Supporting Children, Youth, and Families in Greater Vancouver since 1990

Couples Counselling

We offer counselling services to North Vancouver, West Vancouver and the surrounding Greater Vancouver area to individuals, couples and families.

About Couples Counselling

In couples counselling partners are supported to address a variety of issues and challenges that are common in long-term committed relationships. This includes problems of miscommunication, lack of connection, loneliness, and issues related to money management, parenting, and changes with intimacy. Stress in your relationship can impact daily functioning and mental well-being. Participating in regular (weekly or bi-weekly) couples counselling sessions will help you and your partner create adequate coping strategies and facilitate a healthier relationship. Hollyburn’s Registered Clinical Counsellors can help you rebuild the connection with your partner.

If you are considering couples counselling, these are some of the issues Hollyburn’s Registered Clinical Counsellors are trained to explore with you and your partner:

  • Disagreements about money
  • Lifestyle differences
  • Communication problems
  • Changes and challenges with intimacy
  • Parenting challenges and lack of cooperation
  • Work-life balance issues
  • Influence of external family members on your relationship.
  • Rebuilding trust
  • Affairs
  • Frequent arguments and escalating conflict

Couples counselling provides you with a safe, supportive space to explore common relationship issues and create healthy communication strategies for your daily life. A couples counsellor is an impartial professional who allies with your relationship and will work with each of you to address the concerns of both you and your partner. 

Couples Counselling and Trust

Trust is an essential component of any relationship. Lack of trust in your relationship will contribute to disconnection and decreases in feelings that drive partners to be considerate and kind to each other. When trust is broken it can feel overwhelming. Hard feelings develop and become a constant source of tension, making it more complicated to rebuild trust with your partner. A couples counsellor can help you and your partner have these difficult conversations with support and guidance. Working with a couples counsellor can help you to rebuild trust and intimacy with your partner and create a stronger, healthier relationship.

Marriage Counselling and Co-parenting 

Co-parenting is difficult. Couples counselling can help you to set and maintain clear boundaries and rules for your children that feel good for everyone involved. A couples counsellor is an unbiased party that can help to facilitate conversations that newly separated or divorced couples often find challenging. Our counsellors can help mediate agreements on what is best for families and couples that are co-parenting. Our counsellors are certified in Emotion-Focused Family Therapy and experienced in resolving parenting conflict through couples counselling and family counselling. 

Couples Counselling and Anger

Anger is a common and difficult emotion. Anger can show up in relationships in many ways that often challenge your ability to cope and can lead to emotional abuse and even physical violence. A couples counsellor can help you and your partner work through anger and other difficult emotions that keep you from solving problems and generating positive feelings and experiences in your relationship. It’s helpful and often safer to work through painful feelings in a facilitated therapy environment. Couples counselling is a professional service that can provide a safe platform for both parties to address the detrimental impacts of anger in the relationship. (*Note: Couples who experience chronic, severe emotional, and/or physical abuse in relationships are recommended for individual counselling first, to determine safety for both parties before participating in joint sessions. Partners who commit violence are assessed for their ability to accept responsibility and willingness to follow safety plans and protocols in individual sessions first. They may be asked to attend anger management or healthy relationship groups before, or in conjunction with, couples counselling.)

Couples Counselling and Loneliness

Loneliness is a common issue addressed in couples counselling. Lack of communication can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation in a relationship. Loneliness can impact intimacy and connection between you and your partner. Feeling disconnected or isolated from your partner and having no idea how to address it is a very stressful and upsetting experience. Loneliness stems, in part, from differences in how partners view shared problems and how each approaches problem-solving during times of stress. Over time, this contributes to a decline in connection and separates you and your partner. Couples counselling can help you and your partner learn about these differences, increase your understanding of one another, and learn how to approach problems in ways that result in more productive conflict resolution, better problem-solving methods, and increasing connection to one another.

Couples Counselling and Affairs

Couples counselling can help you to heal as a partner, and mend your relationship when important boundaries are crossed. Addressing affairs is difficult and painful. These events are often connected to other problems (both relational and individual) left unattended in the relationship. A couples counsellor will help you address both the impacts of the affair and areas in need of attention in your relationship. As an impartial, professional party, a couples counsellor can support both individuals in the aftermath of this difficult event, and help you and your partner to find ways to rebuild connection and restore trust. Couples counselling is a safe counselling experience to explore difficult conversations in your relationship. 

We offer professional counselling services from our offices at 104-267 Esplanade W, North Vancouver.  If you are unable to attend in-person counselling at our North Vancouver offices, we provide virtual counselling services via secure video counselling platforms.

Online Counselling Intake Form

Please email email hidden; JavaScript is required or call the intake line at 604-968-8211 for more information on our counselling services in North Vancouver.