Do You Need The Best Couples Therapy In Chicago? Then Do This

If you are looking for couples therapy in Chicago, you might be a little overwhelmed by the number of options.

Go to the internet and search for relationship therapist Chicago, and you will find many options. Most are offering relationship counseling or marriage counseling. But how to know if they are any good, and which one to pick? It can feel overwhelming!

Couples counseling is also expensive AF. Many couples wanting to increase their relationship satisfaction via relationship therapy find themselves wasting time and money when they could be spending all that extra $ on sex toys!

On top of therapist decision paralysis, Chicago is a huge city. There is a lot of traffic, anti-social behavior, and crime. Plus, it’s cold enough in the Winter to cut diamonds with your nipples! These factors mean that if you’re searching for couples therapy, Chicago may not be the best place to do it.

Luckily, today I have a solution for you. You can bypass all of the above obstacles. Saving you time, money, your mental health, and your relationship! 

But first, let’s take a closer look at couples therapy – what it is, and why you might or might not want to do it.

Why do people go to couples counseling?

People go to couples counseling to improve the state of their relationship, resolve conflict, and navigate challenges.

Couples counseling helps both parties improve their emotional and mental health. And mentally healthier individuals tend to be better partners.

Sometimes, we can’t predict what the issues will be in our relationship. Things like mental health disorders, postpartum depression, or struggles with the work-life balance can all throw things off course unexpectedly.

Interfering families, emotional unavailability, situational conflict, and lack of sexual and physical intimacy can also lead couples down a tricky path.

This path lowers overall relationship satisfaction and often ends in divorce or separation. Counseling and therapeutic work can help in these instances. This kind of treatment can work wonders. It reunites families, restores emotional connection, and creates harmony.

What are the benefits of couples therapy and marriage counseling?

Couples counseling can help miserable nightmares become healthy relationships.

Here are some of the many benefits of relationship therapy:

• Helps couples communicate effectively and have more empathy
• Creates mutual respect and a caring relationship  
• Improves overall relationship satisfaction and mental health of both partners
• Helps couples gain insight into their relationship patterns
• Unites couples to face challenges and solve conflicts together. This benefits the relationship as a whole
• Couples counseling treatment boosts the emotional and mental health of each partner. This is particularly important. Since it is very difficult to be in a relationship with someone who has a mental health issue
• Allows each partner to express their feelings, concerns and to feel heard in a safe space
• Therapists act as mediators. This can help individuals practice healthy conflict skills
• Couples therapy is generally more successful (usually) than individual psychotherapy. This is because it relies on the cooperation of both partners to explore conflict and challenges
• Clients undergoing this treatment receive a personal approach to the specific needs of each partner. And the relationship as a whole benefit from this personal approach to its needs
• Couples therapy improves self-compassion. This in turn causes a more compassionate mindset toward each other
• It is a safe container in which to solve problems related to tricky, taboo issues that impact relationships. Things infidelity, sexual orientation, lack of emotional connection, depression, gender identities, or sexless marriage
• Each partner will gain a deeper understanding of the relationship as a whole, and functional tools to improve it

Should I begin couples counseling in the Chicago area?

To answer this question, I need to ask you one more. How much would it cost you to lose your romantic relationship or your marriage either now, or at some point in the future?

Sometimes, if you have not been together for so long, or if your lives are not too intertwined (finances, property, friends, children, etc.), the cost isn’t so high. And it is worth walking away to open up to new things. Even if it does hurt a great deal. It isn’t completely devastating.

But in other cases, when children, shared investments, groups of friends, finances, and an entire future together are inter-tangled, the price of separation goes through the roof.

If your situation falls into the latter group, then it may be worth seeking treatment via couples counseling.

What kind of couples therapy in Chicago is best?

There are many different kinds of couples counseling in Chicago. The names you’re most likely to come across include:

• Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) or emotionally focused couples therapy (CEFT)
• Commitment therapy (for commitment issues)
• Narrative therapy
• Sex therapy
• Marriage counseling (AKA marriage therapy)
• Family therapy (sometimes, in certain internal family systems, other family members need to be involved, requiring whole family therapy sessions in a family institute)
• Discernment counseling
• Communication counseling

What are the downsides of couples counseling?

Waiting lists

The best couple therapists in Chicago usually have many clients. Hence most people are waiting for huge periods for their first few sessions.

When it comes to large niches like marriage counseling, Chicago is a huge place and hence there are plenty of therapists who can take this on.

More specialized niches like sex therapy are in high demand and require a very specific therapeutic approach. Since sex and sexual intimacy is an area that causes a lot of challenges, concerns, and conflict, it often has the biggest waiting lists.

The struggle of finding a GOOD therapist in Chicago

When searching for the best relationship therapist, Chicago and its size can make selecting a good professional tricky.

A lot of money can be wasted in the process of trying to find the individual who is best for both of you.

This kind of work requires someone with the experience and knowledge to support each couple, and the unique individuals in it, appropriately.

But a professional must not only have the training, experience, and methods to explore your specific issues. They must also gel with you personality-wise.

By the time they come to me for support and guidance, most of my clients are desperate. They have been to 3, 4, or even 5+ therapists. By this point, they will try anything.

This is how they end up doing something less conventional. Like my tantric coaching program. I help them heal things like communication blocks, connection issues, etc. And usually, with great success! But more on my methods later. 😉

How much does a relationship therapist in Chicago cost?

A licensed clinical psychologist working from a private practice usually costs around $250 (or more!) per session.

It’s usual to go at least once per week. Sometimes more. At $250 per session, this adds up to $12,000 per year. Just in therapy. If you go twice per week, that doubles to $24,000 per year!

Couples therapy is expensive!!

For most people, this is the biggest drawback.

The cost of living in Chicago is 20% higher than the national average. It’s 31% higher than the rest of Illinois, too. The average salary is pretty decent, at around $77,000 per year.

But after tax, rent, bills, mortgage, Netflix, and Spotify, there usually isn’t that much left over.

Financing marriage therapy can hence be a struggle and create even more relationship anxiety around finances.

Couples therapy requires the complete commitment of two partners

A fairly common occurrence is that one partner is forcing the other partner to couples therapy.

But to heal relationships, and establish strong communication both partners need to be fully invested.

The success of it weighs on both partners being 100% committed to the counseling process. They both need to attend both joint and individual therapy. If one partner is fully in and the other is checked out, they will never reach a place of understanding. And the pursuit will almost certainly fail.

This is another reason why I consider my tantric coaching program to be far better than couples therapy… Since it only requires the presence, work, and commitment of one partner. The other partner will just reap the benefits, without having to do anything.

It’s far from being a quick fix

Couples therapy also takes TIME. For really troubled relationships, it can take years to make real headway.

On average, traditional talk therapy takes between 1 and 2 years to see results. It denotes that both partners must attend joint therapy AND individual sessions. This brings about the greatest chance of success.

Do both people in a romantic relationship gain insight from couples counseling or family therapy?

If both partners are fully committed to the process, then yes. In such instances, they will each gain knowledge and understanding of how to navigate problems. Sadly, however, if one partner is not invested in the process, making results are one-sided.

Is online or offline couples therapy better?

When it comes to using an online or offline couples therapist, there are pros and cons to both.

Offline therapy has been the conventional method for the last 30-40 years since psychotherapy began. But why limit yourself to the options around you physically, when these are inherently limiting??

Offline therapy can be amazing if you happen to luck out and find an affordable, skilled therapist who perfectly suits your needs, and whom you like and trust as a person. But this isn’t always the case. It’s tough to find a therapist who fits this bill!

Online therapy removes this obstacle entirely, and allows you to connect with anyone in the world – the best in the field!

Online relationship psychotherapy is incredibly convenient. There is no denying that. 

No travel is required at all. Therefore travel costs are not incurred. And due to the therapist being able to work from home, getting treatment this way can also be cheaper.

One incredible benefit of online therapy is that distance is not an issue. If you are struggling to find the perfect therapist for you in your area, no problem! You can work with anyone, anywhere in the world.  To me, this feels like an unbeatable bonus!

Is relationship counseling good value for money?

Spending a few thousand dollars on a HIGH-quality therapist is well worth it. Working intensively on yourself and your relationship for a few months can change your life forever.

But this ONLY applies if you can GENUINELY afford it, and if the expenditure will not put you under financial pressure and stress.

This kind of deep-seated, constant worry that we experience when our finances are stretched is super-toxic! And it will do more damage than good to your overall well-being.

How successful is couples therapy?

Wherever you are in the world, be that a small town in the USA or Chicago, couples therapy can be successful if you are in it for the long haul, and have a partner as eager as you are to sit on the couch. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high.

A recent piece of research investigated the satisfaction of couples who had been through therapy. It found that two years after they had been through the process, only 50% were considered to be in a better place because of it. While 25% claimed that it had made things worse.

Given the current cost of everyday living and necessities in Chicago, I wouldn’t personally throw thousands of dollars on a bet with 50:50 odds. Which is essentially what you would be doing…

Would you?

(Cheaper) Alternatives to couples therapy in Chicago

I am aware of the context of this article. We are living through a financially difficult time for most people worldwide. The cost of living is going UP. But our wages are flatlining.

So what to do if you just don’t have the extra cash floating around to throw $24K per year at this kind of therapeutic approach?

Luckily, it isn’t the only one out there. And it isn’t necessarily the best one, either. It’s not the most successful, either!

My tantric coaching program for men has one over on couples therapy in a multitude of ways. It negates all of the cons and has all of the same pros and more!

My coaching program:

• Is affordable AF
• Can be done entirely from home
• Takes ONLY 9 weeks
• Requires no travel time
• Only requires the attention and dedication of one partner.

Healing your relationship by adjusting YOUR energetic field

Through tantra, you can stop feeling uncertain. You will move through and obliterate the energetic blockages that lie at the heart of your emotional issues.

You may not realize it, but things like infidelity, intimacy concerns, separation anxiety, feelings of mistrust, and mismatched sex drives – all of them have their roots in energy blocks and imbalance between polarity. (Is she wearing the pants?)

Tantra heals your relationship by going to the very core of things. Relationships usually fall apart and disintegrate because one or both partners have not healed the shadow aspects of themselves.

Couples therapy can help to heal shadow aspects. But it takes time, it is WORK, and often profoundly triggering… TOO triggering sometimes, and one or both people quit.

Tantra, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of the issue. It peels away the layers much faster. And what’s more, it only requires the time and commitment of one person.

If you work on your energy field, your partner’s energy field will adjust and respond to yours. I don’t even marvel at this every time it happens anymore. It’s completely normal to witness this happen to my clients..!

Conclusion

Many of you will have come to this article searching for a couples therapist in Chicago because your relationship is struggling and you are in pain. If this is you, then I hope that you have now gained some insight into the subject.

Just the fact that you are here reading this article is a promising sign. It shows you care, and that you want to take action to improve things.

And seeking this kind of help can bear beautiful fruits.

But unfortunately, unless you have a willing spouse, a lot of free time, and a boatload of spare cash floating around, your chances of tasting those fruits are somewhat limited…

… In this case, I urge you to try something different. Something new that you have (probably) never tried before, by taking my free masterclass for men in relationships.

Think of it like a free 60 minutes with a therapist. In this day and age, that’s worth about $250! And it has far, FAR better odds of healing your relationship than any therapist would be able to give.

I guarantee you’ll gain some valuable insight. 😉

Frequently Asked Questions