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Couples counseling, or marriage counseling, is a type of psychotherapy for people involved in a romantic relationship.
Often confused with couples therapy, couples counseling is a slightly different type of therapeutic support for couples experiencing short-term challenges.
This article explores the difference between couples therapy vs marriage counseling, benefits of couples counseling, and examples of different couples counseling exercises that therapists can use with clients.
If you work with couples, consider using SimplePractice as your EHR software, to manage everything from billing to three-way telehealth. SimplePractice’s enhanced client management feature is built for therapists and counselors who see couples.
Couples therapy vs marriage counseling
Marriage or couples counseling is often confused with couples therapy because they are both therapeutic interventions intended to support couples in navigating stressors in their relationships.
However, here are some small differences that distinguish the two:
Marriage counseling
- Helps couples navigate the challenges of married life
- Short-term, solution-focused treatment
- Can help couples dealing with:Intimacy issues
- Betrayal, loss of trust, or infidelity
- Communication challenges
- Conflict
- Changes in relational dynamics, like starting a family
- Couples counselors facilitate discussions between couples, acting as a mediator to:Resolve conflicts
- Set boundaries
- Strengthen communication strategies
- Navigate separation
- Make big life decisions together
- Rekindle intimacy
- Rebuild trust
- Strengthen co-parenting skills
- Marriage counselors can be religious clergy (and do not need clinical credentials to counsel), or a licensed mental health professional
Couples therapy
- Supports couples dealing with stressors in their relationship
- Longer-term psychodynamic therapy, spanning multiple sessions to review both individuals’ history and patterns
- Helps couples by uncovering the root cause of issues like:Infidelity
- Substance use
- Depression
- Conflict
- Domestic abuse
- Potential goals or outcomes include:Understanding and empathizing with one another
- Dismantling, or avoiding engaging in, dysfunctional patterns
- Processing and resolving large conflicts or built-up resentment
- Setting and enforcing healthier boundaries
- Healing after a breach in trust
- Strengthening communication strategies and conflict resolution skills
- A couples therapist is a licensed mental health clinician
The key difference is that marriage counseling is shorter term and solution-focused in the here and now, whereas couples therapy is psychodynamic in nature and longer term, seeking to understand the root cause of behaviors to resolve challenges.
How does couples counseling work?
From a psychotherapy standpoint, couples counseling is provided by a mental health clinician, such as a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), psychologist, clinical social worker (LCSW), or licensed professional counselor (LPC).
Counseling sessions can be held in person or through telehealth video online couples counseling.
A religious or spiritual leader or mentor, like a rabbi, chaplain, pastor, or priest, may also provide counseling, but their training may be different from a mental health professional. This doesn’t mean one should be favored over the other, rather it is up to the couple to determine what type of counseling would be most helpful for them.
A couple seeking counseling will meet with their counselor on a regular basis to find solutions and strategies to deal with their challenges.
While the therapist or counselor may use different therapeutic approaches, couples can typically expect to:
- Identify their main reasons for seeking counseling (together or individually)
- Establish treatment goals
- Talk through conflicts, challenges, or dilemmas from each person’s perspective
- Work together to find solutions to their challenges
- Implement solutions and frequent check-ins to report progress and make adjustments, as necessary
The main benefits of couples counseling include:
- Developing deeper levels of trust and intimacy
- Strengthening the individual and the couple’s coping skills, reducing stress on the relationship
- Enhancing communication strategies and conflict resolutions skills, which may enhance goodwill, respect, and positive feelings towards each other
- Holding space to facilitate discussions that resolve conflict and help navigate dilemmas in a non-judgmental way
- Counseling may also increase security in the relationship and positive feelings between partners
Couples counseling exercises
As a counselor or therapist who works with couples, consider using couples counseling exercises to help your clients reach their treatment goals.
Similar to couples therapy exercises, the following couples counseling exercises can help to strengthen communication in a relationship:
Weekly check-in
- Find a relaxing space to have a weekly conversation. This could be on a deck, the beach, your favorite coffee shop, or anywhere else that is without distraction and a place you enjoy.
- The check-in might include things that have gone well for you this week, things you have enjoyed together, and what you’d like to accomplish next week. Your partner can do the same.
- These discussions help to strengthen your relationship by showing a real desire to understand each other and offer support.
Ask for a pause
- You can practice this skill when you’re in a heated debate, disagreement, or you just don’t have the capacity to have a difficult conversation.
- When you start to feel a conversation escalating, or you are simply engaged in something else, ask your partner for a pause.
- Explain your reason and ask to circle back on a specific day and time.
Being mindful of body language
- Over a couple days, mindfully observe how you communicate nonverbally with your partner. For example, do you look at them when speaking? Is your body language open, or are your arms crossed and you’re looking away?
- Notice how they respond to your non-verbal cues and see if changing them has an impact on their behavior. For example, if you always say good morning while getting your coffee and walking out of the door, how might your partner respond if you bring them coffee in bed and show them some affection?
These little details can help to develop intimacy in the relationship and a sense of security.
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- Couples Therapy Exercises
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