Couples Therapy in Ontario

The best way to work on your relationship is for both of you to be in the room. It's difficult to repair something between two people when only one of them is there. That said, if you're unsure about couples therapy, or you'd like to talk with someone on your own before you decide, you're welcome to come in by yourself. We'll help you think through what you want to do. And if the two of you decide to go ahead, we'll ask to meet your partner on their own as well, so you both have a chance to get comfortable before we start working together.

This is one of the most common things we hear, and it's not necessarily the end of the story. Some of the couples we see started with one person booking alone and a partner who wasn't interested. Come in on your own and talk it through. We can help you think about how to raise it in a way that might land better, and sometimes that's enough to shift things. And if your partner still isn't ready, the session isn't wasted. You'll have someone helping you think clearly about where things stand and what you want to do from here.

Couples therapy is a specialty, not something every therapist is trained to do. A lot of unhelpful couples work comes down to fit, training, experience and skill of the therapist, rather than the relationship being beyond help. It's worth asking any therapist you're considering what couples-specific training they've done, how much experience they have, and what approach they use. Ask us the same. We have several therapists with advanced training in couples work, and if the first one isn't the right fit for you, you're welcome to book a free consultation with another. Finding the right match matters more than starting quickly.

We can't answer that from the outside, and it would be presumptuous to try. What we can tell you is what tends to make the difference. Couples therapy works best when both people are willing to take some responsibility for what's gone wrong and are open to changing something themselves. If it feels like your partner isn't there yet, and they see you as the one who needs to change, don't let that put you off couples therapy. Part of the journey is beginning to understand the different ways in which you interact with one another and how to change that, rather than focus on changing one person in the relationship.

It happens, and it's nothing to be embarrassed about. If it does, we'll usually step in. Couples therapy is a real investment of your time, money and energy, and having the same argument here that you could have had at home isn't going to help you rebuild your relationship. So we'll often slow things down and work with what's happening in the moment. What set this off, what each of you is feeling underneath it, what you're each trying to say that isn't landing. That's frequently where the most useful work happens, because we're not talking about the pattern in the abstract, we're watching it unfold and taking it apart together.

Yes. Relationships are relationships, whatever label is on yours. Dating, common-law, married, separated, remarried, queer, non-monogamous, interfaith. The repetitive arguments, the negative cycles, the feelings of abandonment, betrayal, anger and shame turn up in all of them. You don't have to explain or defend your relationship before you can get help with it. If you'd like to work with someone who has a particular specialty, whether that's non-monogamy, a faith perspective, or something else, just ask and we'll see if we have a fit and help you find someone if we don't.  

No. You and your therapist would talk about whether it's something your partner needs to know for the therapy to move forward, and if so, how you'd go about telling them. Not everything needs to be disclosed. But couples therapy is about both of you being honest and real with each other and figuring out whether and how you want to rebuild your relationship. That's hard to do when you're keeping secrets. An active affair is the clearest example. It isn't possible to continue couples therapy without naming it and talking about it, and working out where you go from here.

No. Couples often want to know who's right and who's wrong, and want us to rule in their favour. That's not what we do. We help you work out what's happening between you and how to change it. One of our highest priorities is making the room feel safe for both of you, which means neither of you should leave feeling outnumbered. We work hard at that, but we won't always get it right. If it ever feels like we're taking sides or not hearing you properly, please tell us. That's not a complaint we brush off. It's something we'd want to work through with you.

We don't do that, and honestly, it isn't going to take you anywhere good. What we do is slow things down so you can both work out what's actually going on. We help you get to the root of what's troubling you and say it in a way your partner can hear, and we help him do the same. Then each of you gets a chance to respond. The aim is to move you out of the nuts and bolts of the daily fights and into the feelings underneath them, which is usually where the real conversation is.

This comes up a lot. Therapy works best when you can both be honest, and that's really what it's for, being able to put things on the table and talk about them. But you may be surprised. People are often different in a therapy room than they are at home, and your partner may be willing to say more than you think, once someone is helping the conversation along. And if they find it hard to open up, that's where our skill comes in. Much of what we do is getting to the root of what's going on, and understanding both your perspective and theirs.

Mostly, we listen. We'll want to understand what brought you in now, what's troubling you at the moment, and how it's showing up between you day to day. We'll also step back and get a bird's-eye view of your relationship. How you met, how long you've been together, whether you have children, what life looks like around you. You don't need to prepare anything or come with a tidy summary. It's normal to feel awkward at the start, and it's fine if one of you does more of the talking than the other. By the end we'll talk about what you want to work on together.