Relationship Counseling
Do You Struggle Creating Healthy Connections With Others?
Is it hard for you to maintain fulfilling friendships? Have you struggled in the past with staying in long-term intimate relationships? Do you often wonder why your connections with people fail?
Perhaps you feel frustrated with the relationships in your life. Setting boundaries with family members, for instance, may be an uncomfortable situation you keep finding yourself in. You may have trouble communicating or expressing emotions and have been told, “I never know if you care or not.”
You may also have noticed that you tend to sabotage connections, but you don’t know how to stop the cycle. Despite your best intentions, maybe you can’t help but push people away from you. Or perhaps you feel as if you are always the one being pushed away or abandoned.
Maybe you have been wronged in past relationships and have felt that other people were taking advantage of you. The guards and defenses you have put up in response have likely taken a toll on your closeness with others. And while, on the surface, you may recognize that you are putting these walls up, you are not sure why you are so guarded.
There may be longing for stronger bonds in your life, but you can’t seem to move past the disconnection you feel with others. Or perhaps the connections that you seem to value don’t feel reciprocated.
Life is difficult without close relationships. We benefit from having a support system, whether it’s confiding in someone or celebrating the good times. However, knowing how to develop this type of connection is easier said than done. Relationship counseling can help guide you to develop and maintain more meaningful relationships.
Finding Meaningful Connections In This Day And Age Can Feel Overwhelming
The connections we have with others play an important role in our life. But life is hard, and as a result, we can often feel disconnected from those we care about most. Even if we have a variety of people in our lives, we may not feel as if we have a truly great support system.
The connections we have with others play an important role in our life. But life is hard, and as a result, we can often feel disconnected from those we care about most. Even if we have a variety of people in our lives, we may not feel as if we have a truly great support system.
Life is busy with continuous responsibilities that make it even harder to sustain relationships. Our culture makes it easy to lose ourselves in work and even push for self-sufficiency to the point that investing in relationships can be seen as a weakness.
As we get older and start families of our own, these connections can become even harder to sustain. Not to mention the disconnect work obligations that are necessary to our livelihoods may create. To make things more challenging, anxiety, depression, and trauma impact how we view ourselves as well as how we view and treat others.
Our past experiences play a huge role in the health of our relationships. If you grew up in a household that wasn’t nurturing and absent of healthy examples, then you may not realize the impact it is having on your relationship patterns.
Unfortunately, the hurt that people have felt in the past may affect how they approach relationships today. For example, trust issues in current relationships can stem from a past betrayal that has not been processed or overcome. If not dealt with, you may unintentionally push people away due to the pain experienced from past relationships..
Another factor that can also cause a huge strain on our relationships is communication issues. Learning how to effectively communicate requires time, effort, and change, but it can help create noticeable shifts in the relationships within your life.
Your communication style can be influenced from past hurt, fears, and attitudes that affect the quality of your relationships.
Though, at times, you may feel like your own worst enemy when it comes to nurturing the bonds you have with others, therapy for relationship issues can help you learn how to create more meaningful and deeper connections.
Relationship Counseling Can Help You Create Stronger Connections
Going to an outside source when needing help with your relationships can feel uncomfortable. You might have some insight into your pattern and you may have tried to make some adjustments but still continue to find similar results.
Patterns such as pushing others away or not communicating effectively can be hard to overcome on your own because of the complexity of what shapes how you interpret yourself, others, and the world.
Therapy provides a safe place to work through negative patterns in relationships. Every person brings their own unique experiences that shaped how they interact with others. I tailor my approach to you in a way that accommodates your needs.
During our sessions, I will work with you to gather the information that helps us determine the problem you have and the goals that you want to accomplish. We will also identify the positive and negative experiences you have had that are affecting how you function within relationships.
I practice relationship therapy through attachment and emotional processing. Discovering how your attachment needs manifest in your relationships can help us better understand the distressful pattern that you have been experiencing. To begin, we will explore what it was like for you growing up and how the relationships that you witnessed affected the way you interact with others.
Past experiences with betrayal or abandonment can have negative effects on a person’s ability to experience emotions and express those needs to others. Understanding how the past has influenced attitudes towards safety, respect, and trust within a relationship will paint a clearer picture of why you react the way you do towards others, as well as how others react to you.
Through our sessions, we will work toward the root of the matter to improve communication in your relationships. Understanding how you handle your emotions and express them will help you to learn more effective communication skills. Gaining insights into the patterns and experiences that have shaped you as a person will help us break down the issues you are facing.
Therapy can help you feel better prepared to handle conflict and setbacks that inevitably happen with every relationship. When you equip yourself with the tools you need to navigate the roadblocks that happen in every relationship, you can feel more confident to handle them in a healthy way.
You May Be Wondering If Relationship Counseling Is Right For You
I always gravitate towards the same types of friends or romantic partners, and it never works out… but that doesn’t mean I need therapy.
Actually, that is a reason to seek counseling. Repeated cycles of choosing the same personality types may be playing a role in the dissatisfaction within these relationships. Past experiences, emotional vulnerability, and communication needs all can influence who you choose to connect with. Therapy can help you identify these cycles, why you gravitate towards certain types of people, and help you to correct this behavior.
I had a great childhood growing up, why would I need therapy if there are no issues from that environment?
Although a healthy home environment has many positive advantages, you can still endure painful experiences later in life. Having a great childhood does not mean that, as a teenager or adult, you haven’t gone through a negative experience that shaped you into the person you are. We all go through negative experiences through every stage of our life, and counseling can help you clarify how these things have affected you.
I’ve had people tell me that I don’t communicate well or that I’m not an emotional person, but I can’t help it, that’s just who I am.
No matter your experiences in life, we all have desires to be heard, cared for, and loved. Over time, you have probably developed ways of hiding this from others or yourself. It is great to be self-sufficient, but other people may not notice that you are struggling to communicate. Therapy can help you communicate in a way that others can know how to respond to you.
You Can Find Meaningful Connections In Your Relationships
If you are still unsure about relationship counseling, don’t hesitate to reach out to me and schedule a free, 15-minute consultation. I would be happy to speak with you and go over any concerns you may have.