How to prepare for couples therapy?

[Rewis]

Me and my partner just booked our first couples therapy session. I am a bit nervous. Any practical advice on how to prepare? Happy to hear any advice or stories.

Have you had an intake session? The place I worked had intake sessions to get a general
feel for your situation to ensure you got matched with the right counsellor. But if you’re going private and haven’t had an intake I’d expect your first session to be a bit of a “what brings you to counselling” type thing- what you’re looking for and they might also want to speak to you about what counselling is (a place to talk and have some help figuring things out) and isn’t (a magic wand or someone telling you what to do). Maybe you will touch on your family dynamics- your family members extended and immediate… depends on the methodology the counsellor works from. Good luck- it’s a positive thing to do and I really think all people would benefit from therapy.

We had a 15-20min initial conversation with the therapist. We sent emails to 5 different therapists and this one seemed the most suited out of those so we had our conversation with her. She seemed nice enough, but hard to say based on a general conversation. I have obviously thought about from my side on what I want to talk about. Some of the therapists we contacted had questionnared that we both would fill out to find the topic, but this one doesn't do that so I just want to be prepared to take full advantage of the sessions.

Overall a willingness from both of you to hear each other and work together

Do you know what style it is?

I do a specific form of couples therapy (rather than counselling) that impacts how it is structured. Id be starting with some basic aims, and some feeling out of your surrounding structures, how you got to where you are

What i usually advise my couples is that im not there in the role of judge. Sometimes people expect me to tell off one partner, take a side etc. Its not a space for punishing either party.
This can be really tricky for people especially in cases of infidelity.

My aim is to get couples communicating better usually. My aim isnt normally to preserve the couple at all costs. Sometimes when people are able to clearly talk things out, lay out wants and boundaries you might decide that your partner cant meet yours or you cant meet your partners.

I'd caution against it in cases of abuse.

The other thing I would usually say is that you both need to be open to change, taking some responsibility and it will be work. Its absolutely alright if you are just done and no longer want to work at it and are just done.

Sometimes people feel like they "should" do it at a really late stage to validate breaking up. You dont need my permission

Equally its really great when people come early on before there is massive risks. Like a physio or other type of counsellor prevention is better than cure and things dont have to be bad before you get some help

Trite to say but there's no magic words, magic words in the right combo to make people different, its just work!

Ideally people come willing to go to a reflective space, where there is less self defensiveness but genuine openess. Its okay to come frustrated, angry, sad etc but you have to be open to moving past that. (If you've been really wronged, its okay to be furious, and want to stay furious for a while!)

I don't know is this was the style but she has a solution based approach.
I was thinking maybe biweekly so there is time to process and also not talk about outside the therapy too much, cause I don't want our relationship to be on that mode too often.

The sessions are 50min and I've done individual councelling (and she was not stricts about time) and I was all over the place. And now my partner can obviously hear everything so I'm a bit nerveous about telling the truth directly and it coming across the way it was intended. I feel better when prepared cause I tend to cry and I fucking hate it.

I do belive we are both open to it and want to improve. I don't mind if the end result is that we are not compatible, at least we tried. If we manage to work our communication would be amazing.

I have not done couples therapy but what I would do is think about what I wanted to achieve by doing it (ie a better understanding of how my behaviour affects my partner, him to
understand that when he shouts I get upset and close down or whatever it is) and note some examples I where I have been bemused by my partner’s behaviour or where his behaviour has upset me or I have not felt supported/listened.

I would write those down as bullets ie “Objectives” and “Chalkenges”
so I could refer to them in the session, and I would encourage my partner to do the same. I find my mind goes blank during appointments so it’s helpful to have these things written down.

Just be honest, share what both of yours concerns are individually and collectively. You have to be performing all the recommendations as well and both have to be putting in effort to get on the same page.

I think its good to be calm and composed and honest with agree to disagree mindset