Marital and Couples Therapy:

Marital therapy and couples therapy are essentially the same thing with the important exception that marital therapy treats marriages while couples therapy treats couples. At first glance the difference may seem minor and in some ways it is. However, in other ways its major in that joining in marriage, including the legal and community involvement entailed, tends to stir up more deeply seated emotions and behaviors then the less publically committed couples relationship. In part the catalytic change that marriage brings about may be attributed to the tendency for the spouses to start treating each other like family, in more stereotypic and take-for-granted kinds of ways. The feeling of being special to the other soon wears off under these circumstances eroding the marriage.

In truth, marriage is such a complicated endeavor that its well-being can be affected by innumerable forces. To name but a few these may include: death in the family, changing needs at different ages, mid-life crisis, failures in communication finally taking their toll, illness in one spouse or the other or in a child, and so on. Poor models of marriage in each spouses family background can also contribute given that each of us tends to internalize our early family history and dynamics as normal, when there is no normal except in the sense of something were used to. We then act in habituated ways which isn't always a good thing. Finally, marital therapy or couples therapy can also be required when the individual issues of a spouse or partner take a toll on the relationship. If not too entrenched these individual issues can often times be addressed in the couples or marital therapy.

As is true of individual psychotherapy marital and couples therapy tends to take place on a once per week basis for 50 minutes. However, when the couples issues are intense longer sessions may be required to have the time to address the concerns of each spouse within a given session.

Usually, marital and couples therapy entails the therapists meeting with both partners together. However, exceptions can arise in which one spouse may need to be seen individually with the focus still being upon the relationship. In this circumstance, the other spouse is also given the opportunity for individual time with the therapist. Such meetings should be limited and if more extensive individual contact is needed that particular spouse might be referred for individual therapy.