another therapist while going through this program. Most couples end up continuing in counseling beyond the program to further practice and generalize their newly acquired skills.  Couples will often begin working on deeper underlying issues and dynamics. Their prognosis for a positive outcome in therapy is heightened due to their involvement in this preparatory work in skills-building.

This program will be packed with content and invaluable resources. It is intended for any couple who is motivated for relationship enrichment and personal growth, regardless of sexual orientation. Heterosexual and same-sex couples can greatly benefit from these universal strategies for fostering a healthy relationship.

What is the cost of this program?

Weekly couples counseling sessions are $135 per visit. Through participation in “The Relationship Body Shop: Getting the Dents & Scratches Out of Your Partnership ©” program, you will receive a discounted rate of $30 off each visit for the five-week duration for a total of $500 for the entire package. While you can never put a price tag on the investment you make in your relationship or marriage, the cost of this program will be money well spent.