Therapy for Couples
Do you want to find a more effective way of communicating with your partner where conflict and hurt feelings are minimised? Would you like a relationship that’s based on mutual support and genuine curiosity?
I work with couples in a way that helps each of you to understand both yourself and your partner better, leading to increased trust, empathy and emotional connection.
Issues I can help you with:
I support couples facing a range of challenges. These include one or both partners have had an affair; one or both partners want to rekindle a struggling relationship or a recurring conflict that’s having a detrimental affect on one or both of you.
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If your partner has been unfaithful you probably feel betrayed, hurt and angry. The trust you used to feel towards them is broken.
If you have been unfaithful to someone you love you probably feel guilty, confused and sad.
When infidelity is revealed within a relationship where the agreement is exclusivity (this might have been explicitly stated or indirectly understood as the agreement) the feelings evoked in both partners are intense and often make helpful communication impossible for the couple. This is because the sense of mutual safety that was the foundation of the relationship has been temporarily destroyed.
I will help you to tolerate your own feelings and be able listen to your partner so that both of you start to understand yourself and your partner better and to rebuild trust in each other and your relationship.
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Are you and your partner different in your attitude towards conflict? Does one of you seek it out and the other avoid it, or do you both willingly engage in it? Knowing our own and our partner’s feelings about and approach to conflict is key to being able to change the conflict patterns in relationship.
I can help you analyse your conflict styles and help you to find a more positive way to work through conflicts as they arise in your relationship.
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Losing the feeling of intimacy and closeness you used to have is a very painful, and sometimes confusing, experience. Whether you know the causes or not, by helping you understand yourself and your partner better I can support you towards re-connecting and possibly understanding and appreciating each other in new and positive ways.
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You may think you communicate well, but we all lack the courage at times to talk honestly to our partner about our feelings out of fear – fear of making ourselves vulnerable, fear of hurting the other, and ultimately fear of being abandoned. We are often not even conscious that we are withholding honest communication, or why.
It can be hard to trust that open and honest communication is the vital connecting tool in all relationships and that without it they feel lacking and empty. I have a set of communication tools that work with every couple where both people are willing to try communicating in a different way from the one that isn’t working for them now.
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Sex can stop in relationships for a variety of reasons such as health issues, one partner or both losing interest in sex, or broken trust in the relationship which may or may not be talked about. My starting point with couples is that there is always an explanation for no sex, even when neither partner is consciously aware of what that is.
Re-kindling mutual sexual interest starts by re-kindling an interest in both partners about the others’ needs and wants, both sexually and emotionally. In relationships where this has not been openly discussed recently, or maybe ever, it can feel like unsafe territory to navigate. This is where I can help you to manage it successfully.
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Having a separation process that feels mutually respectful can be as important as the positive times in the relationship. It is especially significant where there will be shared parenting responsibility for children going forward, or even where there are shared adult children because it reduces negative feelings that inevitably impact children. It also makes it possible for you to both maintain mutual friendships and the loss of the relationship is likely to be a less painful experience, especially in the longer term.
I can support you to have the conversations to get to both being able to achieve a healthy separation, even if separation is not what one of you wanted.
Working with couples
For information on Individual Therapy, please click here
I have completed specialist training to work with couples. I work mostly with romantic couples, but also siblings and parent/adult child relationships.
How I work with couples
I work with a model that regards the relationship itself as the client rather than the two individuals, I use ‘transparency’ in all my communications with both clients, which means I include both parties in all communications and I do not hold confidential information for one party. I will also not start a session until both parties are present. If one does not arrive, the session cannot go ahead but is payable. The purpose of this model is to keep any ‘secrets’ out of the therapeutic relationship and to maxmise the likely success of our work together. If you would prefer a therapist who works with a ‘confidentiality’ model, they are available.
Making contact & first steps
Depending on the couple relationship, I usually send a questionnaire for completion by each party separately and to be returned to me. We can only arrange the first session once I have had both questionnaires back. Please refer to my FAQs for contract details.
Cost
I charge £105 per session (50 minutes) for couples.
Length of each therapy session
Sessions for couples last 50 minutes (the standard therapy hour). Please note that all my sessions start and end on time. Sessions won’t start until both you and your partner are present (but will always end at the scheduled time).
Cancelling a session
I have a 48 hour cancellation policy. This is because you have a specific day and time assigned to you when we start working together and I cannot re-allocate it if you cannot attend your session. We will all take holidays, which I will give you as much notice as I can around and ask the same of you, and there will likely be other events you have advance notice of and can give me the required notice for.
If only one party shows up for the session, it will not go ahead and is payable.
Contract, privacy agreement and key client details forms
Once we agree to work together and I have had questionnaires returned if requested I will email you copies of my contract (this will be one shared contract that you both need to sign), privacy agreement (covers all GDPR matters) and a form requesting your contact details but also those of an emergency contact for you. Please sign or complete and return those to me either by email or in person. This is a standard process for all psychotherapists and counsellors and its purpose is to ensure clarity about our working relationship and your confidentiality. These should be completed by both parties.
The first session
The first session will be more structured than those that follow in that I will ask you to use a particular structure that I have found helps couples to break out of their usual communication patterns.
After this, you will decide what to bring to sessions and be in charge of how deeply you choose to explore issues you bring. My training includes a ‘Person-Centred’ approach, which means that you are at the centre of the session rather than any theory or agenda.
Ending therapy
Most of us have more experiences of bad endings than of good endings. Many of us prefer to avoid endings because they involve feelings that might be painful. Endings in therapy can provide an opportunity for an often unfamiliar experience of completion, and a chance to reflect on what’s been achieved. This is why I ask that you commit to having a final session to make a good ending possible.
