Relationship can be likened to a journey with a person whom we don't fully know and may never fully know. In a relationship, each partner essentially re-discovers themselves, and in this process, they also get to know their partner.
A relationship based on both partners getting to know themselves is a process that develops both individuals. Like every process, this one has certain dynamics, and in this process, the individual reconstructs themselves and becomes “we.” A person, who has a complex structure, may experience blocks or issues in the process of rediscovering themselves and becoming “we.” At this point, relationship counseling appears as a support and balance element.
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What is Relationship Counseling?
Each individual realizes their process of becoming a person within the environmental and relational conditions they were born and raised in. As Edip Cansever said; a person resembles the place they live. The conditions we live in, where we were born and raised, shape us.
We build ourselves based on the conditions we live in, but when it comes to relationships, all the elements we’ve built are reworked. Each of the partners, who form the two key elements of the relationship, operates based on their own world up to a certain point.
However, in a relationship, partners enter the process of building their shared world. Indirectly, in this process, conflicts, issues, unresolved problems, and feelings of being stuck may arise.
Relationship counseling aims to shape the partnerships built within relationships by first allowing each partner to know themselves and establishing a balance point where differences may clash.
Relationship counseling works to provide balance support between partners who are in conflict and unable to communicate healthily with each other. The process in relationship counseling is conducted by expert counselors and psychologists.
Balance Support in Relationships: Relationship Counseling
Just as there are not always happy marriages, there are also not always happy couples and relationships. In fact, the situation known as conflict is based on mutual development and growth. For growth to occur, conflict must work in a healthy way. However, just as nothing in the universe operates in a uniform way, happiness or conflict in marriage and relationships can also occur in different dimensions. The balance point of conflict and happiness is established by relationship counseling.
Relationship counseling creates solutions by making necessary professional interventions at the points of stagnation in relationships that are in the process of partnership and building a shared self. Relationship counseling provides objective and professional balance support in the conflict between a partner's individual self and their expectations.
What is the Scope of Relationship Counseling?
The scope of relationship counseling can be addressed broadly enough to encompass all human relationships. Relationship counseling support can be sought to make any interpersonal relationship more fulfilling and healthy.
Relationship counseling can be defined as interpersonal relationship counseling, and in this context, necessary balance and solution support can be provided.
What is the Purpose of Relationship Counseling?
The primary goal of relationship counseling is for partners to first get to know themselves in the relationship dimension, thus ensuring that the current relationship is healthier, based on mutual trust, and has a happy structure.
Conflict is actually a dynamic that exists in a person’s relationship with themselves or should exist. Therefore, conflict dynamics in relationships are inevitable. However, when the conflict dynamics in relationships escalate and turn into problems, it creates situations that require support. Relationship counseling aims to resolve the conflict that causes problems.
In an environment where no one is looking for who is right or wrong, the aim is to help individuals view all the experiences and situations they’ve considered unsolvable from a different perspective.
Relationship counseling involves conducting sessions with both individuals and couples to solve the problems at hand. At this point, each partner's needs are identified first, and then expectations and goals are evaluated more healthily and clearly.
When Should You Seek Relationship Counseling?
Relationship counseling is a support that should be sought when communication cannot be established healthily between partners. The inability to establish healthy communication in relationships leads to conflicts reaching advanced levels and disagreements turning into unsolvable problems. In this regard, the situations where relationship counseling can be sought are as follows:
- Experiencing communication problems in the relationship
- Emotional disconnection and indifference between partners
- Conflict escalating to anger, resentment, or violence
- Conflicts taking the form of arguments
- Requests for separation
- Partners acting out of mutual jealousy and distrust
- The negative effects of marriage preparation on relationship dynamics
- Partners projecting personal issues onto the relationship
- Psychological issues in one of the partners
- Situations involving infidelity or being cheated on
