What counselling can do for you
Counselling can help improve relationships, whether you're heading towards a divorce and need marriage counselling, or you have a different family dynamic. Sometimes people become unhappy with their relationships with extended family members, partners, children, or parents, and a counsellor can help clarify things, improve relations and interactions, and develop strategies. Counselling can provide positive solutions for other family issues like adopting a child or changing jobs. If you're facing a difficult family situation, don't hesitate to seek out professional help for:
- Dealing with worries you have about relationships
- Processing trauma such as abuse or family violence
- Boosting your self-confidence
- Strengthening your ability to manage conflict
- Coping with loss such as in a separation or divorce
- Creating patterns of interaction that are more positive
- Creating habits that are more positive
- Improving how parents and children, especially teens, get along
With a trained counsellor you have someone who is impartial and trained in helping you identify goals and work in a positive way to achieve them. They can offer you ways you can overcome the conflict you are facing in a relationship and strategies that can help heal those relationships and then strengthen them. Most are in person, but for those people living in more rural areas, there are opportunities for telephone counselling. With family counselling you can communicate better and find solutions, which for example might help in the case where you are divorcing but need to come to an arrangement and you want to try and avoid the bitterness and anger that many couples experience at such times, that makes it hard to come to a fair settlement.
Who can use family counselling?
While marriage counselling is especially for people who were married or partners who were living together as a couple, family counselling is for people facing difficulties in their family life. It provides a safe space to explore different dynamics, hear another perspective, and rebuild trust. Family counselling can help with challenges such as arguments, grief and loss, behavioural concerns, worries about safety, and managing a separation or divorce. With the help of a counsellor, you can learn the tools you need to work through these challenges and improve your life.