Where Do I Begin With Counseling?
Whether it’s for a marriage, adult, student or teen, for counseling to be effective, the right fit between counselor and client is crucial. If you’ve already been referred to one of our counselors by another professional or personal referral, please Request an Appointment. If not, please contact us, we’ll be able to match you with the counselor who best fits your needs.
What Should I Expect from Counseling?
The first counseling session will be devoted to gathering information, discussing what brings you to counseling, and learning about how your counselor works. From there, over the next couple of sessions, your counselor will decide the best course of action and will work with you to create treatment goals.
During the first session of couples’ counseling, we’ll learn about your relationship from each of your perspectives, and your goals for couples counseling. We’ll also do an exercise to help you experience how Emotion Focused Couples counseling will work on an ongoing basis. For more information about EFT see our couples counseling page, or visit ICEEFT.com. This will help you and your partner decide if EFT feels like a good fit.
How Often Should I Come to Counseling?
For individual counseling, weekly sessions are important at first. This allows the counseling to gain momentum. After a period of time, it may be possible to reduce session frequency. This is, of course, something that will be an on-going conversation between you and your counselor.
For couples, you’ll want to commit to weekly sessions in order to gain the most benefit, most efficiently, from the counseling. Your counselor will be able to determine when it’s appropriate for your sessions to be reduced to twice a month, then once a month, until the couples counseling is fully complete and your relationship is where you want it to be.
How Long Do Counseling Sessions Last?
The standard length of time for individual counseling sessions is 5o minutes. Sometimes sessions are longer for clients who travel and can’t meet on a regular basis.
For couples, sessions are at least 50 minutes. Couples counseling moves much more quickly when we’re able to meet for 1 hour 15 min, or 1 hour 40 min sessions, when schedules allow.
How Long Will Counseling Take?
This is a difficult question to answer for any counselor since each client is a different, has different problems, and has different goals. Broadly speaking, you should devote at least 6 months to weekly counseling sessions.
For couples counseling, our experience is that 30–50 sessions is a good estimate. For some couples less, for others more.