Couples Counseling for One

“My part­ner isn’t sure he/she/they want to do cou­ples ther­a­py.” 

“We real­ly need this, but they/she/he won’t com­mit.”

“My part­ner was on board, but she/he/they aren’t inter­est­ed any­more.” 

“What do I do? 

If you’ve found your­self ask­ing these ques­tions, you are in good com­pa­ny. This is often the first hur­dle that cou­ples have to get over to even get to ther­a­py. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, cou­ples wait wayyyyyy tooooooo long before seek­ing ther­a­py for their rela­tion­ship issues. As in YEARS too long. What’s worse is that cou­ples ther­a­py is com­mon­ly slat­ed as a “last ditch effort” when divorce or a breakup is on the line, which is also too late, as one part­ner of the cou­ple rela­tion­ship has like­ly already made up their mind about the tra­jec­to­ry of the rela­tion­ship.

Cou­ples ther­a­py is like a duet–in order for the music to sound good, you need both pianists togeth­er, play­ing in har­mo­ny. But that begs the ques­tion, what about me? 

For­tu­nate­ly, cou­ples coun­sel­ing for one exists. Cou­ples coun­sel­ing for one is anoth­er way to say indi­vid­ual coun­sel­ing. Even though your part­ner may not be com­mit­ted to the ther­a­peu­tic process yet, it does­n’t mean that you need to hold your­self back. You can come to ther­a­py and work on refin­ing the parts of you so you can play the music bet­ter. 

Can I see a marriage counselor alone

Absolute­ly. It can be con­fus­ing for peo­ple to look at the dif­fer­ent titles and descrip­tions of coun­selors and know who does what. After all, there are licensed mar­riage and fam­i­ly ther­a­pists, psy­chol­o­gists, licensed pro­fes­sion­al coun­selors, social work­ers, men­tal health coun­selors, and so forth. For bet­ter or for worse, these titles vary depend­ing on the state you live in as well. 

The pri­ma­ry dif­fer­ences between each of the titles is the way the pro­fes­sion­al was taught and what course­work they pur­sued. As a licensed mar­riage and fam­i­ly ther­a­pist, I was trained to see things in con­text and systemically–which is a fan­cy word to say “see­ing how rela­tion­ships and the envi­ron­ment work togeth­er.” I also took a num­ber of rela­tion­ship based cours­es focused on cou­ples, fam­i­lies, and mar­riages. Hence the title. Think of it more as an added spe­cial­iza­tion. Although the license of a licensed mar­riage and fam­i­ly ther­a­pist implies only rela­tion­ship work, the license does not pre­clude me from being able to treat adults or chil­dren, as long as I have the train­ing and expe­ri­ence. For exam­ple, in addi­tion to cou­ples and fam­i­lies, I also work with adults expe­ri­enc­ing anx­i­ety, self-esteem, and trau­ma. 

Mar­riage coun­selors can also offer a unique per­spec­tive on your sit­u­a­tion, as many have expe­ri­ence work­ing with cou­ples. In these cas­es, you may ben­e­fit from more refined ques­tions about your rela­tion­ships with your part­ner and oth­ers as you work on address­ing and improv­ing ways that you expe­ri­ence and con­tribute to the sit­u­a­tion. 

Trauma therapist San Antonio

In short, even if your part­ner does not want to attend cou­ples ther­a­py with you, you are wel­come to come and work with me. As a trained trau­ma ther­a­pist, I am able to help you resolve your trau­ma, whether past or present.

Come and work with me. 

Sched­ule your free 15-minute con­sul­ta­tion