couples counselling

Providing relationship/couples counselling in Vancouver and across BC.

Stop Fighting, Start Thriving: Develop a relationship with love, respect, and joy.

We Celebrate Relationship Diversity

At Turning Point Therapy, we welcome and have experience with: 

  • Lesbian, gay, bi-, queer, and questioning.
  • Cisgender, non-binary, transgender, or gender nonconforming.
  • Polyamorous, consensual non-monogamy, and kink relationships.
  • Monogamous and cross-cultural partnerships.

Common Relationship Challenges: When struggles feel insurmountable.

  • Constant arguing and hurtful exchanges
  • The same issues keep coming up with no progress
  • Communication leads to more misunderstandings
  • You have lost your closeness and connection
  • Infidelity and mistrust
  • Discussions escalate into proving who is right or wrong
  • Lack of intimacy and sex life
  • You think about ending the relationship or fear your partner will
  • Parenting difficulties
  • Boundaries with extended family
  • Avoidance of conflict
  • Resentment keeps building
  • Lack of repair

Are you feeling stuck and disconnected? Couples counselling provides a supportive space to address these challenges and restore your bond. If you’re searching for relationship counselling in Vancouver or virtually across BC, Turning Point Therapy is here to guide you back to connection and joy.

Our counsellors provide clear, compassionate, and experienced guidance to help you build a loving, joyful, and deeply connected partnership.

At Turning Point Therapy, we draw from several well-researched, evidence-based approaches to support couples through a wide range of challenges. We continue to stay current with the latest relationship research and best practices. Our training includes:

These approaches help us understand your relationship patterns with depth and clarity, while offering practical tools to rebuild trust, intimacy, and connection.

Our Specializations at Turning Point Therapy

We offer skilled support in the areas where couples most often feel stuck, including:

Our goal is to help both partners feel seen, supported, and empowered as you find new pathways forward together.

What We help Partner Work through

Every relationship has its challenges. These are the areas we most commonly help couples navigate so they can rebuild connection and move forward together.

Communication is the main issue we see partners struggle with. Working on communication involves many aspects. Here are some of the main ones. 

  • Reactivity.  Our automatic defensive response. How our nervous system responds to a feeling of threat and feeling unsafe. We all do it and have our own ways of protecting ourselves, creating distance in intimate relationships.  Together, we will learn how to regulate and interrupt your reactivity. 
  • Core Negative Image. This is the negative story and narrative you carry about your partner that fuels your reactions. It is based on generalisations you have developed about your partner. In therapy, we work to identify how to change this story so you can respond in the present.
  • Learning to negotiate. All relationships are a series of negotiations. Our need for control and reactivity gets in the way of successfully negotiating your needs.  Learning that we can not always get our needs met can be a hard lesson. 
  • Learning to Repair. One of the reasons we build up resentment and fear talking about anything important is that we are not repairing hurts and misunderstandings well.

We believe these are the two most important experiences for healthy relationships. How these interact with each other and play out in the relationship is often a focus for therapy.  These experiences are learned in childhood and carried into our adult relationships.

Healthy boundaries and self-esteem allow us to be connected to our partner and ourselves with appropriate protection and hold each other with respect.

Major betrayals such as infidelity rock the foundation of a relationship. It is a traumatic breach of trust and often leaves partners feeling:

  • Confused about staying or leaving
  • Having difficulty being around each other and coping with your daily lives together
  • Feeling anxious and obsessive
  • Feeling guilt and shame and don’t know what to do to make it better
  • So angry that it’s hard to talk about what happened

 

Making any decision about the relationship at this time is hard, you are in crisis, let the dust settle if you can. Our therapists are here to help you navigate through this difficult time.

In a love-obsessed relationship, individuality and separation are seen as threats. Instead of embracing differences and navigating conflict, partners strive to become one person.

Here are some signs:

  • Unconsciously seeking rescue: Partners may view each other as saviours from past traumas like abandonment or abuse.
  • Prioritising the relationship: Individual needs are often sacrificed to maintain the connection.
  • Excessive responsibility: One or both partners feel overly responsible for the other’s happiness.
  • Loss of self: Partners become increasingly disconnected from their needs and experiences.

A persistent love-obsessed dynamic can lead to resentment, dissatisfaction, and difficulty expressing needs. 

We will work with you to have a connection that can process conflict, become at ease with you and your partner’s space and differences, and communicate your needs in the relationship.

The end of a relationship is painful. The decision to end a relationship can be confusing and a roller coaster of back and forth.

Typical struggles folks can have when relationships end:

  • Complex and confusing emotions.
  • Need to make sense of what has happened.
  • There may be unfinished business to resolve.
  • Experiencing grief and feelings of loss and anxiety.
  • Struggle with responsibility and blame.

How to move on and trust again.

If you are experiencing any of these struggles counselling can provide a space to make sense of your experience and recover.

Frequently Asked Questions

This is a common fear, especially if your relationship is full of blame. We don’t blame either partner for your troubles but often address the strategies and behaviour you are using to meet your needs, which may be harming your relationship. It is our experience that each partner has learnt ways to get their needs met (often in their family of origin) that do the opposite and create distance, resentment and even fear in the relationship. We will be candid about what we see happening between you so that you can hear it and feel supported to do something different.

Yes! We have worked with many couples to recover from infidelity. Couples counselling can be a place to decide whether you wish to work on the relationship, and we recommend that you give yourself time before making the decision. When infidelity is first revealed, the relationship is thrown into crisis, and the dust needs to settle. The decision to stay or leave is personal, and there is no right decision. What is true is that it is possible to recover.

Three main areas of exploration happen in relationship counselling. Firstly, we will be identifying the dynamics you are stuck in and this involves exploring the details of what happens between you. We may keep returning to this as we gain awareness of the reactions and behaviours that create difficulties. We will explore some things you have learned in your family of origin particularly around boundaries and self-esteem. Thirdly, because we recognise that we are not taught effective relationship skills we will practice and learn skills to improve communication, decision making and repair.

It can be hard when you want to work on your relationship, and your partner doesn’t think you need help. We can start with you. There is a lot of work an individual can do to improve their part in the relationship and we will help you communicate to encourage your partner to attend.

Reviews

5.0 rating

“Delyse is empathetic and listens and points at alternatives.”

— Jathinda Sandhu

5.0 rating

“Amanda is incredibly insightful, empathetic, warm and helpful. She approaches her interactions with open-hearted curiosity, and always has the perfect balance of practical feedback, deep insight and non-judgemental listening. Without exception, conversations with Amanda are comforting and illuminating.”

— Mollie Deyong

5.0 rating

“Aron is an extremely competent and compassionate counselor and he has helped me through an incredibly difficult time. I could not recommend him more highly. He is truly a blessing.”

— Sheldon Torgeson

How To Get Started

Whether you’re facing ongoing conflict, a lack of intimacy, or major life transitions, relationship counselling can help you rediscover connection and joy. At Turning Point Therapy, we’ll walk alongside you, offering tools and strategies to strengthen your partnership.

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