Great Couples Counselling in Port Coquitlam, BC. Therapy to heal relationships.

Couples could face many different issues in their relationships. These issues could include communication problems, conflict, sexual and intimate issues, different cultural backgrounds, and a lack of understanding about where each other's feelings. To provide counselling to couples, we use a variety of techniques depending on each couple's unique struggles and challenges. We help you develop better communication skills, work toward better conflict resolution, understand each other's needs and feelings, recognize your own triggers and your partner's triggers, and identify unhealthy coping mechanisms and replace them with healthy ones.

If you're looking to improve your relationship, we'd work together to create a supportive environment for discussion, allowing each of you to share your perspective and experience. With important conversations and empathetic questions, there's opportunity to truly see each other and to collaborate to resolve the issues rather than engaging in blame. Together, we'd uncover experiences that promote mutual understanding, empathy and appreciation. Through this process you'll gain insights, develop new ways of communicating, strengthen your connection and establish a more fulfilling and harmonious relationship.

I use the Gottman method to help couples work through their marital concerns to establish a friendship, nurture a stronger emotional bond, find shared meaning, and learn skills for conflict resolution. Couples typically engage in therapy to strengthen their connection, cope with crisis situations, and improve communication. I work with partners to instill a sense of understanding by breaking unhealthy patterns of communication and behaviours that may be showing up due to earlier experiences. Couples are provided with the opportunity to navigate through difficult relational dynamics to achieve happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction in their relationship.

Couples counselling focuses on developing strong communication skills, conflict resolution techniques, forgiveness, and effective dialogue. Many couples experience frustration at some point in their relationship where they feel they are not heard, valued or even loved any more. A toxic cycle of blaming, fighting and pulling away begins to form, creating distance and fatigue. For others an affair has shaken the very core of the safety and love they once felt in their relationship. It can be an agonizing and terrifying discovery for the partner who has been betrayed, and strong feelings of guilt, shame and a lack of understanding to how it even happened for the offending partner. Whether you are looking for a tune up to build back the excitement and...(view profile to read more)

Olivia is deeply passionate about helping couples at every stage of their relationship. Her true heart lies in supporting couples to enhance their connection, foster healing, and restore their bond. Olivia combines her extensive experience in counseling with practical tools to equip couples with effective communication, conflict resolution, and relationship-building strategies. She also has a unique ability to address deeper-rooted issues, guiding partners to uncover and resolve underlying patterns that may be causing strain. Whether helping couples prepare for a lifetime together or overcome hardships, Olivia is committed to nurturing growth, understanding, and lasting restoration.

The Gottman Method helps couples break out of painful cycles by applying research from over 3,000 couples—studying both those who thrive and those who divorce—to identify what makes relationships work. In Gottman couples therapy, we'll identify patterns eroding your intimacy—like criticism, defensiveness, or stonewalling—and replace them with healthier ways of relating. You'll learn practical, evidence-based skills for expressing needs, listening deeply, navigating conflict constructively, and repairing hurt. Whether experiencing frequent arguments, feeling disconnected, or facing major challenges, you'll gain concrete tools to rebuild connection, taking your relationship on a new trajectory

In couples counselling, I would use a combination of an EFT approach as well as the Gottman Method which validated extensively couples, and has been shown to be two of the most successful approaches to help manage couples problems. Using these evidence-based techniques, we would explore the attachment style of each partner, determine the patterns of behaviour between the two individuals and the negative cycle that they are in. We would evaluate cultural factors if there are any, and of course focus on the core issues that the couple presents with. As a marriage counsellor, I would also use EFT and Gottman techniques to identify keys interactions and cycles in the relationship.