Couples & Relationship Counselling in West Vancouver

Couples don't usually come to therapy because they no longer love each other. They come because they no longer know how to reach each other.

The most common pattern we see in couples work is not that one partner has done something terrible — though sometimes they have, and we work with that too — it's that two people who love each other have, over years, settled into a way of being together in which their deepest needs go unmet, their hardest feelings go unspoken, and their fights repeat themselves on the same three or

four scripts.

What looks like a fight about the dishes is almost never about the dishes.

At Baraka Ontology & Clinical Counselling in West Vancouver, our couples work draws primarily from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — one of the most evidence-supported approaches to couples therapy available — alongside attachment-based work, depth-oriented relational therapy, and culturally informed practice for our bilingual and bicultural clients. We see couples in our Ambleside office and online across BC, in English and Farsi.

When couples come to us

Some of the most common reasons:

• Recurring fights that never seem to resolve and keep returning in slightly different forms
• Loss of closeness — you live like roommates, or business partners managing a household, more than lovers and friends
• Sexual disconnection — desire mismatch, avoidance, sexual hurt, the slow fading
• Communication breakdowns — one partner shuts down, the other escalates; or both withdraw and slowly disappear from the marriage
• Major life transitions — a new baby, a parent's death, a job loss, an empty nest, a retirement
• Affairs and betrayals — emotional, physical, financial, digital
• Cultural and family-system pressures, especially in mixed-culture or Iranian-Canadian couples navigating in-law expectations
• Premarital preparation — you want to enter marriage with clear-eyed conversation about money, parenting, sex, in-laws, faith, and how you'll fight
• Separation and divorce — when the work is no longer about staying together but about uncoupling well, especially with children involved
• Discernment counselling — you're not sure if you want to stay or leave, and you need help thinking it through

We don't take a position on whether you should stay or go. We help you see clearly enough to make that decision yourselves, with as much integrity as you can.

How we actually work with couples

Most couples therapy at Baraka follows a structure that looks roughly like this, though we adapt it to what each couple needs:

Sessions 1–2: Joint assessment. We meet with both of you together. We hear the story from each side, the history of the relationship, the cycle you keep getting caught in, what you each long for, what you each fear.

Sessions 3–4: Individual sessions. We meet with each of you separately. This lets us understand each partner's history, attachment patterns, family-of-origin, and any individual issues —

depression, trauma, addiction — that are shaping the couple dynamic.

Sessions 5+: Joint work. We return to working with you together. We help you map your "negative cycle" — the predictable dance you keep doing when something hurts. We help you see what each of you is protecting, what you are afraid to ask for, what unmet attachment needs are driving the conflict. We rebuild the conversation, slowly, into one in which you can risk vulnerability with each other again.

EFT in particular treats fights not as communication problems but as attachment protests — the cry of someone who doesn't know if their partner will be there for them when it matters. The work is to make those protests audible and answerable, instead of escalating them or numbing out from them.

For premarital, the work is more proactive — we cover the ground couples often don't cover until something breaks.

For affair recovery, the work is structured: containment first, full disclosure when both partners are ready, accountability work for the partner who broke trust, attachment injury repair, and a slow rebuilding of safety. There is no shortcut.

Couples therapy is not couples mediation

A common misunderstanding: couples therapists are not referees. We don't pick the right side of an argument. We don't tell one partner they're wrong about the dishes. We work at the level underneath the content — at the level of what each of you is really trying to get through to the other. Most fights end when both partners feel genuinely heard. They almost never end when one partner is declared correct.

Equally, couples therapy is not a place to outsource your relationship's hard conversations. We help you have the conversations. You still have to be willing to risk something in the room.

Cultural fluency for Persian-Iranian couples

Many of our couples clients are Iranian-Canadian or in mixed-culture relationships involving an Iranian partner. Patterns we work with often:

• The intensity of in-law involvement, especially around sons and mothers, that is normal in Iranian family culture and can feel suffocating to non-Iranian partners or to second- generation partners who left home to escape it
• The cultural pressure not to divorce, especially for women, even when the marriage has become unsafe
• The mismatch between traditional Iranian expectations of marriage and the more individualistic, egalitarian assumptions of Canadian marriage culture
• The way revolution-and-immigration trauma can quietly shape marital dynamics for couples who lived through it together — survival bonding, then the slow surfacing of unprocessed grief once safety arrived
• The role of language: many Iranian-Canadian couples fight in English and only express tenderness in Farsi, or vice versa, and the language of the conversation matters

We can do couples work in English, Farsi, or bilingually — switching between languages as the emotional moment calls for. For couples where one partner is more comfortable in Farsi and the other in English, we can hold both fluently.

• (Related: Farsi-speaking therapist page → Iranian Immigrants page →.)

What couples therapy will actually look like

Sessions are typically 75 minutes, weekly for the first phase of work, sometimes biweekly as things stabilize. Most couples need somewhere between 12 and 24 sessions for meaningful change. We will tell you, honestly, by session four or five whether we think we can help and what kind of timeline is realistic.

We work in person at our Ambleside office or by secure video. For couples who live apart geographically or whose schedules make in-person impossible, online couples work is effective and we use it often.

When couples therapy is not the right fit

We will not begin couples therapy if:

• There is active intimate partner violence. We will help you find appropriate individual support and, if needed, safety planning resources.
• One partner is in active untreated addiction that is destabilizing the relationship — that needs to be addressed first.
• One partner has secretly already decided to leave and is using couples therapy as a way to soften the landing — we'll surface this gently in the individual session, and recommend discernment counselling instead.

In all of these cases, we'll help you find the right next step, even if that next step isn't with us.

Frequently asked questions

Should we both come to the first session? Yes, the joint assessment session is for both of you. After that we'll usually meet with each of you individually before resuming joint work.

What if my partner doesn't want to come? You can still benefit from individual relationship therapy. We work with one half of a couple regularly — sometimes the partner joins later, sometimes they don't, and the individual work still creates change in the relationship.

Are you affair-recovery specialists? Yes, this is one of our common areas of work. The path back is real but takes time and honest accountability.

Do you do divorce coaching? We support clients through separation and divorce, including the difficult conversations about co-parenting and family transitions. For legal aspects we refer to family law professionals.

Will benefits cover couples sessions? Most extended health plans that cover RCC sessions also cover couples therapy. Check with your provider; we provide receipts.

Begin

Reach out together, or alone. Book a free 15-minute consultation to ask questions before committing to a first session.

• Book your free consult → Or call (236) 455-6306 Email contact@barakaocc.com

1571 Bellevue Avenue, Suite 210, West Vancouver, BC V7V 1A6.