If your relationship or family is struggling with communication, conflict, trust, or a major transition, couples and family therapy at Arkansas Counseling and Wellness gives you a structured way to work through it together. Our clinicians use Emotionally Focused Therapy, family systems work, and conflict resolution approaches led by Dr. Silena Scott, who holds a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy with an emphasis in Conflict Resolution. We work with couples preparing for marriage, couples in crisis, families adjusting to a major change, and families healing after a traumatic event. Sessions are available in person across our three locations or via telehealth.
Last reviewed
Something is off. The conversations keep turning into the same fight. The house feels quieter than it used to. One of you is holding something the other does not know how to ask about. Or you are walking into a new chapter, marriage, parenting, empty nest, and want tools before it turns into a crisis. Couples and family therapy gives you a structured, private space to say the hard things and rebuild the things worth keeping.
What is your approach?
We work primarily through Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a research-backed approach that helps couples and families identify the emotional patterns underneath recurring conflict. Our clinicians are also trained in family systems work, Gottman-informed techniques, and person-centered approaches. We do not pick sides and we do not pretend that therapy fixes everything in eight weeks. What we do is give you a framework to understand each other better and practical tools you can use outside the session.
What do you help with?
Communication patterns that keep looping back to the same fight
Recovery after infidelity or betrayal
Premarital counseling
Blended family adjustment and step-parenting
Parent-child conflict and family discord
Grief and loss affecting the family unit
Major transitions (new baby, empty nest, relocation)
Couples where one partner is in individual recovery
What can I expect?
An initial joint session to hear from both (or all) of you and understand the patterns bringing you in.
Ongoing sessions where the clinician helps you slow down, listen, and articulate what is underneath the fight.
Homework between sessions, concrete communication exercises you practice together.
Individual sessions where useful, especially when one partner needs space to process something separately.
A treatment arc that is realistic. Most couples work lasts a few months, not years.
Published: 2025-09-15 ·
Last updated: 2026-04-29 ·
Last clinically reviewed: 2026-04-29 by Dr. Kristy Burton, PhD, LPC-S, LADAC, AADC, MAC, CS, SAP, NCC
Related Questions
Does my whole family need to attend?
Not always. Some sessions involve the whole family. Others may include only the couple or specific dyads (parent and child). Your clinician determines who needs to be present based on the work you are doing.
How is this different from individual therapy?
The relationship is the client. Rather than working on one person's internal experience, couples and family therapy works on patterns between people. Your clinician is impartial across all participants and is not anyone's individual therapist.
How long does couples therapy take?
Most couples complete focused work in 12 to 24 sessions. Premarital and tune up work may be shorter. Couples in crisis or with significant attachment injuries may need longer.
Can we do couples therapy if my partner is hesitant?
Sometimes. Individual sessions can prepare you to invite your partner into the work, and we can work with one partner if the other is unwilling. Both partners attending consistently produces the strongest outcomes.
Is Emotionally Focused Therapy evidence based?
Yes. Emotionally Focused Therapy was developed by Sue Johnson and is one of the most well researched couples therapy modalities. Multiple controlled trials show meaningful improvement in relationship distress for most couples who complete a course of EFT.
What progress looks like
Mental health work moves in cycles, not lines. Two clients with the same diagnosis can have very different paths, and that is by design. Here is what we typically see when treatment is going well.
You leave sessions with something concrete. A skill to try, a question to sit with, a small plan for the week.
The acute distress softens before the underlying pattern changes. First the panic eases, then the trigger loosens, then the pattern reshapes. The order matters.
You start noticing the pattern in real time, not after. Catching a thought as it arrives is the work. Catching it before it becomes a behavior is the goal.
The work bleeds out of session. You hear yourself using the language with your spouse. You apply a skill at work without thinking about it.
You and your clinician name when the work is done. Termination is a real conversation, not a fade out.
We do not promise specific outcomes. Mental health is not a guarantee business. We do promise to do the work alongside you and to be honest with you about what we are seeing.
If you or someone you know is in crisis
988 — Suicide and Crisis Lifeline · call or text · 24/7 free
Text HOME to 741741 — Crisis Text Line · 24/7 free
988 then press 1 — Veterans Crisis Line
877-565-8860 — Trans Lifeline
1-800-662-4357 — SAMHSA National Helpline · substance use · 24/7 free
Sources retrieved April 2026. External resources reviewed for relevance to the topics on this page; Arkansas Counseling and Wellness Services is independent of the listed organizations except where directly noted.
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