Let me preface my review by saying I have no idea how Mr. Cope is as a one-on-one counselor and I do not intend my review to dissuade anyone from trying counseling here. This is only a review of my experience. I presented to Mr. Cope for a first-time-ever couples counseling session. We went to Mr. Cope because my significant other sees him. Huge mistake. The only thing I can compare the session to would be having couples counseling with one of my significant other's friends. Actually, I think my s.o's friends would make more of an attempt to be unbiased.
Mr. Cope made no effort to get to know me, my perspective, where I was coming from, who i am, etc. He reiterated the frustrations that my s.o. had spoken about privately with him and asserted them not as my s.o's interpretations of what was going on but as fact, and ultimately came off like he was pointing the finger. That was neither constructive nor helpful- we went to therapy because we are already quite good at finger pointing on our own.
Furthermore, Mr. Cope, without getting to know my personality, feeling me out, or anything else, made a number of unprofessional "jokes" that made me uncomfortable. I was surprised that someone who works in this profession would not realize the importance of connecting with a person and learning their personality before jumping into jokes that ride the line between acceptable and not.
My s.o. and I followed his advice and took a full day to let us absorb what was said in session. We went on to have a lovely rest of the night but the next day, once everything was "absorbed", it was like a grenade was set off between my s.o. and I. We had to then wade through what were words put in our mouths during session versus what was actually the truth between us. We are in worse shape for having tried counseling here.
This is not to say that Mr. Cope was completely wrong. Some of his advice was sound and on point. My point is that a lot of it wasn't helpful, wasn't correct about us as individuals or what we are like in our relationship, and much of the session was a lecture. It seemed to me that Mr. Cope was unable to be an unbiased participant in the session because he already knew a lot about my s.o's perspective. I will not be returning. read more