From falling in love and building trust to unhappiness, sadness, anger, and fights…Does this sound familiar?

A happy marriage is not a destination but a journey that requires constant efforts from both partners. However, in fast-paced environments such as the UAE, where we don’t have family members to support our family journey, couples are increasingly working to maintain their marriage in the bustling city of Dubai. Here in the United Arab Emirates, due to the multi-cultural backgrounds of relationships, multi-racial couples struggle to navigate life’s ups and downs together, including personal challenges, miscommunication, long working hours, financial strain, and raising children, which makes it more challenging to sustain the relationship.

Many couples struggle to resolve relationship conflicts on their own because they don’t know “how”, or simply couples don’t have the “right psychological approaches” to heal conflicts in the most efficient ways. For healing couples, it is required to have unbiased support, a neutral 3rd person who can assist the couple professionally and in the most compassionate ways for both parties. Unfortunately, couples cannot succeed in doing so on their own. You would certainly require the assistance of a qualified specialist for effective marriage counselling in Dubai.

What is Marriage Counselling or Couple’s Therapy?

Marriage counselling in Dubai, also known as couple therapy, involves a trained professional who is an expert in communication and skills for conflict resolution. She or he also diagnoses relationship issues and helps couples through Psychological methods to find reasonable and amicable loving solutions to their challenges. Sometimes, couples struggle to find ways to communicate with each other. Among some of their unresolved traumas are:

• Fear of being rejected
• Fear of conflicts
• Fear of abandonment
• Avoidance behaviours
• Feelings of being alone
• Fear of not being loveable
• Feelings of helplessness

Marriage counsellors have the Psychological tools and techniques to provide a safe space FREE of JUDGEMENT for couples to discuss their problems and find healthy ways to move forward as connected partners.

The goal of any couples’ counsellor is to provide couples with the necessary tools to understand each other and resolve their issues. While couples often only seek marriage counselling in Dubai during a relationship crisis, it can be beneficial for couples to visit the counsellor at any stage, allowing them to handle future problems more wisely.

Therapeutic Techniques for Marriage Counselling

Marriage counselling in Dubai is a procedure that helps couples work out their differences, communicate better, and take better care of their relationships. Many techniques, such as Emotional-focused therapy (EFT), Imago relationship therapy, Behavioral therapy, and the Gottman method, aim to assist couples in recognising unhealthy tendencies and marital stressors. At Positive Living UAE, marriage therapy frequently includes CBT, the Gottman Method and mostly “The Imago Couple Therapy”, which entails resolving prior breaches of trust for couples struggling with trust difficulties carried from childhood.

Imago therapy was derived from the theory that the feelings you have during your childhood relationships always resurface in adult relationships. Founded by psychotherapist Harville Hendrix and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt in the 1980s, the Latin word “Imago” means “image” as an “unconscious image of familiar love” developed in childhood, which continues stagnant in adulthood. According to Hendrix, the person may identify personal imago as “the image of the person who can make me whole again.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How Does Couple Therapy Work?

You would need an initial consultation with the couple’s counsellor, where both partners will have the opportunity to express their perspectives and feelings about the challenges in the relationship.

In marriage counselling in Dubai, the therapist will use and work through activities that recognise the effects of their early childhood experiences and the effect of the same in their current relationship. In the Imago approach, we recognise that every trigger and challenge in the relationship is related to the unfinished, unresolved traumas of their childhood experiences in both partners. It is the therapist’s work to help the couple understand these traumatic events and help them heal together. This encourages team effort for both partners and allows them to feel truthful openness, understanding, empathy, and forgiveness.

At Positive Living UAE, our Conscious Couple Therapy aims to provide partners with the skills to settle disputes amicably, making it a key component of marital therapy. Utilising the Imago approach, couples may resolve conflicts by having a deeper understanding of their childhood relationships rather than allowing them to strain their bond. In marriage counselling in Dubai, counsellors educate couples about their unresolved past to understand how to solve problems, make concessions, and prevent disputes from getting out of hand.

What do I learn in Couple’s Therapy?

Conscious Couple Therapy aims to –

• Enhance communication
• Acknowledging partner’s emotions and feelings
• Build a trusting and judgment-free relationship
• Setting realistic and fair boundaries in the relationship
• Boosting self-actualisation
• Accepting each other’s real self

Marriage counselling in Dubai may last a few weeks or months, depending on how well the couple progresses. Some couples may choose to attend follow-up sessions even after completing the initial therapy to maintain their improvements and ensure their relationship continues to grow.

How Do I Find the Right Marriage Counsellor?

Many therapists offer marriage counselling in Dubai, but it is critical to locate the ideal couple’s therapist who can genuinely connect and empathise with the issues you and your spouse are facing, as well as a therapist who has the necessary skills and strategies.

How Long Does Couples’s Therapy Last?

It all depends from couple to couple. However, at Positive Living UAE, Couples therapy in Dubai lasts a minimum of 3 months, with single visits to the clinic every week.

How Much Does the Program Cost?

It all depends on the number of sessions and the challenges in the relationship. The counsellor will discuss this in the first consultation.

Positive Living UAE offers more than just marriage counselling in Dubai. We provide Conscious Couple Therapy, which includes Imago therapy. This therapy addresses various childhood relationship issues and helps improve current dynamics. It provides a secure environment to explore and enhance your connection.

We strive to ensure that both partners receive personalised instruction, essential for fostering a loving, caring, and joyful relationship.