Great Couples Counselling in Oak Ridges, ON. Therapy to heal relationships.

All relationships hit rough patches from time to time. However couples who have the skills to identify and talk in a mature and calm manner are able to manage these rough patches before they become mighty marriage mountains to scale. When couples struggle to communicate, be active and present participants in their relationship, take responsibility for their part of the problem and the solution we end up with a breakdown of the relationship. It is possible to learn the skills that will improve your relationship. Working on improving communication skills, conflict resolutions and negotiating skills, stress and self management skills and much more will help grow your relationship.

Relationships are not always easy; we are delicately balancing the needs of ourselves as individuals and the needs of the other within one space. When a couple comes in for counselling, we explore this field between you both, and see how to shift some relationship patterns in order for you both to better understand, and hear each other. From here we can make the adjustments necessary for you both to get what you need from the relationship. And, if moving away from each other is what will move one, or both of you to where you want to go, we navigate these physical, mental, and emotional changes and challenges safely and nonjuddmentally, for the wellbeing of everyone involved.

What concerns can we hope to address? ​ - Communication - Conflict - Infidelity - Building trust - Enhancing emotional intimacy - Opening up - Sexual issues We will utilize a combination of therapeutic modalities, interventions and approaches to help tailor the treatment to your specific needs, including: ​ - Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) - Gottman Method - Sex Therapy - Assess for strengths and vulnerabilities of your relationship - Assign homework activities (applying what you've learned outside of your sessions with structured exercises for reducing conflict, improving communication, and enhancing sexual intimacy) - Recommend individual therapy for one or both partners

The relationship you have with your significant other can bring you love, joy, and a sense of fulfillment. But when things aren't going well, your relationship can often be exhausting and painful. Couples therapy provides a safe and fair space for both of you to be heard, and can help you discover and process the root of the issue. Couples therapy is hard work, but when both partners are willing to fight for the relationship, great things can happen.

Romantic relationships can be hard work. They require regular care to keep them functioning well. Many couples expect romance to go on forever without doing the necessary work only to face the realities of relationships. Relationship issues become more magnified when one or both parties carry a history of trauma. Couples counselling can help individuals learn about one another, communicate effectively and grow as individuals while becoming loving partners. The therapist is an unbiased party who is there to help both partners function together well as a unit by providing solution-based interventions.

If you are finding yourselves stuck in the same 'merry-go-round' (although not so merry!) of poor communication and accusation/defensiveness, winners and losers, your marriage probably feels like you're going nowhere fast! You think you've married the wrong person and feel that you've tried everything in your 'tool-bag' to do. If you don't have 'win-win', what you essentially have is 'lose-lose'.. I will advocate for your marriage...I will be your cheerleader and your coach combined, showing you how to get out of this destructive cycle and move forward to something much more satisfying. I will help you rebuild when hurts have been deep. Don't delay on this...sooner is better!

Beneath most intimate relationship struggles, there is a key defining question being asked, “Are you really there for me?” This question embodies many others: When I need you, can I reach you? Do you respect and support me? Do you care about me when I'm hurting? Do you still want me? When the answers to these questions become shaky in our mind, we get stuck in unhealthy patterns, and may need some help finding our way back to each other. Emotionally Focused Therapy is an evidence-based model that helps couples reconnect with each other and (re)discover the relationship they have always wanted. Reach out today to bring healing and enhancement to the most important relationship in your life!

Relationships are very complex. They have the potential to enrich our lives if we let them. They require flexibility and compromise, good communication skills, and an awareness of ourselves as individuals. A couple is made up of two unique individuals who come from very different family backgrounds and who bring diverse beliefs and perspectives into the relationship. It's no wonder that difficulties arise. It is common for partners to get caught up in negative, destructive cycles that unless stopped, can propel the relationship into greater disharmony. Couples therapy can lead to a deeper and more meaningful relationship.

Through mediation, psychoeducation and solution focused approaches, I support couples and families to recognize and resolve relational difficulties, improve relational challenges and develop courage to change what does not work - until desired outcomes are reached for all parties involved. This type of support can help couples and families achieve a deeper understanding of each other and settle differences or significantly improve existing dysfunctional patters in areas not limited to resolving communication differences, cultural differences, infidelity, separation, divorce, blended family issues, substance abuse, parenting etc.

Would you like tips on how to communicate with your partner? How about learning how to argue fairly and come to a compromise or solution? Would you like help in restoring the gratitude you once had for your relationship and loved one? My therapeutic technique(s) using both talk therapy and active therapeutic strategies I.e. worksheets, couples homework assignments, etc can help you acknowledge areas in your relationship you would like to improve and provide practical strategies toward accomplishing both your individual and partnership goals.

Couple counselling can help you enhance your relationship. I can help you improve communication skills, conflict resolution skills, emotional and sexual intimacy and negotiate your needs in your relationship. I can assist you to reduce arguments in a safe environment and learn to better understand yourself and your partner. I can help you to understand how unresolved issues from the past get displaced into the present and how to resolve this. The need to feel loved by one's partner is at the heart of marital desires. Learn to know how your partner needs to be shown love. In this way, the more you do this, the more he/she will reciprocate. It is a win/win situation.

A healthy couple's relationship is often constructed by two self-reliant individuals who choose to build a shared space between them, increasingly filled with tender emotions, hopes and goals, and a dedication to the other person's growth. Central to this construct is the ability to listen. Relationships often arrive in therapy troubled by the ability to communicate and the absence of a mutual understanding of where they're going. Individuals don't mature at the same pace, just like their ability to identify and share feelings develops differently. The comfort of being listened to and understood by your therapist often helps to begin the work of reconstructing your relationship.

When working with couples, I use several approaches to treatment including PACT and RLT. You may find that out work together is different than previous experiences you have had in couples therapy. Through our work together, you and your partner will discover how to stay connected, help each other feel safe and secure, manage each other’s emotional highs and lows, fight well and minimize each other’s stress. Longer sessions allow us to go deeper, getting to the heart of the issues you are facing and allowing time for repair to occur in session. Learn to have a secure relationship where both partner’s needs are met.

All relationships go through ups and downs but seeing a trained and experienced therapist can make a big difference in how situations get resolved. We have over a decade of experience helping couples improve their communication, find healthy ways to manage conflict, go through life transitions together, get their parenting styles on the same page, address trust issues, deal with lack of intimacy or sexual issues, recover from extra marital affairs, manage the division of labor for household responsibilities and many many other issues. We approach each situation uncovering and building on peoples’ strengths, helping them to reach successful resolutions.

My approach is to help people recognize that relationships are two-sided and understand how each individual contributes to the couple’s dynamic. With that understanding, we work toward reaching a win-win situation, aiming to restore the satisfaction of the relationship. Together, we create a safe space for you to grow past the areas of “stuckness” -- that is, the old patterns that are learned when we are young and are brought to our current relationships. This is true for all of us. Therapy enables us to form new and healthy attachment patterns that are nourishing and nurturing, providing opportunities for new growth and satisfaction.

Your marriage is in crisis, or you feel "stuck". Perhaps you are dealing with one of many common relationship issues, Infidelity, Frequent bickering and fighting, Inability to stop destructive patterns of behavior, Feeling taken for granted, Unsupported or misunderstood, No longer enjoying time together, Damaged trust or jealousy, Loss of intimacy, Challenges with parenting, Difficulties with the stress of work and family. Learning new communication skills which replace the old repetitive patterns, using Imago and Emotionally Focused Therapy are two strong amongst various approaches to reignite and/or deepen the connection that restores trust, safety and security, and harmony.

In the downtown Toronto area, people come to see me for help with marital and couples-related conflicts. I am very comfortable helping couples who are in straight, gay, or lesbian relationships. Conflicts often come up between partners in relation to difficulties with intimacy, conflicts surrounding extended family members, and disagreements around family goals and priorities.

I use 9 steps of Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) to help couples identify their negative interaction cycle and each partner's role in that cycle. Steps 1-4 entails empowering the couples to access unacknowledged emotions underlying the interactional positions and to reframe the challenges in terms of underlying feelings and attachment needs. Steps 5-7 entails supporting and mediating couples to change interactional positions and creating new bonding experiences. Steps 8-9 entails encouraging the couples to integrate new solutions to old relational problems.

Are you and your partner struggling with communication, trust, or expectations in your relationship? Whether you are working through a specific conflict, preparing for a big relationship change, or want to improve your communication as a couple, I offer a practical and non-judgemental therapeutic space to help you get to where you both want to be in a timeframe that works for you.

I often see couples when one side is experiencing an addiction. This can cause relatively predictable effects in the other half of the partnership. The person addicted needs their own recovery and the partner needs their own healing. The couple also needs to heal by restoring trust and dealing with underlying issues. At OWA Therapy, I focus on overcoming those underlying issues.

Relationship with "other" (meaning really anything outside of ourselves) is probably the most important aspect of living. The better this relationship is, the more fulfilling a life can become. More specifically, the relationship with a human partner is probably the most important of all relationships. Is it true to you that your heartfelt relationship with your partner is truly an integral "need" in your life? Some say that we all need connection, acceptance, and love in order to be whole human beings. Are those three essentials present in your relationship? Do you want to find ways to bring them more fully into your life?

Whether you have been together for three months, three years or three decades, our conversations can help disrupt cycles of painful and negative interactions, heal past and present hurts, and create new ways of talking together. I can help you have conversations that are different from the ones you have at home and that allow you to speak to and hear one another in meaningful ways.

Intimate relationships are an integral part of our lives, and the quality of those relationships has a considerable impact on us. However, relationships can be difficult. Couples therapy helps people to improve communication, develop new ways of solving problems, and increase emotional and physical intimacy. If there has been a significant breach of trust or marital infidelity, therapy focuses on coping with the event, increasing understanding of the factors that contributed to it, and if required, helping the couple decide whether to remain in the marriage or end it. When the couple desires to remain together, the focus is on helping the couple to heal and repair their relationship.

Winnie provides non-judgemental and compassionate couple therapy. In dealing with Couples counselling she primarily draws from her training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). EFT is the most progressive and well researched therapeutic interventions used in Couples Therapy. By using this practical and effective method, the goal is to help couples to identify their cycle, how they are connecting in their distressing patterns, and how they can be helped to reconnect again in a new pattern. Winnie also had attended Sex Therapy course at University of Guelph. She has also taught Premarital sex courses as well as leading female groups on the topic of sex.

You feel like you have grown apart although you are still together. You feel lonely, separated, and unable to connect with your significant other. You want the person you fell in love with back! I use attachement-based therapies and the Gottman Method to explore all facets of your relationship. Together, we will "troubleshoot" the issues in the relationship and what we need to work on in our sessions.