Family and marriage counseling can help couples and families who are coping with daily stress from medical, economic and/or social pressures and changes. It's not easy. Anxiety, depression and grief often get the focus of counseling because they are like illness to a relationship. Tension between partners increases, fun with each other goes out the window. That's where I come in.
I understand the importance of finding the right marriage and family therapist when you are sharing the most intimate details of your relationship, perhaps even your life. To help you with that, I want to share with you the kind of issues couples have brought with them to therapy which we have successfully dealt with. You can also find answers to your marriage counseling questions on this website.
Marriage Counseling Teaches Conflict Management Skills
Many couples who start marriage counseling need help managing conflict tools in their relationship. However, there can be other issues they also face. For example, many people who search online for "marriage counseling near me" benefit from resolving concerns and getting answers to questions such as these:
Marital sexual concerns: Does appointment sex ruin the romance?
Living with an angry man: What can a wife do about her husband's anger?
Marriage conflict: How use Compromise Skills to keep fights from going into contempt or hate?
Retirement and marital issues: How does a couple learn to live together again when retirement puts them in such close contact?
Poor couples communications: What are healthy relationship skills?
Anxiety, depression, trauma: What can I do to feel better and not be depressed?
Infidelity/cheating recovery: Can my marriage survive this? Will he cheat again?
Cold distant husband: Why does he keep abusing me emotionally?
Transitions in the family life cycle: How do the phases of family life affect marriage?
Relationship coaching: Coaching or Counseling; Which one do we need?
Alcohol, sexual and other forms of addiction: Will my marriage survive?
Recovering from an affair, infidelity, pornography: What is a spouse supposed to do with a partner who acts out sexually?
Loss of trust in relationship: How to rebuild trust in a marriage?
Emotional, sexual or physical abuse: How to spot abuse when you see it.
What does a Healthy/Optimal American Family Look Like?
When Couples Seek Marriage Counseling, Lives Change, Relationships Are Healed
I have experience with a broad range of "people" issues. This includes both personal, such as anxiety and depression and as well as interpersonal and marital. When equipped with the skills, information and options to problem solve successfully, thing get better and people feel relieved.
Modern psychotherapy and marriage counseling processes have advanced and now provide the insight and skills sets couples need to overcome conflict and other challenges.
We benefit from the research and psychological expertise of couples or marriage counseling professionals such as Dr. Sue Johnson, Dr. Carl Whitaker and Dr. Daniel J. Siegel have developed effective solution focused strategies and techniques to deal with the most complicated of challenges in modern relationships. These and other evidence-based methods are what I use in my clinical practice.
The Gottman and Imago models are also helpful in guiding couples to find what they want and need in their relationships.
There are good reasons to be hopeful about what counseling can do for you and your relationship.
Confidentiality
I take the confidence of my clients very seriously and use strong measures to protect the content of what we talk about. I have strong marriage counseling ethics. No one, not even lawyers, will get your information without written permission from you.
My practice is HIPAA compliant, meaning I adhere to the Federal Privacy Rule that protects your confidentiality. I also do not work with insurance companies because they cannot be trusted to protect your personal information from being used against you.
Paul W. Anderson, Ph.D. As a family psychologist, I know a loving relationship between two people is a terrible thing to lose. If a financial investment goes sour, it's possible to get some of your money back. However, once love is invested in a relationship, it can never be retrieved. Relationships are perishable and require regular care for you to not lose your love investment.
Either the relationship continues to work for the couple and provide benefits for them to some degree, or they lose their emotional investment in each other.
I do not recommend divorce or separation. Divorce rates are already high enough. Marriage
Although some experts like John Gottman, PhD assert that they are able to identify predictor traits in a relationship that foretell divorce, I have come to see that in actual life, it is always up to the couple themselves. Nothing can override the efforts of a couple who works together to use the proven skills of managing communications and relationship dynamics.
I have seen people hang onto relationships that looked miserable to me. On the other side of things, I have worked with couples who had great things going in their marriage, yet they amicably shook hands and agreed to call it quits. What a couple does with their relationship, between consenting adults, is their business and up to them. I work to help couples go where they want to be, solve the problems they ask me to help them deal with.
Getting more information (FAQ) about counseling and therapy always helps.
Do couples or marriages with problems need traditional counseling?
Trouble in relationships does not mean the people involved are sick. It means they need a better idea of what intimate relationships are really all about. Many distressed couples simply need an education about what does works in a relationship, what a healthy interaction looks and sounds like.
The couple needs new tools and strategies to manage marriage or partner relationships in a modern world full of serious challenges. When I say tools I mean ways to manage strong negative emotion, communication skills and the abilities to negotiate compromises.
With a new vision and the skills and tools to achieve that vision, the couple will bring new and better results into their lives, as described by Sheri Stritof. Their relationship is strengthened and intimate joy again experienced.
There are, however, some medical conditions such as alcoholism and other chronic diseases which do impair the quality of life between a couple. Those must be recognized and dealt with before a relationship can focus on it's strengths and use new skills and tools to improve. I can help you with illness of substance abuse.
How much does couples therapy or marriage counseling cost in Kansas City - Overland Park, KS?
Often couples wait until they are at their wits end to call me for their first appointment and get started with marriage and family therapy. Along with wondering if I'm going to recommend a divorce, the couple involved in counseling is concerned about the cost.
A counter question is, “What is the cost of not getting help once the couple becomes stuck and unable to guide the relationship in the right direction?” In this question, the word “cost” is probably first used to refer to finances and the therapists fees. There are, however, many costs to making a relationship better. It costs time. It costs tolerance and patience and it costs an open mind to learn how to use modern techniques for marriage.
My fee is $180.00 per session. I offer discount packages of up to 25% with advanced purchase.
How To Find A Great Marriage Counselor In Kansas City?
Here are two informational sources to help you answer this important question:
What to expect from marriage therapy sessions with me?
I provide an emotionally safe place where you and your partner can freely discuss sensitive topics. My job is not to judge, criticize or gang up on one of you as if you're more to blame for the problems in the relationship and your partner. What we do in the first few sessions is discussed in detail on the FAQ page.
Marriage counseling and life coaching can help you feel emotionally safer and trusting of your partner, more open in exploring solutions for hot topics with him or her. As you and your partner develop new skill sets and insights into your relationship dynamics, solutions and compromises will emerge that you both can live with and move on, rather than being stuck in escalating conflict.
Come prepared with an open mind, trust your counselor and do the best you can to try out new ways of thinking. Be willing to practice the communication and interpersonal skills your coach or counselor recommends to you in your work together. Do the suggested homework, understanding that marriage counseling encourages practice to build new relationship skills.
Bonus Question: Why Talking About Our Problems Helps So Much (and How to Do It)
Call me (913-991-2302), Dr Paul W Anderson, PhD - Family and Elder Counselor and let's get started.