Couples and relationship counselling
You may be looking for some confidential and sensitive support with difficulties you are both experiencing in your marriage, partnership, or relationship.
These can arise for a variety of reasons and in a wide range of situations, including:
- Communication and listening problems
- Difficulties with each other's behaviour
- Dealing with the trauma of a break-up, separation, or divorce
- Coming to terms with infidelity and other breaches of trust
- Losing a child, or experiencing a miscarriage
- Sexual problems, or more general difficulties with intimacy
- Ironing out lingering issues before getting married, or entering a civil partnership
- Getting the best out of your relationship and planning for the future
In these circumstances, both parties may wish to attend a free 45-minute assessment with me before deciding whether to embark on a series of 80-minute treatment sessions.
Couples work is rather different in emphasis from individual treatment in that it tends to focus on resolving here-and-now problems being experienced in the couple's daily lives, rather than exploring individual psychological issues in depth.
In addition, as a practitioner, I tend to be more actively involved in setting appropriate boundaries of behaviour and then helping each person agree a joint strategy for improving the quality of their communication and interaction. Indeed, its often as though we are treating 'the relationship' as a separate person in the room, who is experiencing their own difficulties and needs all our combined help in order to thrive and prosper.