Couples Gestalt Therapy

“If people chose partners by what they are rather than what they think they are,
there wouldn’t be any deals.
That hopefulness is what makes a deal.”
—Elvin Semrad, MD

Couples — married or cohabitating, heterosexual or gay, with or without children — seek therapy for many different reasons.

Couples may present with these stressors:

  • Infidelity
  • Financial problems
  • Work-related long-distance separations
  • Communication difficulties
  • Insufficient fun and Recreation
  • Need to develop individually and as a couple
  • Empty nest syndrome

Such difficulties are not surprising considering that each half of the couple brings to the relationship different backgrounds – culture, religion, families, personalities, education, and emotional expressions and needs. Couples live a process that needs reviewing and adjusting periodically.

What do I pay attention to as a Couple’s therapist?

  • Where do I start?
  • What do I observe, stands out?
  • What do they do well?
  • How aware and responsive is each to the other’s thoughts/feelings?
  • Who initiates conversations, questions?
  • What is the energy level between them?
  • What do they want from me and need for them to grow?
  • Which direction am I being pulled; what does each trigger in me?

As someone who has been married for more than 55 years, I can empathize with their struggles and know that there is no simple answer or solution but that change is possible — “where there is a will, there is a way” the old saying claims. But is there? Is it a matter of will or is it a gradual process of becoming individually and together?

What I do

  • I stress that the relationship is the client, not the individual
  • I do not focus on the content the couple brings to me; I could easily get lost in the logistics of their problem
  • I comment on what I observe they are doing well, i.e. can express strong opinions, obviously feel strongly about each other
  • I listen if couples recognize feelings separate from facts and assumptions
  • I may teach skills to assist the couple to argue cleanly in ways that will contribute to integrate differences
  • I may experientially assist them to creatively finding solutions that both can live with.
  • I may reframe individual personality traits as complimentary
  • I will have the couple identify what each wants and how they might accomplish it fairly in all areas of discord
  • I support and encourage the process

The above gives you some idea how I will work with you. My focus remains the couple’s therapy process so that out of two powerful “I’s” a flexible, situation-appropriate “we” and “us” can emerge.

Time:

Couples Therapy session vary from 55 minutes – 90 minutes.

Fees:

$175.—for initial session up to 90 minutes
$150.—for sessions – 55 minutes

Health Insurance: I do not submit to health insurances for re-imbursement

Comments from Couples:

“We are grateful to Helga for being there with us during an emotionally difficult time in our marriage and family life. Our twin sons left for studies in a foreign country, and Mary and I felt lost without them. Helga observed quietly and gave us helpful feed back to make us aware of interfering communication patterns and unhelpful attitudes toward each other; we felt like starting at the beginning again but this time without the flush of young love. We learned gradually to be as patient with each other as we had been with our children and their many friends.

Helga, Mary and I hope you realize that you gave our marriage new life and that we realized more fully what it means to have each other. God bless you and your family.”

Jonathan and Mary Girard, Ohio