Your Questions About Couples Counselling in Langley

What would you like to know before beginning couples counselling? These questions explore how our counsellors at Gentle Currents Therapy in Langley work with couples, the experience we bring, and practical details about appointments and costs.

These questions grew out of a questionnaire from ThreeBestRated, which has recognized Dr. Michael “Mike” Dadson among Langley’s Top 3 Marriage Counsellors for eight consecutive years, from 2019 to 2026.

1. How do you handle high-conflict relationships?
2. How do you help couples rebuild trust?
3. How many couples do you help each year?
4. What qualifications and licences do you hold in Langley?
5. Do you provide online counselling sessions?
6. How do you help partners resolve long-standing issues?
7. What is the cost of a follow-up counselling session in Langley?
8. How do you guide couples through difficult decisions?
9. How do you support couples facing family pressure?
10. How long is the first counselling session?
11. How much experience does Dr. Michael Dadson have working with couples and families?
12. Does Gentle Currents offer affordable marriage, couples and individual counselling?
13. Is counselling with a graduate practicum counsellor effective?
14. Are Dr. Michael Dadson and his counselling team recommended?

When disagreements repeatedly turn into painful arguments, you may begin to feel that neither of you is being heard. What starts as a small concern can quickly become another experience of frustration, hurt, or distance.

We begin by listening carefully to each of you, understanding what happens when conflict develops, and exploring the experiences and emotions that may be contributing to these patterns.

Dr. Dadson and our couples counselling team bring experience in relationship counselling, attachment, emotional regulation, and trauma-informed care. We help you recognize what keeps conflict going, understand one another more deeply, and develop healthier ways of responding when difficult moments arise.

We also pay careful attention to emotional and physical safety, including whether couples counselling is appropriate when intimidation, coercion, or abuse is present.

Together, we can begin finding ways to talk about difficult things, understand one another more clearly, and work toward a relationship in which both people feel heard, respected, and supported.

When trust has been broken, it can be difficult to feel safe, close, or confident in your relationship again. You may want to move forward together while still carrying hurt, uncertainty, or questions that have not been answered.

We begin by listening carefully to what has happened and understanding how each of you has been affected. Rebuilding trust involves more than apologizing or promising things will change. It often requires honesty, taking responsibility for hurtful actions, understanding one another’s experiences, and developing greater consistency and reliability over time.

Time is important, but time alone does not heal the hurt. Genuine compassion, heartfelt understanding of the pain that has been caused, and meaningful changes sustained over time can help repair and rebuild trust.

Dr. Dadson and our couples counselling team draw on their experience in attachment, trauma, and relationship counselling to help you work through painful experiences, strengthen emotional connection, and explore what is needed to restore trust.

As we work together, we help you consider what rebuilding trust would require, how each of you might recognize meaningful change, and what would allow greater honesty and emotional safety to develop over time.

When the same difficulties have been present for years, you may begin to wonder whether anything can really change. Perhaps you’ve tried talking, compromising, or simply putting things aside, only to find yourselves returning to the same painful place.

We take time to understand the complex history of your relationship. Together, we explore how familiar patterns developed, what has made them difficult to change, and how each of you has been affected. This can involve looking honestly at ourselves, understanding our own responses, and discovering where acceptance and meaningful change may help us grow.

Sometimes long-standing difficulties are connected to unmet emotional needs, attachment experiences, past hurts, or trauma. Over time, repeated hurts, differences in expectations and values, and unresolved experiences can gradually create distance between partners.

We bring our experience to help you understand these complexities and develop new ways of relating. We help you recognize how past experiences may influence what happens between you today, understand the feelings and needs that can become lost in familiar patterns, and discover different ways of responding to one another.

Understanding what went wrong is only part of the work. Meaningful progress also involves recognizing what we need to accept, what we can change, and how we can begin responding differently to one another.

Our regular couples counselling fees range from $175 to $220 per 50-minute session, depending on the counsellor. Sessions with Dr. Michael “Mike” Dadson are $200.

We understand that counselling can be a significant financial commitment, especially when you and your partner are working through difficulties that may take time to resolve.

Through our Access-to-Care program, we offer affordable marriage, couples, and individual counselling with supervised graduate practicum counsellors, with sessions ranging from $40 to $120. Limited reduced-fee appointments with experienced counsellors may also be available. In special circumstances, no-fee counselling may be possible, depending on individual needs and availability.

We also work with third-party funding programs, including ICBC, FNHA, Blue Cross for veterans and RCMP members, and Victim Services, where eligible. Coverage for particular counselling services is determined by the funding provider.

We can also discuss biweekly or monthly appointments when appropriate for your needs.

We welcome you to share your circumstances so we can explore fees, funding, and scheduling options together, helping you find ongoing counselling that is both clinically appropriate and financially realistic.

When you and your partner see things differently, making important decisions together can become difficult. You may find yourselves arguing about who is right, giving in to keep the peace, or avoiding conversations because they seem to lead nowhere.

We help you approach these differences through collaborative decision-making, where both people have an opportunity to be heard, understood, and have their needs taken seriously.

Rather than treating conflict as something one person must win and the other must lose, we explore what matters to each of you, where your needs differ, and what possibilities you may not yet have considered together.

Sometimes compromise is helpful. But repeatedly sacrificing important needs simply to end an argument can leave partners feeling misunderstood or disconnected. We help you recognize these patterns and consider more constructive ways of responding.

We bring experience in understanding how emotions, attachment, past hurts, and trauma can complicate decision-making. You bring your own knowledge of your relationship— what has helped, what has hurt, and what you have already tried. Together, we can recognize when disagreements have become judgments about one another and explore how to approach difficult changes with greater understanding and care.

Conflict does not always have to pull you apart. Together, we can explore how working through your differences with compassion, honesty, and respect can deepen understanding, strengthen your connection, and help you make decisions that reflect what matters to both of you.

Family relationships can be an important source of love, belonging, and support. But expectations from parents, in-laws, children, or extended family can sometimes leave you and your partner feeling pulled in different directions.

You may find yourselves struggling with competing loyalties, parenting responsibilities, cultural traditions, or different ideas about what you owe to the people you love. Sometimes setting boundaries or making decisions together can feel difficult when doing so seems to threaten important family relationships or deeply held values.

We listen to understand your family histories, the relationships that matter to each of you, and how these pressures may be affecting your life together. Past hurts, attachment experiences, and longstanding family patterns can sometimes influence how you respond to these challenges.

Drawing on our experience with couples, families, trauma, and culturally responsive counselling, we facilitate conversations where both of you can feel heard and understood. Together, we explore your differing needs and responsibilities, ways of making decisions collaboratively, and how to establish boundaries that respect important family relationships while also caring for your own.

Our hope is to help you honour the family relationships that matter to you while finding ways to protect and nurture the relationship you share as partners.

Our usual counselling sessions are 50 minutes, including your first appointment. Longer sessions can sometimes be arranged depending on your needs, your counsellor’s availability, and what may be most helpful for your care.

We understand that beginning couples counselling can feel unfamiliar, especially when there is a great deal you want to talk about or you are unsure where to begin.

Your first session gives us an opportunity to get to know you, listen to what each of you has been experiencing, and begin understanding the difficulties and hopes you bring to counselling. We also explain how counselling works, discuss confidentiality, and welcome your questions.

You do not need to arrive with everything figured out or agree about what needs to change. We can begin wherever you are.