Couples Therapy in Vienna, VA
Callahan Therapy & Consultation offers in-person couples therapy and marriage counseling at our Northern Virginia office in Vienna, VA as well as telehealth services for residents of Virginia & North Carolina.
Are You Considering Couples Therapy?
Are you in a committed relationship and feel like something isn’t working between you and your partner?
Does it seem like you’ve spent years living every day the same way, where your relationship is just “okay” or “fine,” but want a deeper emotional connection?
Do you hope to improve the joy and fun you once had, like rekindling physical intimacy?
This stress of managing life with your career or your family alongside your marriage might be overwhelming. Therapy can provide the understanding and expertise to resolve your issues as a couple and pave a path toward a happy union again.
Relationship Struggles Can Be Painful
Going through relationship challenges can erode your sense of trust and safety, with a growing distance between you both. You might feel more like roommates with specific jobs managing the household, and not feel emotionally connected or romantically charged by one another.
Or maybe, you are dealing with a betrayal you aren’t sure how to move on from. If this is the case, the person who was once your safest place is the source and the deepest heartbreak, so the idea of rebuilding trust, safety and connection can feel impossible. It can feel jarring to remember the connection and understanding you once shared, and to now reflect on how disconnected and misunderstood you feel.
You have probably tried to talk about your issues on your own, but your patterns of blaming and distancing likely keep the relationship in a place of unhappiness and loneliness. However, with evidence-based couples therapy, it is possible to reconnect, restore, and revitalize your relationship.
Have any questions about couples therapy? Let’s connect.
Callahan Therapy & Consultation offers in-person couples therapy at our Northern Virginia office in Vienna, VA as well as telehealth services for residents of Virginia & North Carolina.
The Past Often Dictates How We Relate In The Present
All couples go through times of struggle, but when we as individuals have unresolved issues from our past, they often become a factor in how we relate to our loved ones in the present.
What we may not realize while in the midst of an argument is that we feel similar pain and frustration to what we felt in past relationships, and even in our childhood with our caregivers. Those formative relationships may not have been functional, but we developed patterns for relating and surviving that felt right at the time but no longer serve us today.
Experiencing a therapeutic modality like emotionally focused couples therapy, which helps to make the connection between our present-day conflict and our pain from the past, can make long-term healing possible.
The Pressure To “Have It All” Is Spreading Us Thin
It's common to feel pressure as we strive to be successful in our careers, while also providing the support our loved ones need, as well as our spouses or partners. When we keep the focus on careers and children as the main priority, this distracts us from what's happening or not happening in our relationships.
Instead of reaching out for the support of therapy or counseling at the early signs of stress, overwhelm, and distance in our marriage, society has conditioned us to figure it out on our own. Sometimes, instead of identifying our relationship needs attention, we dive into our careers as a way to hide from our struggles.
Couples Therapy is right for your relationship if…
You feel stuck repeating arguments about the same issues.
One or both of you feels unseen, unappreciated, or alone.
You want more emotional or physical closeness but are unsure how to get there.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Can Heal Your Relationship
In couples therapy at Callahan Therapy & Consultation, we help individuals understand themselves and their partners better, together. You’ll have the chance to share the impact of your and your partner's choices and actions in ways that allow you both to be truly seen, heard, and understood. We provide therapy for couples and all relationship structures consisting of men, women, gender non-conforming individuals, and those who identify as LGBTQ+.
Couples therapy is about noticing the ways each person is coping in ways that protect them as individuals but may create distance in the relationship. In sessions, we work to identify the negative interaction cycles that lead to withdrawal, shutdown, or escalation, and understand the attachment needs and fears that drive those cycles. You’ll also practice new ways of sharing emotions so each partner feels safer and more understood.
We’ll explore questions like:
How are we making meaning of each other's actions or words?
What assumptions are we making about our partner's intentions?
What emotions are present, yet too vulnerable to acknowledge and share?
Our method of choice at Callahan Therapy for couples is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which has proven to be incredibly effective at helping partners develop healthier patterns. You will be able to go deeper into what matters in therapy, including past trauma or pain, issues with physical intimacy, or other areas of life where your fears are triggered, and needs are unmet.
Why Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)?
Emotionally Focused Therapy is the most empirically validated model for couples therapy.
During EFT sessions, you will each develop a deeper understanding of how and why you react the way that you do during arguments, and how those reactions impact the relationship.
You’ll develop new ways to cope with painful moments and learn how to share them with your partner so you can move through the conflict together. Counseling with EFT can help you gain self-understanding as a couple, improve your communication, resolve issues with intimacy, and develop new curiosity in each other and yourselves.
As the unhealthy relationship patterns become clear to you both, we work on catching them in their tracks, inside and outside of sessions. We will help each of you utilize new, co-created strategies, with language that includes your perceptions and emotions.
Emotionally focused therapy consists of three phases:
Phase 1: Identify the patterns that don’t work and how each of you contributes.
Phase 2: Recreate new patterns to form deeper connections.
Phase 3: Develop new solutions to old problems.
Joy And A Hopeful Future Are Possible For Your Relationship
As couples therapists, we want you to know that if two willing individuals come together to try to improve their relationship, it is absolutely possible to repair and mend any fractures that have occurred. Even if it takes some time, your problems aren’t unfixable, and you are not alone with the patterns you and your partner have developed. Even though there can be painful moments, addressing your challenges with clarity and vulnerability can bring you through your pain to a more contented and joyful life together.
You Might Still Have Questions Or Concerns About Couples Therapy…
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Though you may have gone to couples or marriage counseling in the past that didn’t work out, you have done the best you can with the information and skills you were given from your previous counselor. The therapists at Callahan Therapy can provide a unique perspective, the expertise of emotionally focused therapy with advanced training, and can identify the real, deep, contributing issues impacting your marriage.
All of our therapists are trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a research-supported model that helps couples transform the emotional cycle in their relationship. Instead of staying on the surface of communication skills, EFT helps partners access and express deeper feelings and needs that have often been hidden for years.
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Even if we aren't aware of it, emotions are the main driver of our decisions. Your couples therapist will help you gain a better understanding of the emotions driving your communication styles, actions, and behaviors. As you get clearer about the emotions that repeatedly show up, you can begin to communicate from an emotional standpoint rather than a protective one.
From our experience, it is rare for couples to have had the chance or taken time to truly understand each other's emotions and speak from a place of vulnerability. Therapy is a great place to explore the power of a deeper connection.
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Couples therapy is an investment of time, energy, and resources. Attending sessions consistently will allow for the most effective change in the most timely manner. If you truly can’t attend sessions consistently, it might not be the right time to start therapy. Prioritizing therapy now allows you to improve the functioning of your relationship and reduce conflict and stress over time, investing in it for the long term.
Begin Working On Healing Your Relationship
In couples therapy, we will break down barriers, identify harmful coping mechanisms, and make space for underlying emotions to help you find joy in your relationship again. Reach out to us at (703) 495-3598 or through our Contact page to get started.
Callahan Therapy & Consultation Offices
243 Church St. NW
Vienna, VA 22180