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Key Takeaways:
- Finding a marriage counselor in Austin can be tricky, but there are ways to narrow down your search.
- Most married couples who attend benefit from marriage counseling.
- Marriage counseling uses evidence-backed methods to achieve results.
Most people understand that mental health for the individual can be just as important as physical health.
Often, however, people forget that mental health is a multi-faceted, socially dependent mechanism as well—your mental health depends much on your social network, support systems, and, of course, your relationships.
In a long-term, close relationship like marriage, keeping the partnership healthy is very important for the mental health of each person in the relationship. To recycle a catchy, if a bit outdated, cliche: "Happy wife, happy life!"
Many married couples in Austin get stuck in ruts with how they talk to each other, have frequent and intense fights, or worry about their relationship. Others are dealing with trauma, infidelity, or life transitions.
No matter what your concern is with your marriage, marriage counseling may be able to help.
In this article, we're going to talk about marriage counseling in Austin, what it can help with, what to expect from your first session, and how to find the right marriage therapist for your relationship.
Read about marriage counseling in Austin today:
What can you go to marriage counseling for?
What To Expect from Marriage Counseling in Austin
Frequently Asked Questions About Marriage Counseling in Austin
Marriage Counselors in Austin
Austin, TX, is fortunate to be home to so many great marriage counselors. Let's take a moment to check out some of the amazing relationship therapists at our Austin therapy office, as well as walk through how to go about picking one for you and your spouse.
Top Picks For Marriage Counselors in Austin
At Williamsburg Therapy Group's Austin office, we exclusively staff world-class, doctoral-level psychologists to help you define and navigate your concerns in your relationship.
Dr. Brian Trager, PsyD
Dr. Brian Trager is a therapist at Williamsburg Therapy Group who specializes in, among other things, relationship difficulties and counseling services.
Using evidence-based approaches that have been shown to work, Dr. Trager guides couples, married or not, to better communication, more intimacy, and an overall more fulfilling relationship.
Dr. Trager also specializes in anxiety, depression, and LGBTQ+ therapy.
If you're looking for marriage therapy in Austin, you're spoiled for choice. In fact, it can be a little overwhelming for couples to find the right therapist when they all look great.
How To Choose a Marriage Counselor
Below is a quick checklist you can use to pick a marriage counselor in Austin.
Start With Location
While we're extremely proud of our amazing staff of psychologists, we also understand that driving across town for therapy can add to your stress, and that's the last thing we want.
Luckily, you can narrow down your search for marriage counselors with a quick internet search. Google most likely knows where you are and will display results starting with the closest marriage counselor to you. If it doesn't, try entering your neighborhood or specific Austin satellite city (Pflugerville, Round Rock, Sunset Valley, etc.)
This should give you a more refined starting point for finding the best therapist for you.
Niche Down
Once you have a shorter list of couples counseling therapists in your area, you can begin eliminating options based on their niche. A lot of relationship counselors keep their specialties within couples therapy pretty broad, but you can also search for any number of specific concerns, including:
- Infidelity - Cheating destroys trust; therapy can often help couples build it back up.
- Big Career Moves - Work can sometimes interfere with relationships. A licensed marriage counselor may be able to help you restore balance.
- Relationship changes - Many therapists specialize in premarital counseling, therapy for open relationships, or postpartum therapy.
- Discernment Counseling - Whether you want to separate or not, or how to do so healthily)
Search for your particular concern and see if any marriage therapists in your area offer a specialized series of sessions for it.
If you don't know exactly what the issue is, that's okay too! Part of a marriage counselor's job is to help you define the problem so it's easier to navigate.
When In Doubt, Go With Experience
Sometimes just the first two steps are enough, and if you find a therapist you feel you and your spouse could really trust and build rapport with, then go with them.
If you've narrowed down your search for a marriage and family therapist to a few options but would honestly be fine with any of them, it usually helps to simply choose the one with the most experience.
This doesn't guarantee a perfect match, but it does solve for two variables at the same time:
- A more experienced therapist is more likely, in general, to have seen and treated your particular concern in the past.
- A therapist who has been in the field longer likely has more connections for referrals, in case they themselves are not the right fit.
What can you go to marriage counseling for?
Here is a comprehensive list of the issues our psychologists, as well as many other therapists in Austin, have worked with:
- Cheating
- Moving to a new city
- Starting a new job
- Parental struggles
- The loss of a child
- Problems socializing as a couple
- A loss of feelings
- Co-dependency
- Communication problems
- Out-of-sync life goals
- Problems with extended family
- Blended family counseling
At the end of the day, you can go to couples counseling for basically any reason. Many couples choose to go simply to become stronger together!
What To Expect from Marriage Counseling in Austin
Once you find a marriage counselor and book your first session, you might have some questions about exactly what will happen next.
Many couples worry that couples therapy will actually be bad for the relationship or that their therapist will "pick a side" and team up against them or their spouse. This is not the case.
In general, marriage counseling follows the following set of steps:
Getting To Know The Individuals
The foundation for success in couples therapy has two main pillars: you and your partner's desire and ability to commit to solutions, and the therapist's familiarity with what makes you, your partner, and the relationship tick.
As such, much of the first sessions, or even the first few sessions, will be about the overall mental health, social network, and developmental factors of each individual in the relationship.
Getting To Know The Relationship
After your therapist feels they have a good idea of what makes each of you who you are from a psychological perspective, they will then begin to observe how you interact, communicate, and solve problems.
This gives your therapist insight into the root of the problem in the relationship. From here, they can begin to develop a treatment plan that works towards the goals of the marriage.
Analysis and Progress
Once the therapist is comfortable with their understanding of your relationship, they'll use evidence-backed therapeutic processes like cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and the Gottman Method to try and progress the conversation in a safe, healthy, and productive way.
This can often be the most difficult part of marriage counseling, since it may require both you and your partner to be open, honest, and transparent about topics that have been bottled up in the past.
It may also require one or both partners to change the way they think, act, or talk to each other. It's important that you and your partner really try to stay open during this process.
Any defensiveness can quickly halt progress. Remember, your therapist isn't on your partner's or your side. They are on the side of mental health as a whole. Their ultimate goal in couples counseling is to resolve your concern in the most productive, sustainable, and healthy way possible.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marriage Counseling in Austin
You probably still have questions about couples therapy and marriage counseling in Austin. Below is a list of some of the ones we hear most often.
What percentage of marriages are saved by counseling?
Most of the marriages that go to marriage therapy benefit from it.
Numbers vary depending on who you ask, but on the generous end, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy estimates that about 98% of marriages that go to therapy are successful.
It's hard to estimate how many marriages are "saved" by couples therapy because there is no way to know whether that marriage would have totally fallen apart without therapy.
What we do know is that going to therapy is almost always beneficial to a relationship. Even in healthy marriages with limited conflict, marriage counseling can provide a deeper insight into each partner and make the relationship even stronger.
The single most impactful thing you can do to improve your chances of saving your marriage is to truly and fully commit to the insights your therapist offers you. The number one reason marriages don't succeed in marriage counseling is that couples refuse to accept the advice or assume that their perspective is more correct than the therapist's.
How much is marriage counseling in Texas?
You can expect to spend between $150 and $250 on marriage counseling per session.
It's important to note that your total cost of marriage counseling will also depend on the number of sessions it takes to resolve your concern or, at the very least, see progress. A slightly more expensive therapist may be able to offer insight in fewer sessions, but that depends on your exact therapist.
Is marriage counseling worth it?
If you commit to getting better, choose a licensed therapist, and listen to their advice, it will almost certainly be worth it.
Even relationships that can't benefit from therapy directly may at least be able to understand at a deeper level what is causing the marriage to fail. This can make the healing process after a divorce healthier and more comfortable.
Marriage Counseling Services in Austin
Williamsburg Therapy Group is proud to offer marriage counseling services in the Austin area, courtesy of our team of doctoral-level psychologists.
If you're feeling rising concern in your marriage or you simply want to become closer to your partner, schedule an appointment with us today or contact our patient coordinator to get matched with a great therapist.
Feeling better may be closer than you think.
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