Couple and Marriage Counselling
When love hurts and emotional connection is frayed, you know how desperate it feels. Every day I help couples in distress discover how to move toward each other instead of inadvertently creating road blocks to intimacy and happiness. Drawing on the highly successful therapeutic road map to loving connection, the EFT -Emotionally Focused Therapy approach, I will help you and your partner rediscover and deepen the bond of loving connection.
In Stage 1, I help partners to slow down the painful dance and see it, rather than each other, as the problem. As you begin to recognize and understand emotional triggers that set the pattern in motion, you will discover how to calm the negative dance and begin to see a deeper, more reassuring reality.
In the second stage of therapy, partners discover new ways to communicate. You become more attuned to each other’s needs and a begin to discover a new more loving dance that creates safety and strengthens your attachment bond. The emotional safety you create together paves the way for love and passion to kindle and grow.
Stage 3 of EFT is about consolidating your gains. This means that if you find yourselves caught in your old dance, you soon remember how to find your back to each other. The old feelings of confusion, fear, anxiety and helplessness that you could somehow lose each other begin to fade. Instead you experience feelings of security and relaxation as you realize you now have a reliable map to each other’s heart.
Counselling for Individuals
Do you feel stuck in sadness, fear, discouragement or loneliness? To me, it is as if our inner wise self was waving a flag, calling us to attention. As young people, we often learn to cope with family dynamics by putting aside some of our authentic feelings and needs and adopting a mask of acceptability. In the process, we develop limiting self-beliefs, designed to keep us safe, that can leave us as adults, feeling stuck and struggling. The behaviours we adopt to try and cope with pain, such as addiction, affairs, distancing, blaming, criticism of self and others, offer us a temporary fix but ironically ends up perpetuating our upset. In my years of counselling experience, exploring pain rather than trying to avoid it is the route to a life of new possibilities and greater happiness.
My own personal growth has always been an important and valued part of my life and I understand and appreciate the courage it can take to make the first call. Creating a non-judgmental, caring and responsive environment that deeply supports you is my first consideration. With collaborative counselling you can change your life starting now.
In our first appointment together we will begin to explore your issues, clarify what you are hoping for and consider a plan using therapeutic approaches tailored to your unique individual needs.
For a complimentary 15 minute phone consultation or to book an in-person or on-line Skype appointment:
Phone: 604.219.2690 Email: info@franbrowncounselling.com
Serving clients in Vancouver, the North Shore, Bowen Island, the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Burnaby & New Westminster