A Guide to Couples Therapy at Heights Family Counseling
Welcome to Heights Family Counseling! We are so glad you found us!
The Purpose of Couples Therapy
Couples come to therapy for many reasons, including communication difficulties, conflict, stress, life transitions, betrayal, parenting challenges, or feeling disconnected. The purpose of therapy is to help you:
• Reduce conflict and prevent escalation
• Improve communication skills that feel clear and respectful
• Understand what each partner needs in moments of stress or disconnection
• Strengthen friendship and emotional intimacy
• Build or rebuild trust
• Develop shared meaning, goals, and rituals
• Understand how your past relationships and family experiences influence your current patterns
• Create a more secure and supportive bond
How We Work: Gottman, EFT, and Attachment
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
Gottman work offers a structured and research based way to understand what makes relationships thrive. You will learn new skills for communication, conflict management, emotional attunement, and connection. We focus on building friendship, turning toward each other, expressing needs clearly, managing stress as a team, and strengthening the foundation of your relationship.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Lens
While Gottman gives you skills, EFT helps you understand the deeper emotional dance between you. Most couples get caught in a repeating cycle during conflict. One partner might pursue and the other might withdraw. One might escalate and the other might shut down. EFT helps identify this pattern and supports both partners in sharing the softer, more vulnerable emotions underneath. As you understand each other’s inner world more clearly, connection becomes safer and easier.
Attachment and Family of Origin Work
Our earliest experiences shape how we handle closeness, conflict, and emotional needs in adult relationships. Exploring these roots helps partners understand why certain situations feel triggering and what each person needs to feel safe and valued. This part of therapy is not about blame. It is about insight, compassion, and building new patterns that support a secure relationship.
What to Expect in Couples Therapy
The first sessions
Early sessions focus on understanding your relationship. This may include joint sessions, individual meetings, and Gottman assessments to help your therapist understand strengths, challenges, and goals. You will begin to identify the patterns that create disconnection.
During ongoing sessions
Your therapist will guide conversations, help slow things down, and support both partners in communicating more effectively. Expect a mix of skill building, deeper emotional work, problem solving, and practice with new ways of connecting.
What to expect in the therapy room:
• A nonjudgmental space where both partners can speak honestly
• Support in expressing needs and feelings clearly
• Coaching through difficult conversations
• Practice with communication and repair strategies
• Exploration of the emotional cycles that fuel conflict
• Guidance in building rituals of connection, shared meaning, and friendship
• A steady focus on strengthening your bond, even when discussing hard topics
Therapy between sessions
You may receive brief exercises, questions, or practices based on Gottman or EFT principles to help the work continue at home. These are designed to be manageable and meaningful rather than overwhelming.
How to Get the Most from Couples Therapy
• Come with openness and curiosity
• Speak from your own experience rather than trying to defend a position
• Allow space for your partner’s reality even when it differs from your own
• Practice skills between sessions
• Approach each other with the goal of understanding rather than winning
• Remember that lasting change comes from consistent small shifts, not perfection
A Final Reassurance
Couples therapy is a guided process. You do not need to have the answers when you arrive. Your therapist will help you understand your pattern, communicate in healthier ways, and build a stronger foundation. Every couple has moments of disconnect. Therapy gives you the tools to turn these moments into opportunities for closeness and resilience.