Couples & Family Therapy

Call (919) 245-7791 ext.5 to make general inquiries and schedule an appointment. We offer online therapy options.

Our mental health occurs in the context of our relationships with others; our partners, our friends, and our family.  When these relationships suffer it can feel like the foundation of our house is crumbling. Conversely, strong relationships allow us to weather even the most harrowing personal storms with the knowledge that we have an anchor and soft place to land. Therapy can help relationships at every stage grow and thrive to improve the health of the relationship and the individuals involved. Breyta offers effective therapy from experienced, doctoral-level psychologists who can help you and your family find balance and peace. Whether your relationship needs enhancement, you’re considering marriage, are recovering from an affair, adjusting to recent separation or divorce, or are experiencing problems within your family dynamics, we have clinicians that can support you at every stage.

Through the application of powerful evidence-based techniques, our talented psychologists will help you quickly identify and address the core reasons behind conflicts in your relationships. Therapy will help you and your loved one move forward on a structured, effective path from chaos to the satisfying emotional connection and security you have always wanted. Therapeutic interventions grounded in cutting-edge attachment science will result is meaningful and lasting change for you and your relationships.

Couples Therapy

Couples Therapy provides a safe, neutral place for you and your partner to learn ways to improve or strengthen your relationship, re-establish bonds, build on existing skills and gain new ones. If you are interested in rekindling the spark that you felt at the beginning of your relationship, we can help you get it back. Therapy can be used to enhance communication, repair trust and forgiveness following a betrayal or infidelity, build physical or emotional intimacy, improve understanding of partners' needs, successfully overcome conflicts in your relationship, and much more. Couples therapy can also be used to assist in amicable separation and divorce.

Pre-/Postnatal Couples Counseling

Parenthood is such an exciting time. You want to enjoy being with your little one but it's difficult to deal with the physical and emotional changes that come with pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period. It can also be an overwhelming and exhausting time. There is so much to adjust to and very little time to catch your breath. Education, planning, and communication are keys to success to ensure that your partnership thrives. We can help you and your partner learn vital tools to build resilience both before and after your little one arrives. Whether you want to work on parenting or co-parenting skills, communication, or maintaining your connection, we’re here to help.

Premarital Counseling & Relationship Wellness

Is your relationship on the cusp of a big change? You may be establishing a relationship with your partner, or you may be beginning to enter a new level of commitment such as marriage. There is no better time than now to learn the skills needed to establish a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Our psychologists can provide this structured service to assist you in nurturing and exploring the potential of your relationship, including brief assessment and personalized resources. As your bond grows, and before you deepen your commitment, it’s helpful to get to know your partner on a deeper level and prepare for potential challenges ahead of time. This short-term counseling service can set your relationship or marriage up for success.

Relationship Status Assessment

Sometimes couples reach a point in their relationship where it can be difficult to navigate the path ahead. One partner may feel invested while the other may have one foot out the door. How do you know when you should fight for your relationship and pursue couples therapy or when it is time to consider a separation? This type of intervention is a short-term assessment process that helps you decide if couples counseling is right for you. Ambiguity can be stressful but we are here to help you and your partner make these difficult and very important decisions.

Family Therapy

Family therapy can be helpful in addressing problematic dynamics within parent-child, extended family, or sibling relationships. Whether the issues are ongoing in your current family or problems stemming from your family of origin, it's never too early or too late to repair relationships, improve communication, and foster deeper emotional connection. Family therapy can be particularly useful in building strong parenting techniques, helping with adjustment to co-parenting after divorce, navigating adoption, bonding blended families, conflict resolution, or helping a family member with a psychiatric diagnosis.

What Type of Couples Therapy Do You Use?

Our psychologists offer evidence-based couples therapy. Some of the approaches utilized by our couples therapists are: Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Gottman Method, and Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy.

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, or EFT, is an approach that recognizes that all relationships represent an attachment bond which can be strengthened by developing insight into patterns of disconnection or conflict; helping couples learn new ways to communicate and interact that results in a more secure and loving attachment bond. You can learn more about what EFT is by visiting Dr. Sue Johnson’s website.

Gottman Method Couples Therapy is an evidence-based form of couples therapy that helps couples develop greater understanding, awareness, empathy, and connection in their relationship. In doing so, the couple achieves increased intimacy and growth. You can learn more about the Gottman Method by visiting The Gottman Institute’s website.

Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy, or CBCT, helps couples build important skill sets, such as communication techniques, as well as the ability to apply these skills in the moment. Couples are assisted in understanding the ways in which their prior experiences affect their current functioning and thinking patterns, and the ways in which those old patterns affect their current relationship. As partners become more aware of the thoughts and feelings governing their behavior, they are able to develop compassion and acceptance for each other, resulting in more rewarding relationship behaviors.

What If My Partner Or Family Won’t Come To Therapy?

If you are interested in using therapy to improve your relationships but your partner or family member is reluctant, we suggest starting with some individual therapy sessions. You can always benefit from support and clarity that comes from therapy and often when loved ones see the positive changes you can make they are inspired to try the process. Learn more about individual therapy options here. We have psychologists at Breyta that specialize in treating relationship issues.

Can My Individual Therapist Be My Couples Therapist?

In short, no. There are practical and ethical reasons for this. In North Carolina, a couples therapist cannot be compelled to testify against either spouse in a court of law. This protects the sanctity of couples therapy. A therapist is an advocate for their client. In individual therapy, they are going to work hard to help their client achieve their goals and will support them. This is a biased relationship (which is great - you want your therapist in your corner). However, if your individual therapist is also your couples therapist (or your partner’s therapist is seeing you both for couples therapy) then it destroys the possibility of neutrality on the therapist’s part. Even if the therapist worked as hard as possible to be impartial and to treat each participant in couples therapy equally, all it takes is for one partner to wonder if that therapist has any preference or bias toward their individual client to ruin what should have felt like a safe space for both partners. Imagine wondering if you can say something in individual therapy without it coming out in a couples session. What would it be like to fear that the content of couples sessions would be discussed in your partner’s individual session? For these reasons we maintain clear and ethical boundaries for our clients. The good news is that we have couples therapists and individual therapists at Breyta who can accommodate your therapeutic needs under one roof while ensuring you have the best experience possible in any type of therapy in which you participate.

Does Insurance Cover Couples Therapy?

Insurance does not typically cover marriage or couples counseling. This is because the “client” in this scenario is the relationship, not an individual. Couples counseling is incredibly important to the well-being of the individuals involved in the relationship. However, because it is not therapy for an individual diagnosis, insurance does not usually cover this. Here is a link to an article at GoodTherapy.org that walks you through why couples therapy is a private investment in your relationship health.

Isn’t Couples Therapy Expensive?

Our couples and family therapists are highly skilled and trained in the most cutting-edge evidence-based therapies. We want to get you and your partner or family members back to your life as quickly as we can. Our goal is to help you learn tools and techniques that you can use outside our offices so that you can spend as little time here as possible.

That said, therapy is an investment in your emotional future and that of your family. What is that worth to you? We’ve worked with countless couples who have spent a few months being real with each other in our office, learning concrete tools, and finally getting to the point of emotional connectivity, so that they don’t have to spend so much money on self-help books, splashy vacations to distract from daily life, or pricey shopping sprees to fill the void. What would it be like to have a partnership that felt caring, present, reliable, and considerate? Would you consider the long-term gains of this worth the short-term time, effort, and financial commitment it may take to get there? If so, we are ready to be your guides.

Call or email today to reserve your session!

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