First Couples Therapy Session

Service Description

Your first session will last for 90 minutes. If you complete your paperwork before the session this will allow Dr Cole time to systematically review your relationship status and begin to develop an agreed approach to resolving your most pressing issues. In his book titled “Lasting Lover: A Science-Based Approach to Building and Maintaining a Romantic Relationship With Your Forever Person,” Dr Cole explain how couples therapy can be tricky. If your therapist doesn’t know what they’re doing (particularly when there is a history of trauma) they can actually hurt your relationship through the counseling process. This typically happens when they ask you to focus mostly on the problems in your relationship during a session. If they do this, you can be certain that they’re not in touch with the research around what it takes to develop and sustain a strong, healthy relationship . This is because there is ample evidence to suggest couples who are able to build and sustain healthy relationships, must consistently maintain a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions to keep the “good feelings” or what researchers call “positive sentiment” in a relationship. With this in mind, any negative things that take place in front of the therapist–like back and forth “he said she said” bashing during a session–can do harm to your relationship. In other words, during our sessions Dr Cole won’t simply set back and watch you fight with your partner. You can do this on your own time. Dr Cole has carefully tailored an Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy approach in a way that gets you, the couple, working toward common goals based on the “principles of happy romantic marriage” instead of rehashing old problems. This approach relies on a trans-theoretical model that integrates “what works” in Imago Therapy, Emotionally Focussed Couples Therapy, and the Gottman Method in a way that helps couples heal as individuals and, start fighting “for their marriage” instead of “for their point of view.” For example, one of the exercises Dr Cole engage couples in is to develop a “Relationship Vision.” The negotiation and compromise that goes into this process improves communication and conflict resolution skills and, in turn, will begin to heal your relationship. The vision and goals that come out of this process will provide you with a common set of relationship standards against which you can begin to measure your progress towards building a happy, romantic relationship.

Cancellation Policy

Because Dr. Cole is in a private, solo practice, he loses the full amount of the cost of your session if you decide to reschedule or cancel your appointment without giving us sufficient time to back-fill your scheduled appointment. Accordingly, we request a 24 hours notice for rescheduling or canceling an appointment. There is no charge for rescheduling or canceling an appointment prior to this 24-hour window of time. If you reschedule or cancel your session without a 24-hour notice we reserve the right to charge the credit card you have on file with our office the full amount of a clinic hour.

Contact Details

• 5881 Glenridge Dr, Atlanta, GA 30328, USA

  678-629-2578

  offices@galencole.com