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Whether your relationship is in trouble, or you just want to make sure
it stays strong, Advanced Cognitive Therapy of New York can help provide
the “cure” for your relationship distress. Your therapist
at Advanced Cognitive Therapy combines the latest advances in scientifically
proven marriage and couples therapy.
Will Couples Counseling at ACT of New York Help My Relationship?
- Receive results from an expert therapist who can predict with 94%
accuracy if your relationship is headed for separation, without
an intervention from the therapist.
- Expect the highest probability of improving
your relationship of any couples therapy, with a recovery rate of 70
to 73 percent for distressed couples (compared to less than
50% for the only other two couples therapy methods shown to be effective).
90% of recovered couples experience significant
improvement.
- Make lasting changes. Three years after
couples therapy is completed, relapse rates are extremely
low, compared to high relapse rates one year after the
only other two validated couples therapy methods are completed.
How Will My Relationship Improve?
- Communicate and manage conflict more effectively.
- Build and maintain connection, love, and respect.
- Improve the quality of sex, romance, and passion.
- Engage in constructive, rather than destructive, conflicts.
- Identify what matters most to each other. Support each other’s
hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose in each other’s
lives together.
- Reduce the risk of relapsing into the same old patterns.
What is the Couples Counseling Process at ACT of
New York?
The Couples Therapy Process at ACT of New York starts with three (3)
Assessment Sessions, followed by Intervention
Sessions (8 to 20, on average). The process is:
- One conjoint assessment session of 45 minutes.
- One individual assessment session per partner,
45 minutes each.
- One conjoint assessment/feedback session
of 45 minutes. During the feedback session, your therapist works with
you to set goals to help your relationship thrive.
- Intervention conjoint sessions of 45 minutes.
After the initial three assessment sessions, 8 to 20 intervention sessions
(on average) are completed. The intervention sessions are designed to
meet your goals for your relationship. The therapist focuses in sessions
to help you rebuild your relationship outside of sessions, with the
goal of helping you significantly improve your relationship in the shortest
duration possible.
How Do I Know if My Relationship is in Danger?
At ACT of New York, you will learn to identify six relationship
“breakers” that, if not addressed, accurately predict the
eventual dissolution of a rela-tionship. For instance, eye-rolling after
a partner’s comments is a strong predictor of separation. Couples
who separate early in the relationship are volatile and negative. Relationships
that end later can be marked by sup-pressed emotions—sitting together
in a restaurant but not talking.
You can work with your expert therapist at Advanced Cognitive Therapy
to "inoculate" your relationship against separation by seeking
therapy early in the relationship, long before a major crisis hits. But
even if your relationship has high risk factors for separation, that doesn't
mean it is doomed. In the therapy process at Advanced Cognitive Therapy,
the level of distress the couple is experiencing upon entering couples
therapy is rarely (less than 4%) a predictor for the successful outcome
of couples therapy.
During the intervention sessions, you can develop the “antidotes”
to the six relationship breakers. You can learn to foster respect, affection,
and closeness. Every day, you can create romance with your partner, generate
greater understanding, keep conflict discussions calm, break through and
end conflict gridlock, and maintain the gains of your relationship.
Your therapist works with you to first create initial rapid dramatic
change in the problematic areas of your relationship, and then to follow
up with structured change in your relationship.
What are the Interventions to Help My
Relationship Improve?
If your relationship is in distress, you and your partner may
be creating habitual patterns that become self-reinforcing and take on
a life of their own. A cycle is created in the relationship that may affect
all aspects of your lives together, defining the way you experience each
other. In distress, you and your partner may respond to each other in
intense, rigid, negative ways. While both of you may act on your basic
needs for protection, safety, and closeness in the best ways you know
how, you may not see how difficult it becomes for both of you to respond
to each other’s needs in healthy ways. The therapist at Advanced
Cognitive Therapy will passionately work with you and your partner to
create and experience a new relationship cycle together. You and your
partner can interact with each other using new patterns that foster equality,
trust, and closeness, and help you experience each other in a new, connecting
way.
What are the Latest Technologies that can Help Me?
You and your partner can take advantage of the latest technologies
to rapidly improve your relationship at Advanced Cognitive Therapy. With
your consent, interactions between you and your partner can be digitally
recorded, followed by an immediate playback and analysis by your therapist.
Strengths in the relationship can be built on, and difficulties confronted.
Unobtrusive biofeedback heart-rate monitors help you and your partner
gain insight into physiological effects you experience during difficult
interactions, and skills are employed to help you and your partner counter
their negative effects on your relationship. Your therapist helps both
of you develop interventions so that you can recover from difficult interactions
and limit damage to your relationship.
Unobtrusive biofeedback heart-rate monitors help you and your partner
gain insight into physiological effects you experience during difficult
interactions, and skills are employed to help you and your partner counter
their negative effects on your relationship. Your therapist helps both
of you develop interventions so that you can recover from difficult interactions
and limit damage to your relationship.
Is My Relationship Bad for My Health?
If you stay in an unhealthy relationship without confronting
the distress, you and your partner face a significantly increased risk
for exacting an enormous toll on your mental and physical health, according
to the latest research. Anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure are
correlated with troubled relationships. People who stay in a happy relationship
live, on average, four years longer than people in distressed relationships;
people in unhappy relationships increase their chances of getting sick
by 35 percent. After suffering a heart attack, the quality of the romantic
relationship is the greatest predictor for recovery, not lifestyle or
diet changes.
As reported in The New York Times, a recent study to be published
this year in the journal Psychological Science showed that women
in happy relationships decreased their negative emotions during a feared
situation when their partners held their hand. As Dr. James Coan, who
led the study states, “If you’re in a really strong relationship,
you may be protected against pain and stress hormones that may have a
damaging effect on your immune system.” (October 5, 2006).
The message: if your relationship is in distress, confront the difficulties
to make it better, or you may pay an enormous price.
Will I Work with a Couples Therapy Expert?
The Clinical Director at Advanced Cognitive Therapy is Travis W. Atkinson,
L.C.S.W., C.G.T., an expert in marriage and couples therapy. Travis is
compassionate, understanding, and nonjudgmental. A graduate of New York
University, he is specially trained in a combination of proven couples
therapy methods recommended in The New York Times.
- Travis has completed advanced training with Dr. Susan Johnson, the
founder of the top-rated Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT).
- Travis has completed years of extensive training in couples therapy
with the Gottman Institute, headed by the founder, Dr. John Gottman,
and was awarded the distinguished title of Certified Gottman
Therapist.
- For over a decade, Travis has been affiliated with the Cognitive
Therapy Center of New York, and is on the faculty at the Schema Therapy
Institute. He is the co-author of the latest schema mode therapy inventory,
the Revised Young
Atkinson Mode Inventory. Travis recently presented with Dr. Jeffrey
Young, the founder of schema therapy, at the prestigious New England
Educational Institute, training other couples therapists in the latest
schema therapy techniques for couples therapy.
While “many therapists lack the skills to work with couples who
are in serious trouble,” as The New York Times
reports, you can be assured Travis uses the latest proven couples techniques
and skills, has broad experience in your area of concern, and genuinely
wants to help you improve your relationship.
Free Download: Revised
Young Atkinson
Mode Inventory
Who Should Not Attend?
Couples therapy at Advanced Cognitive Therapy of New York is not appropriate
for couples experiencing physical abuse or battering. If that is your
situation, please contact the Karen Horney Clinic for more information
on appropriate programs at 212-838-4333 or email at karenhorneyclinic@aol.com.
How Do I Start Couples Therapy at Advanced Cognitive Therapy?
Call now for a consultation: (212) 725-7774
or (888) 4-ACT-NYC; or contact us via our online
form.
- Couples sessions are available through office visits Monday through
Friday during the day or evening.
- Jump start your relationship’s improvements by first registering
for “A Workshop
for Couples,” a psycho-educational workshop offered
on a monthly basis (visit “Couples
Workshops” page for more information), and follow the workshop
with couples therapy sessions. This usually lessens the total number
of sessions needed, saving time and lowering costs.
- If you are visiting New York City, arrangements can be made for intensive
therapy to have longer sessions for several consecutive days, as necessary,
to take full advantage of your time in New York City.
- Specific plans can be tailored to meet your relationship’s needs.
References: The Wall Street Journal, Tara Parker-Pope August
6, 2002; The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John
M. Gottman, Ph.D.; Advanced Training Manual in Gottman Method Couples
Therapy™, by John M. Gottman, Ph.D., July 2003; Externship
Training Manual in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, by Susan M.
Johnson, Ed.D., September 2006; The Practice of Emotionally Focused
Couple Therapy, by Susan M. Johnson, Ed.D., 2004; The New York
Times, Susan Gilbert, April 19, 2005; The New York Times,
Stephanie Rosenbloom, October 5, 2006.
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