Approach to Couple and Family Therapy

Read here below Dr Nicholas Sarantakis’ approach to therapeutic work

A brief introduction to couple and family therapy

Nicholas has been practising couple and family therapy for several years. If you are interested in these modalities of therapy, please read the following brief introduction.

These modalities of therapy are underpinned by the same fundamental principles as one-to-one therapy, but they also differ as they focus more on exploring, understanding and resolving relational difficulties between the couple or within the family in a direct manner during the sessions. It would be useful for all clients engaging in couple and family therapy to remember that normally Nicholas’s role is not to decide who is right and who is wrong and reach a ‘verdict’, as a judge would do (even though on rare occasions of unsafe behaviours, these may have to be clearly addressed). Neither the main focus is on establishing ‘what really happened’ during the challenging events, which hurt the feelings of the couple or family - we often have different recollections and understandings of past incidents anyway. Nicholas will also not provide you with direct ‘practical guidelines’ about what should be done and by whom, but he may facilitate such a constructive discussion between you.

On the contrary, his role is to help you discover - and start practising - more constructive and sensitive ways of communicating with each other, he will facilitate you to work out yourselves and together the solutions to the various difficulties, and he will help you understand better each other and what ways of being together may be more helpful in the long-term.

If you feel that couple therapy will be beneficial to you, he would recommend that each of you initially book an individual session with him, so that you can both establish trust with him and have the chance to explain your own viewpoint and your personal needs. After this initial stage, he would suggest that you commit to at least three joint sessions, where you can understand better the difficulties you have been facing as a couple or family and find ways forward to be happier with one another in the future.

To book an appointment with Dr Nicholas Sarantakis, please book your free consultation here, and our Clinical Director will be happy to accommodate your request.