Couples Counseling

Working with a licensed couples counsellor, you’ll find an empathetic and neutral third party dedicated to helping both separated and committed couples. Faren is passionate about supporting relationships in all stages, whether you're navigating a broken or devastated connection, still feeling the butterflies, or finding yourselves in a place that feels a bit too ordinary.

Christian couples counselling offers a safe and supportive space for partners to address challenges in their relationship and work toward healthier attachment, boundaries, and dynamics; all while honouring biblical principles of love, covenant, forgiveness, and mutual respect.

Grounded in a Christ-centered approach, both partners are encouraged to share their perspectives openly, take responsibility for their role in the relationship, and build on qualities and skills such as active listening, empathy, attentiveness, vulnerable communication, choosing delight, and sharing the mental and emotional load, pursuing not just healing, but godly growth together.

The Prepare/Enrich course package is a 80-minute couple’s coaching session (with optional discounted follow ups) designed for couples preparing for marriage or those seeking to enrich their existing marriage. The course begins with a formal scientific assessment that each partner completes individually prior to attending the session. This assessment explores personality traits, communication styles, attachment issues, and other relationship dynamics, providing Faren with valuable insights into your relationship.

Using the facilitator’s report, Faren will guide you through your results as well as the remaining course material, highlighting aspects that are relevant to your unique profile as a couple. Additionally, couples have an opportunity to continue couples therapy at a reduced session rate, only available for prepare/enrich couples.

Marriage is a significant commitment and a decision that can feel daunting for many couples, but it can also bring an abundance of blessings and growth. Recognizing this, the creators of Prepare/Enrich developed an assessment that has been proven to reduce divorce rates by 30%. By taking this course, you are taking meaningful steps toward making one of the most important decisions of your life.

Abuse and infidelity are heartbreaking and difficult situations to face, but help is always available.

In these circumstances, the first step often involves exploring the reality of the couple's presenting issues, establishing boundaries to ensure each person’s physical and emotional safety, and collaborating on a treatment plan tailored to their journey ahead.

Rest assured, Faren has extensive experience dealing with narcissists in both her personal and professional life. She has developed effective strategies for working with narcissists, designed to see through guises of grandiosity and people-pleasing. Additionally, couples counselling with Faren is an unbiased service tailored to each individual, ensuring both partners feel their needs are heard.

For couples counselling in Canada, psychotherapists are often faced with complex situations, including partner-to-partner abuse (intimate partner violence or domestic violence). The handling of such cases depends on legal, ethical, and professional guidelines.

In couples counselling sessions, therapists typically do not disclose private information shared by one partner without consent unless there is a serious safety concern. Reporting partner-to-partner abuse is not automatically mandatory unless specific circumstances arise. These circumstances may include:

1.      Risk of Serious Harm or Death: If there is an imminent risk of serious harm or death to one partner (e.g., threats of lethal violence), the therapist may have a duty to warn the endangered partner or contact law enforcement.

2.      Children at Risk: If the abuse involves children witnessing the violence or being in an unsafe environment, therapists are legally required to report the situation to child protection services.

If abuse is identified, Faren may recommend individual counselling for each partner to address the abuse and its effects. Continuing joint sessions in abusive situations can be unsafe and counterproductive.

Faren is careful to avoid influencing couples either way and instead focuses on guiding them through their own considerations and reality. While marriage should be protected to the highest degree, honoured as a sacred covenant before God, the belief that marriages should never end, regardless of circumstances, is a dangerous and unbiblical ideology.

Scripture acknowledges that, in a fallen world, there are times when separation or divorce may be necessary due to unrepentant sin, abuse, abandonment, or adultery (Matthew 19:9, 1 Corinthians 7:15). Faren walks alongside couples with compassion and biblical discernment, helping them navigate complex decisions in truth and grace, rather than rigid legalism or cultural pressure.

Emotional and psychological abuse involves patterns of behavior that harm an individual’s emotional well-being and mental health. It often includes tactics such as withholding, neglect, manipulation, verbal aggression, intimidation, humiliation, gaslighting, isolation, or subtly controlling behavior. These actions are intended to undermine a person’s confidence, attachment, security, or sense of self-worth.

Unlike physical abuse, emotional and psychological abuse doesn’t leave visible scars, but its effects can be profound, leading to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and difficulty trusting others. Examples of this abuse include constant criticism, threats, withholding attention, or using guilt and fear to control someone’s actions or emotions.

While we consider the beliefs and values of each client, we hold to the biblical conviction that all forms of pornography use are a violation of God's design for purity, intimacy, and covenant faithfulness. Pornography distorts God’s gift of sexuality, constitutes a form of infidelity, and often leads to betrayal trauma within relationships; damage that is too often dismissed or minimized by modern culture.

Scripture calls believers to flee from sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18) and to guard both heart and mind (Proverbs 4:23, Philippians 4:8). Pornography undermines these commands by creating false intimacy and bonding the brain to lust rather than love. Research confirms that the brain reacts to pornographic content in ways similar to real-life sexual encounters, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. This not only disrupts the dopamine reward system but can erode emotional connection, increase isolation, and damage spiritual integrity.

If you or someone you love is battling pornography or dealing with its impact on a relationship, know that there is hope and healing in Christ. You are not alone. Reach out to us for biblically grounded support and resources.

Faren practices from a Christian worldview and thoughtfully integrates these principles into her work. She respects each client’s individual background, values, and beliefs, and creates a space where open, honest dialogue is encouraged.

In her approach, Faren supports clients in exploring how their beliefs and values shape their relationships, communication, and personal growth. When working with couples, she recognizes that differences in perspective are common and can be addressed with care, mutual respect, and intentional reflection.

Faren’s goal is not simply to affirm, but to guide clients toward greater clarity, emotional health, and relational strength. For those who desire it, she can incorporate biblical principles as a framework for growth, helping couples strengthen both their relationship with one another and their sense of purpose and meaning.