Couples counselling may serve as a helpful tool for addressing relationship issues. As in individual counselling, the counsellor’s role is to help the couple identify challenges and collaborate with the couple on making useful changes. Please note that, due to the demand on our services, we cannot provide both individual counselling as well as couple counselling to the same student at the same time.
How to access Couples Counselling
The first step in accessing couple counselling is booking an intake for both members of the couple to attend. At least one of the members must be a York student. The intake must be booked in person at Student Counselling, Health & Well-being (SCHW) in N110 Bennett Centre for Student Services.
Attending the Couple Intake Appointment
The couple’s intake appointment usually takes 120 minutes to complete. It has 2 distinct parts:
- On arrival, there are forms to be completed by each member of the couple. These forms ask each member of the couple about their concerns and will take about 30 minutes to complete
- A brief interview during which a counsellor assesses the counselling needs of the couple and in collaboration with the couple, establishes the couple’s counselling goals. This meeting will take about 90 minutes. It is not a counselling session per se – it is an assessment, an information-gathering session and usually involves more of a question-answer format than a counselling session
After the Couple Intake Appointment
After the intake appointment, our counselling staff will make a counselling plan based on their professional opinion and in light of the couple’s goals and concerns. This plan might include participation in couple’s counselling, or a referral to individual counselling, a referral to another service provider. At peak times during the year, the couple may have to wait awhile for further counselling at SCHW.
Within 7 days of an intake appointment, the each member of the couple will receive an email or telephone call from a counsellor indicating “next steps”. Possibilities include:
- A follow-up appointment with one of our counsellors to discuss counselling options
- Couple’s counselling with one of our counsellors
- An email from a counsellor who will act as case manager indicating that the couple have been placed on a wait list for couple’s counselling at SCHW. Until such time as counselling is available, each member of the couple can direct questions to their case manager. Once a couple’s counselling becomes available, one our counsellors will contact each member of the couple by e-mail or telephone
- Referral to an off-campus service provider. SCHW will provide information relating to possible off-campus service providers