The Growing Need for Couples Therapy in Pretoria and Nationwide

The growing need for couples to seek therapy in Pretoria alone provides sufficient cause for concern. Based upon a nationwide view, though, it seems clear that the various stresses that are the common by-product of modern living appear to be taking their toll on the lives of the nation’s married people in general.

Where support is available from family and in-laws, its value is often minimal, as it is difficult for those who are so close to one or the other of the involved parties to maintain an objective view. Displaying any degree of impartiality is made even more difficult when those involved in the conflict are voluble with regard to their need for sympathy and solidarity from a family member or friend.  While third-party advice is seldom heeded, when based on a biased view, it is potentially dangerous.

Couples therapy for those in Pretoria, as elsewhere, must be directed at promoting a greater understanding of both oneself and one’s partner. This is achieved not by prescriptive means but through the encouragement of open dialogue between the parties within a non-threatening context and in which the role of the therapist is that of a facilitator.

Significantly, consultations are not conducted on an individual basis but are a shared experience. Since parents and in-laws are invariably reluctant to engage with both husband and wife, even individually, this is another reason why family interventions, though having only the best of intentions, are so seldom effective.

More often than not, the roots of a failing relationship will be found to lay not so much in any specific behaviour by the partners, but in their failure to communicate effectively. Couples therapy is helping spouses in Pretoria, and other South African cities, to recognise and to accept this crucial failing in their selves and to implement the steps that are essential to rectify it.

Like the successful therapist, conflicted parties must learn to become good listeners. Once armed with this ability, it is then possible to resolve problems amiably and with full consensus that might have previously been regarded as insurmountable or, more seriously, as grounds for divorce.

Dr Tienie Maritz is among the most experienced practitioners in the field of counselling psychology to offer this type of service in and near the nation’s legislative capital. Providing professional couples therapy from his practice in Menlo Park, Pretoria, Tienie employs tried and tested techniques designed to assist partners in defining their role and identity, both as individuals and jointly.

Charging medical aid rates billed directly to the fund or offering affordable payment terms, Dr Maritz ensures that all those in need have access to couples therapy in Pretoria.

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