Relationship Counselling Calgary
Relationship Counselling
Services
Ready to move your relationships to the next level? Tired of repeating old patterns and feeling stuck? Tired of not having the types of relationships you would like? We can help you in your relationship journey!
Table of Contents
Sana Psychological Provides Relationship Support For:
The Couple or Family
For those who are interested in meeting with your clinician along with your partner and/or other family members, we can support you in working on the following relationship areas:
- Communication
- Conflict
- Parenting and parent-child dynamics
- Boundaries
- Sex & Intimacy
- Addiction issues
- Mental health
- Life transitions
Our clinicians use evidence-based modalities to support you and your relationship, including:
- The Gottman Method
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy
Please see our online scheduling portal for clinician availability
The Individual
You are interested in improving the quality of your relationships at potentially many levels. We can support you with the following areas of healthy connection:
- Communication
- Boundaries
- Sex & Intimacy
- Attachment
- Addiction & Mental Health recovery
- Dating
- Family of Origin issues
- Codependency
Our clinicians use evidence-based modalities to support your healthy relationship quest, including:
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Dialectical-Behavioral Therapy
- Narrative & Solution-Focused Therapies
Please see our online scheduling portal for clinician availability
How Do You Know if You Would Benefit from Relationship Counselling?
Challenges with relationships can present themselves in a variety of different ways. Below is an informal self-test to assist you in starting to gauge whether relationship counselling would be recommended.
Have you struggled with any of the following in the past 12 months?
- Difficulty expressing yourself
- Not feeling heard
- Relationship conflict
- Frequent difficulties in relationships, whether that be with colleagues, friends, family, or romantic partners
- Questions and confusion about sexuality and orientation
- Being relationship avoidant
- Bingeing on relationships, not feeling comfortable being alone
- Using relationships for escape and relief
- Codependency
- Sexual anorexia and/or bingeing/compulsion
- Insecurity
- Jealousy
- Infidelity
- Lying, manipulating, sneaking around (dishonesty)
- Low self-esteem
- Serial monogamy
- High conflict and drama in relationships
- Divorce
- Challenges integrating into a new relationship
- Feeling relationally challenged
- Difficulty ‘moving on’ after a relationship ends
- Lots of fantasy/daydreaming
- On again, off again relationships
- Being told you have relational issues
- Estrangement
- Discontentment
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, it might be a good time to start to explore relationship counselling and seek out the help of a trained professional. These symptoms tend to appear as relationship challenges progress. While they may still be minimal and mild for you, it would be best to get proper support and problem solving to prevent the progression of these challenges and ensure the health and well-being of you and your relationships.
Treatment Approach
For those who are new(er) to relationship counselling, those who may have spent limited time self-developing and reflecting, those who are experiencing more severe mental health issues, and/or have multiple challenges they are dealing with, mental health counselling may be a longer, more intensive process. This will always be tailored to you and discussed with your clinician as you navigate the therapeutic process.
Sessions are generally recommended every 1-3 weeks initially. There is always lots to learn about at the beginning of the counselling process and, the more we know, the better able we can support you in helping yourself. After a few sessions at this frequency, it may be appropriate to expand the time frame to sessions every 2-6 weeks. This will be collaboratively decided between you and your clinician. The availability of in person vs. virtual counselling depends on the clinician. This information is available in the online scheduling portal.
Longer sessions may be recommended and/or requested by you. These are available for your convenience.
The first sessions will involve gathering as much background information as possible about you and your partner or family members, if they are present at the time of session, including strengths, available coping network and tools, and challenges. Information is gathered to know about all parts of you, not just the challenges. Relationship counselling is about much more than just your symptoms and will involve exploration and development of other relationships, self-care, communication, conflict resolution, boundaries, and more.
Our clinicians have been trained in a variety of therapeutic modalities, including: Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), and Motivational Interviewing (MI). A combination of these approaches will be employed depending on your needs and the clinician’s discretion.
Follow-up appointments generally involve a check-in to see presenting issues and immediate things that have come up that you may want to process, follow-up on any suggestions provided in past appointments to get an idea of progress as well as roadblocks that are coming up, followed by a more in-depth exploration of relationship problems, patterns, and coping. Sessions are active and engaged as our therapists like to ask lots of questions and provide reflections, challenges, and psychoeducation along the way. At any point, if the therapeutic approach or goals need to be changed, please speak up and this will be processed. Sessions come from a non-judgmental, compassionate, empathetic place. We are here to support you in making positive changes in a way that makes sense for you.
Logistics
Sessions may be available in person or virtually depending on the clinician and issue you are looking for support for.
For information about fees, please see here.
Sana Psychological’s clinicians all have the ability to support those in Alberta, Yukon, and New Brunswick at the time of appointment. For more information on this, please see the clinician bios and scheduling options in the online scheduling portal.
Payment options may include cash, credit card, e-transfer, and/or direct billing with a number of different insurance carriers. Availability of each payment modality depends on the clinician and whether you are seeing them in person or virtually.
Relationship counselling can be short or long-term, depending on your needs. Generally our clinicians prefer to meet with people over a longer period of time (6+ months) to ensure sustainability and maintenance of progress as relationship issues tend to ebb and flow and be long-term in nature. If this does not work for your needs, however, that is okay too. We will do as much work as we can in the available sessions to get you building a healthy plan that you can tailor as needed.
Appointments can be scheduled online at anytime.
For loved ones
Relationship counselling may also involve concerned family members or partners who have been impacted. They may come in individually for their own support and/or join some sessions or parts of sessions. This will all depend on the specifics of the situation and is something that can be generally assessed over the phone prior to scheduling an appointment. Certainly, after an initial session, more certainty around recommendations and planning can be provided as more background information will have been established.
If you are one part of a relationship and reading this and hoping your loved one will change and come to counselling with you but you are not sure if they are ready, we would encourage you to come in for yourself to look at your own health and relationships. Change in any member of a relational unit creates change for the whole unit, so perhaps change can start with you. Even if you are feeling that your personal changes are not having an impact on your loved one, it will provide you the strength, resources, and ability to cope with the difficult, draining, and challenging situation that you are in.
