What to Expect from Couples Counselling: Your First Session and the Steps That Follow
Booking your first couples counselling session can feel like a very big step.
You might have opened the booking page several times before closing it again. Perhaps one of you is ready to talk and the other is worried about what might come up. Or perhaps you both know something needs to change, but the idea of explaining your relationship to a stranger feels daunting.
The Gottman Institute reports that, according to Dr John Gottman, unhappy couples wait an average of six years before seeking help. That is a long time to live with something that hurts. But if you have been putting it off, this is not another reason to be hard on yourselves.
Reaching out can be especially difficult if one or both of you tend to withdraw from uncomfortable conversations. You may worry about being blamed, becoming overwhelmed, or discovering that your partner sees the relationship very differently.
Knowing what to expect can make that first step a little easier.
I’m Tenille, a therapist at Couples Therapy Online, and I have completed Level 1 and Level 2 Gottman Method Couples Therapy training. My approach draws on that training alongside my broader therapeutic experience. The intake process has a clear structure, while making room for the two people and the relationship in front of me.
You do not need to arrive with a perfectly organised account of what is wrong. Helping you make sense of it is part of the work.
The intake process at a glance
1. First joint session
WHAT HAPPENS
A 60-minute conversation with both of you.
WHAT IT HELPS US UNDERSTAND
Your story, current concerns, strengths and hopes.
2. Relationship questionnaire
WHAT HAPPENS
Each of you completes an assessment separately, before the individual sessions.
WHAT IT HELPS US UNDERSTAND
How you each experience different areas of the relationship.
3. Individual sessions
WHAT HAPPENS
I meet with each of you separately.
WHAT IT HELPS US UNDERSTAND
Your personal history, perspective, and concerns.
4. Joint feedback session
WHAT HAPPENS
We come back together to discuss the overall picture.
WHAT IT HELPS US UNDERSTAND
What fits your experience and where to focus.
5. Ongoing couples work
WHAT HAPPENS
We work on agreed priorities using practical tools and therapeutic exploration.
WHAT IT HELPS US UNDERSTAND
How to make meaningful changes in daily life.
These stages help us build an understanding before deciding how best to work together.
Your first couples counselling session: telling your story
Our first joint session lasts 60 minutes. It is an opportunity to get to know me, experience how I work, and begin telling me your story as a couple.
I might ask how you met, what drew you to each other, and what life together has looked like since. I will also ask what has brought you to counselling now.
What feels most challenging? Which conversations keep getting stuck? What have you already tried? What do you wish your partner understood?
You do not have to agree on the answers. Different perspectives are useful information, and I will help make room for both of you.
We will also look at the context of your lives. You might be raising young children, navigating a blended family, adjusting to children leaving home, or trying to stay connected alongside demanding work and caring responsibilities.
Your relationship does not exist in isolation. Understanding what you are carrying matters.
We will talk about what is still working, too
When things feel difficult, it is easy for the problems to take over the whole picture.
I will also ask about your strengths. Do you still enjoy each other’s company? Are there moments when you laugh together? When do you feel like a team? What makes those moments possible?
This is not about glossing over the hard things. It helps us understand what you can build on.
You do not need to know your goals yet
Some couples arrive with a clear hope: fewer arguments, more affection, or rebuilding trust. Others know only that they do not want to keep feeling this way.
I can help you turn “we want things to be better” into something more specific.
For example, I might ask:
If counselling were helpful, what would be different at home?
What would you like more of between you?
When you picture a relationship that is thriving, what does that look like?
Is there a couple you admire? What do you notice about how they treat each other?
“Stop arguing” might become “be able to disagree without feeling dismissed.” “Be closer” might mean “feel that my partner is interested in me again.”
Your goals do not have to be identical at the outset. We can explore what matters to each of you and where those hopes meet.
The relationship assessment: a fuller picture
After the first joint session, and before your individual appointments, I send you a relationship assessment questionnaire to complete separately.
It contains a substantial number of questions about areas that can be strengths or sources of difficulty in a relationship. These include friendship, emotional and physical closeness, conflict, trust, shared meaning and pressures affecting your lives.
There are no “good couple” answers to aim for. The useful answers are the ones that reflect your experience.
Completing it separately gives each of you space to consider how things feel from your own perspective. It can also bring attention to something that did not come up in our first conversation.
The questionnaire is one part of the assessment. It cannot capture every nuance of your relationship, and its results need to be understood alongside what you tell me and what we notice in our sessions.
Why I meet with each of you individually
Next, I arrange an individual session with each partner.
These meetings give you an opportunity to speak without your partner present and help me understand the personal experiences you each bring to the relationship.
We might explore your family of origin, previous relationships, and what you learned about love, closeness and disagreement growing up.
Was conflict discussed openly, avoided, or frightening? How was affection expressed? What did you learn about asking for help? Which of those messages still feel right to you, and which would you like to do differently?
There is no assumption that your childhood explains everything, or that we are looking for someone to blame. These questions help us understand responses that may otherwise seem confusing to you or your partner.
Before individual conversations, I will explain how confidentiality works within couples therapy, its limits, and how information from individual sessions is handled in the wider couples work. You can ask questions about this before sharing something sensitive.
If you are worried about discussing something safely in front of your partner, please raise that with me privately before a joint session. Part of assessment is considering whether joint couples work is appropriate for your circumstances.
Coming back together: making sense of the assessment
Once we have completed the initial joint session, the questionnaire and both individual sessions, we come back together for a feedback conversation.
I bring together what I have learned and help you look at the overall picture: your strengths, your challenges, and the patterns that may be keeping you stuck.
Then we check that picture against your experience.
Does it sound like your relationship? Is there something missing? Does a finding need more context? Are the priorities I have identified the ones that matter most to you?
No assessment is perfect. If something does not fit, we explore it and adjust our understanding.
The aim is to develop a shared map that helps us decide where to focus. From there, we agree a treatment plan shaped around your needs and goals.
What happens after the intake process?
Gottman-informed couples work includes practical skills, alongside exploring the emotions and experiences that shape your relationship.
Depending on your priorities, we may work on expressing needs more clearly, hearing each other with less defensiveness, managing disagreements more productively, or finding ways to reconnect after a difficult conversation.
We might explore the patterns you want to take with you from your families of origin, and those you would prefer to leave behind.
We can also work on shared meaning: what being a partner, building a home, or showing care means to each of you. Small rituals of connection may become part of that work, in ways that fit your actual lives.
You do not need to learn all of this before starting. We work through it together, at a pace that takes account of both of you.
How to prepare for your first online session
You do not need to rehearse a speech or settle your disagreements beforehand.
It can help to think briefly about what has prompted you to seek support and what you hope might change. If writing a few notes makes things easier, you are welcome to do that.
For an online appointment, arrange a quiet, private space where you can speak without being overheard. Check your connection, camera and sound, and plan around interruptions as far as possible.
You can also tell me if you are nervous, find it difficult to speak when upset, or worry that one of you will struggle to get a word in. You do not have to hide those concerns in order to begin.
What if we are unsure whether counselling is right for us?
You can be uncertain and still ask questions.
Couples counselling does not require you to arrive with everything figured out, and it does not guarantee a particular outcome. The assessment helps us understand your circumstances and consider what support is appropriate.
At Couples Therapy Online, you can begin with a free 15-minute consultation. This is a chance to ask about the process, explain a little about what is happening, and get a sense of whether working together feels right.
The consultation is separate from the first 60-minute couples session. You do not need to tell your whole story in those 15 minutes.
Sometimes making the booking is the hardest part. You do not need to know exactly what to say after that.
Sources
The Gottman Institute: Timing Is Everything When It Comes to Marriage Counseling - source of the six-year figure attributed to Dr John Gottman.
The Gottman Institute: The Gottman Method - overview of joint assessment, individual interviews, questionnaires and feedback.
The Gottman Institute: Psychometrics for the Relationship Checkup - explains that questionnaire findings require interpretation alongside the wider assessment.