Frequently Asked Questions - Couples Therapy & Relationships

Here, I answer frequently asked questions about relationships and couples therapy. I hope you find the answers you are looking for here. If not, please send me an email or use the contact form for your question – I look forward to hearing from you.

How do you find a good couples therapist?

Finding a good couples therapist is a crucial step – because couples work is one of the most demanding areas of therapeutic activity. It requires not only professional competence but also a high degree of experience, empathy, and clarity.

Experience is a particularly important criterion.

Couples therapy is complex: Two people come together with different needs and communication patterns – and it is often about strong emotions or entrenched dynamics. An experienced therapist has developed a deep understanding and a fine sense of individual psychological processes, inner patterns, and unconscious reactions over the years. This finely honed sense usually comes from extensive individual work with clients, followed by many years of experience with couples.

In addition to experience, the therapist’s attitude plays a central role.

Good couples therapy thrives on a special mix of:

  • Empathy, warmth, and understanding,
  • Clear overview of complex topics,
  • Alert, creative presence,
  • And direct, honest, and loving guidance.

When getting to know each other, couples should pay attention to whether the therapist offers intensive, process-oriented work – or whether the session remains more of a nice conversation. In my opinion, couples therapy should not be an exchange of tips, but a targeted learning and growth process.

Important questions that couples can ask themselves:

  • Do I feel truly seen and understood?
  • Am I being guided and challenged clearly without being overwhelmed?
  • Do I understand something new after the session – about myself, my partner, and our dynamics?
  • Do I feel like we are working on issues, not just talking about them?

If you have the feeling that no new insights are emerging or that little is moving, it is worth continuing your search. Good couples therapy should have a noticeable effect.

If you want to build strong arm muscles, do you wait for them to grow “on their own” one day? Or do you pick up a weight and start training consciously? A good relationship does not arise by itself – it needs just as much training as a muscle.

From my many years of work with individual clients and couples – now over 15 years – I know:

We never learned how to lead relationships in a truly nourishing, constructive, and loving way. Neither at school nor in our families of origin were we taught how to communicate clearly, set boundaries, or develop understanding for each other.

When it comes to sexuality, this is even more true for many people. And yet, many couples believe they have to do everything on their own.

Even if the relationship was very easy and effortless at the beginning, over the years, everyday life, stress, different needs, and sometimes injuries accumulate. At some point, distance arises – often without knowing exactly how it happened.

Couples therapy helps to resolve these dynamics, find new ways together, and experience closeness and connection again. Many couples say after the first session:

“We should have come much earlier.”

Joint support does not mean failure – but responsibility and the desire to grow together.

Basically, it is never too late to get support.

At the same time, experience shows very clearly: The earlier couples start, the greater the opportunities for a positive development process.

Many couples wait a long time before seeking help. Often out of the thought that you have to “do it alone.” However, from my many years of work with couples, I know: Most of us have never learned how constructive relationships and beneficial communication really work. That is why many couples unconsciously repeat similar patterns and conflicts. If you are yourself part of the relationship dynamic, it is also difficult to clearly recognize how both partners contribute to the existing tensions. This is exactly where professional support can be very helpful.

My explicit advice is therefore:

Do not seek support only when tensions have already arisen.

Couples therapy or targeted communication training can be very useful – even early in a relationship.

A joint analysis of the couple-specific dynamics helps to identify typical pitfalls early on and prevent destructive patterns from becoming entrenched in the first place.

In an early stage, a few sessions are often enough to gain important insights and work preventively. If couples only come after tensions and injuries have accumulated over a long period of time, a lot of space is needed for clarification and healing before looking ahead again. Couples therapy is therefore not just crisis intervention – but a valuable investment in the quality and future of a relationship, an investment that I believe every couple should make early on!

1. First Connection -free Phone Call

A short, informal 15-minute’s phonecall where we clarify your main concerns, answer practical questions, and feel whether the chemistry is right. If you decide to proceed, we schedule the first full session.

2. Initial Couple’s Session 

Duration 75 min. 

  • We explore your relationship history, current challenges, wishes and needs.
  • We define 2–3 concrete goals you both want to reach (e.g. “stop escalating fights”, “feel close again”, “handle cultural differences with respect”).
  • You leave with a first practical exercise to try at home. 

 

3. Session Rhythm and Format

At the beginning of each session I ask both of you how things have been since the last time. What has been good? What has been difficult? And I let both partners express what is important for you today. We then decide together what topic to address in that session.

  • Couple’s Session Frequency: usually every 2 weeks at the start; we adjust as your needs change.
  • Couple’s Session Duration: 75 minutes
  • Languages: sessions can switch between English, Swedish and German if that helps each partner express themselves.
  • Online or at Münchner Freiheit in my study you choose. My preference is in-person.

 

4. Between Sessions – Turning Insight into Action

  • Home practices to implement and strengthen new skills. 
  •  Optional email check‑ins for quick questions or motivation boosts. 

I see couples therapy not just as a space to talk things through, but as an opportunity to learn and grow together. I approach counseling as a kind of training — a place to develop new ways of relating, listening, and understanding, that’s why I am a fan of giving home practices.

5. Review and Completion 

Every few sessions we discuss the change compared your goals, celebrate wins, and decide about the next steps. The aim is self‑empowerment as a couple, not endless therapy.

It happens time and again that only one partner wants to go to couples counseling or therapy. It can be very frustrating when you want to improve your relationship but feel like you can’t make any progress on your own.

I think it’s very important to understand your partner’s resistance, because there are usually very different, understandable reasons behind it.

In my practice, for example, I often see the concern that couples therapy might steer the relationship in the “wrong” direction: “Maybe we’ll realize then that we aren’t right for each other after all?” This concern should, of course, be taken seriously—because couples therapy can indeed reveal fundamental differences and difficult relationship dynamics.

However, in precisely these cases, the couples therapist supports you in finding a healthy way to deal with these differences—or perhaps even turning them into a shared strength. It’s hard, though, to imagine these benefits in advance—especially when you feel like you’ve “tried everything” for a long time.

Another reason for resistance is the worry: “The therapist might judge me or take my partner’s side.” This is often based on the idea that there is a clear “right” and “wrong” in conflicts. The idea that the couples therapist acts as a judge is uncovered and dispelled during therapy. Rather, the goal is for both partners to receive understanding and support for their human behavior. Many people are very surprised and relieved when they realize that neither they nor their partner is “wrong.” This opens up new paths toward a constructive and respectful relationship. This, too, can be hard to grasp if you haven’t yet experienced successful couples therapy.

My advice to you, if you want to bring your partner along: Make sure you first communicate your reasons very clearly and constructively (we learn how to do this in my sessions, by the way). Instead of emphasizing everything you think is going wrong, try to make it clear that your request stems from love—because you want to preserve and deepen the relationship.

For example, you could say:

“I want to have a truly wonderful relationship with you because I love and cherish you and want to be with you. That’s why I’d be very happy if we could discuss difficult topics together while remaining constructive and respectful. That hasn’t been easy so far, which is why I’d like some support. I firmly believe that this will help us develop an even more fulfilling relationship.”

Then ask your partner to tell you their own reasons for why they’re not yet ready to take this step. You can usually accomplish a great deal if you express yourself in a welcoming way and choose a calm moment that isn’t already strained by a current conflict or other tension.

Something that usually feels like a much less “daunting” step for your partner: Invite him or her to a communication training instead. This is something that benefits every area of life—not just your relationship. In a communication training, I work directly with your individual dynamics and communication styles, which allows me to make a real difference for both of you.

If your partner is still resistant, it can still be very worthwhile for you to come on your own first. Often, a change in just one person is enough to bring a whole new, positive dynamic to the relationship.

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