Couples Therapy in Brooklyn Park and Minneapolis
Most couples do not come in because of one argument. They come because of the hundredth version of the same argument, the one that starts somewhere harmless and ends somewhere familiar. By the time you are having it again, it is rarely about the thing being discussed.
Authentic Roots Therapy is a mental health clinic in Brooklyn Park serving the Minneapolis metro. Our licensed marriage and family therapists work with couples at every stage, in person at our Northland Circle office and by telehealth anywhere in Minnesota.
What is couples therapy?
It is therapy where the relationship is the client, not either person in the room. A licensed marriage and family therapist is trained to watch what happens between two people rather than only what happens inside them, and to work with the pattern you have built together over years.
In individual therapy you give your account of the relationship and the therapist works with your side of it. In couples work you are both there, which changes what can be seen. The therapist watches the thing itself, the interruption, the shutdown, the sarcasm that arrives whenever a particular subject does, and names it in the moment rather than hearing about it later.
Marriage counseling vs couples therapy
In practice the two terms describe the same work, and people use whichever one they grew up hearing. Marriage counseling is the older phrase and tends to be used for married couples specifically. Couples therapy is the broader one, covering married couples, partners who live together, people who are engaged, and people who are not sure what they are any more.
What matters more than the label is the training of the person in the chair. In Minnesota, marriage and family therapy is its own licence with its own supervised hours. It is not general counselling applied to two people instead of one.
Is it too late for therapy?
This is the question people ask most often, usually in the first session, usually by one partner while the other looks away. The honest answer is that couples who come in late can still do real work, though they have less room to manoeuvre than they would have had two years earlier.
What matters more than how long it has gone on is whether both people are willing to be in the room honestly. Therapy cannot want the relationship more than the two of you do. What it can do is make clear what is actually happening, which sometimes leads to repair and sometimes leads to a decision made with care rather than in the middle of a fight.
What the first sessions look like
​The first session is mostly about how you got here. Your therapist will want both accounts, including the places they disagree, and will be paying as much attention to how you speak to each other as to what you say.
Sessions after that move from history to pattern. You start noticing the sequence, who moves first, who withdraws, what each of you is protecting. Changing that sequence is slower than seeing it, which is why this work is usually measured in months rather than weeks.
​Some couples also do individual sessions alongside the joint work. Because we offer both in the same practice, that can be coordinated between clinicians rather than split across two clinics that never speak to each other.
Family sessions
Families often arrive carrying a single identified problem, usually a child or teenager whose behaviour has become impossible to ignore. Frequently that young person is expressing something the whole household is carrying, and treating them alone changes little.
Family sessions might involve everyone, or parents alone, or different combinations across different weeks. We work with blended families, with parents who are separating or already separated, and with families where one member’s mental health has reshaped everybody’s routines.
Schedule an Appointment
You do not both have to be certain before you start. One of you being willing is usually enough to begin. Get in touch and we will match you with a therapist who fits what you are dealing with. In person in Brooklyn Park, or online anywhere in Minnesota.
Sessions are also available by telehealth anywhere in Minnesota, including with each partner joining from a different place when that is what the week allows. We regularly see clients from Brooklyn Park, Minneapolis, New Hope, Coon Rapids, Fridley, Maple Grove and Plymouth.
Our clinicians also work in somatic therapy, trauma therapy and group therapy, and any of these can run alongside couples work.
