Are you struggling with relationship issues? Wondering if couples counseling can help you and your partner reconnect and move forward together?
For many seeking relationship support, terms such as “couples therapy” or “marriage counseling” carry a negative connotation. Just the idea of it may make you feel anxious, confused, or even embarrassed.
At New Connections Counseling Center, our Baltimore-based therapists view the decision to pursue couples counseling as an opportunity to strengthen and deepen your connection with your partner. Furthermore, it would be our privilege to provide you and your partner with a result-oriented, active approach to help you address your unique issues.
Let’s start with a few questions:
- Are you unsure about the direction your relationship is going?
- Do you worry that your partner doesn’t really understand or appreciate you?
- Have you found yourselves fighting more frequently?
- Do you desire more intimacy and romance, but struggle to find it?
If “yes” is the answer that echoes in your mind, it might be time to stop and think about your relationship and how you and your partner can come together to overcome these challenges. Through couples therapy in our Baltimore practice you can develop valuable insights and strategies to navigate these issues and build a stronger, more fulfilling connection.
Common Reasons to Begin Couples Therapy
- Intimacy
- Separation and divorce
- Infertility
- Relationships with extended family
- Parenting
- Remarriage
- Infidelity
Our Approach to Marriage & Couples Therapy in Baltimore, MD
The couples therapists at our Baltimore-based counseling center use a unique blend of Imago Relationship Therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to work with couples.
Imago Relationship Therapy
Imago is a highly effective form of couples therapy. In fact, it has positively impacted thousands of couples around the world.
The term “Imago” refers to the unique image each person has from their earliest experiences with a primary care provider. From these early experiences, you learn what love is. Further, you learn how to receive love and how to show love. In fact, one’s individual Imago is often unconscious and not understood.
So, in Imago therapy, you see how each partner’s Imago is brought out when they are emotionally triggered. The closer you become to your partner, the more emotionally vulnerable you both become. Sometimes, you may sense old relationship wounds coming to the surface. This often leads to unhelpful behavioral and communication patterns with partners and over time, you don’t know how to repair it.
How Imago Can Help
In Imago relationship therapy, a couples therapist will not help you “fight better.” In fact, our therapists will actually help you safely lean into the distress and discomfort you and your partner are feeling. This is where the key to true, lasting intimacy is. By using the structured method of Imago Dialogue, your therapist will help you remove negative language from communication. And, you’ll be able to do so without neglecting your real feelings.
The Imago Dialogue will help you gain a deeper understanding of what your partner is experiencing, feeling, and perceiving, and why. Above all, in Imago, you do not mirror synthetic empathy for your partner. Instead, you embody a genuine and compassionate understanding for the person your partner truly is.
Hi! I’m Janel, the Care Coordinator for New Connections Counseling Center.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
EFT is a well-known humanistic approach to psychotherapy created in the 1980’s. It was developed alongside the science of adult attachment. This is an important developmental theory of personalities and intimate relationships. Certainly, this science has expanded our understanding of individual dysfunction and health.
Furthermore, it has helped us understand the nature of loving relationships and family bonds. Attachment theory views human beings as relational, social, and wired for intimate bonding with others. The EFT model prioritizes emotions and emotional regulation as key parts of individuals’ experiences and key relationship interactions.
How EFT Can Help
EFT believes that feeling connected to and loved by your partner is a primary need. When you fight with your partner, that feeling of love and connection can disappear. This may feel scary and alarming!
Think of a fight like an iceberg. Part of it is visible, but the vast majority lies underneath the surface. For example, the topic of the fight is like the tip of the iceberg. So, underneath the tip are the real issues. Concerns may be:
- “Am I safe with you?”
- “Am I special to you?”
- “Will you stick around if we disagree?”
EFT also helps you recognize that if you don’t feel safe in your relationship, there are two main ways you will respond:
- Attacking: you get angry, criticize, and raise your voice
- Withdrawing: you get quiet, turn away, and give the cold shoulder.
Does this sound familiar? If pursuing or withdrawing is happening in your relationship, don’t be alarmed. In fact, it’s normal to deal with relationship tension in these ways. The key is to realize that you really want love and connection with your partner. And, pursuing or withdrawing often don’t accomplish that.
EFT believes that the strategies of pursuing and withdrawing happen within a cycle. When things aren’t going well, your interactions become a negative cycle that can spin out of control. The first step is to identify and name this cycle before it starts eating you up. So, if you got here by searching “couples therapy in Baltimore” or “marriage counseling near me”, you’re already on the path to take that step forward!
Begin Couples Counseling in Baltimore, MD
You don’t have to live with an unsatisfying relationship. Or a high-conflict relationship. Marriage counseling and couples therapy in Baltimore can help you improve your relationship. In fact, you can do couples therapy online or in-person for added convenience. Our couples therapists would be honored to help you and your partner reconnect. To begin, follow these simple steps:
- Reach out to us using our appointment request form.
- Get connected with one of our inclusive couples therapists.
- Begin feeling more in-tune with your partner than ever before.
Other Therapy Services at New Connections Counseling
Along with marriage counseling and couples therapy, our Baltimore-based counseling center offers individual relationship counseling and LGBTQ therapy. Our skilled therapists specialize in many therapies including those specifically for men, women, and college students. Further, if you have found yourself in the midst of a major life transition, our counselors would love to walk alongside you in that. And, we can meet with you wherever you are in Maryland with online therapy. Wherever you are in life, our inclusive therapists are here to help.
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Looking for Couples Counseling in Baltimore?
We’re here to help! Lot’s of ways you can reach us: call or text 410-801-9700, email us at info@