Couples and Marriage Counseling

Individuals do not exist in isolation; they are influenced by their relationships from the cradle to the present, none more so than familial relationships. The field of marriage and couples counseling emerged from individual and family theories of psychology, many of which acknowledged the influence of the family on the person but did not focus on working with the couples in particular. The key difference between individual counseling and marital and couples counseling is the focus on the relationship dynamics as the client, not the individual. In other words, while each individual is very important in counseling, how indviduals relate and impact each other is the focus in couples work.