Couples Counselling
Understanding what's happening between you — and how to change it
Examples of common struggles couples face
I’ve seen so many relationships struggle, or come close to ending needlessly, because couples haven’t had the right help.
Couples come to me at every stage. Many get caught up in the same arguments and have blow-ups they regret. Often, fighting for your needs has become exhausting and feels hopeless. For some, it’s one big thing. Others have gradually got used to living more like flatmates than partners. And for some, coming to see me is a last try.
Here are some of the common struggles I help with:
Constant arguments
You keep having the same disagreements without resolving anything. However the argument begins, you end up back in the same place—frustrated, confused and no closer to understanding each other.
A lack of empathy and understanding
A betrayal or break in trust
Changes in life
Competing for individual needs
When a partner is triggered
A loss of connection or intimacy
Day-to-day life may function well, but there is little personal connection, affection or care. You feel more like housemates than partners, and the relationship has become practical or transactional rather than emotionally and physically close.
Change really is possible
When you’ve been struggling for a long time, it can be difficult to believe things can really change
Couples arrive in all kinds of places. Many feel hurt, angry, disappointed and lonely. Often, the give and take has long gone, along with much of the playfulness and happiness they once shared. It may have felt like a struggle for years.
Even then, I see how, with commitment, replacing judgement with true understanding and criticism with respectful communication begins to change what happens between you. You can listen to each other with empathy, work through difficulties together and make the lasting changes you want for yourselves.
I see couples take their relationships from all sorts of starting points to a place of safety, respect, trust, fun and intimacy. Changes they often thought impossible when they arrived.
How we make change happen
This is where my psychotherapy training makes a difference
Being a psychotherapist means I can understand both the difficulties in your relationship and what is happening for each of you individually.
Every couple is different, so I tailor how I work to what you each need and what your relationship needs while we work together.
In our sessions, when it’s needed, I will:
› Freeze the moment when things begin to go wrong, enabling you to see for yourselves exactly what happens. I can then guide you towards a different response and a new way of connecting that, with practice, can become second nature.
› Coach you in the practical skills needed to stay empathic and connected during difficult conversations, even when you feel uncomfortable or experience powerful emotions, and to say what isn’t OK for you or what you want more of without either of you feeling blamed, judged or criticised. You’ll learn how to structure conversations so you both feel heard and understood and can create win-win outcomes.
› Help you understand what is really going on underneath your difficulties—the core needs behind what you are fighting about, what particular behaviours may be doing beyond the obvious, and the triggers and old patterns that can affect how you respond to each other.
› Help you recognise when you are slipping into an old pattern, understand what is happening, manage your triggers and step out of the pattern so you can relate to each other in the way you wish to.
› Guide you in having conversations that reach the depth of emotional connection you need, so your relationship can feel safe and valuable to both of you, and you can better understand and support each other in your individual difficulties.
› Help you create the kind of relationship where both you and your relationship get your needs met—using the thinking that supports successful relationships to build the safety, respect and care needed for intimacy to blossom, and to repair the connection when it has been damaged.
I’m never judging you if you find things difficult or become emotional. My only interest is in doing all I know to help you have what you both want.
Throughout our work, you’ll know what we’re focusing on and why. You won’t just understand what needs to change—we’ll begin making actual changes in the room.
Even if you’ve struggled to make changes before, you’ll have the guidance you now need.
Understanding what your relationship needs from you
There are some things every relationship needs to work well enough to thrive.
The six core areas are not a sequence that has to be worked through. They provide a useful way of seeing where we might begin. And because they are interlinked, they can help explain why the problem you see might not be the whole explanation for what is happening.
When you can each do these things well enough for each other, your relationship can work for both of you, even when difficulties arise.
1
Understanding Yourself
Recognising your feelings and emotions, learning to manage them and turning them into words rather than reactions.
2
Knowing Your Partner
Understanding your partner emotionally – what matters to them, what they need from you and why they respond as they do.
3
Giving what you both need
Knowing how to support, encourage and connect with each other in ways that meet both of your needs.
4
Rebuilding closeness and intimacy
Understanding what helps you feel close and creating the conditions for affection, emotional connection and sexual intimacy.
5
Solving problems together
6
Protecting what you build
Maintaining connection, intimacy and emotional safety, and repairing difficulties when they arise.
What you'll gain
As we work on the reasons you came for help, you will also naturally develop an ability to:
- Resolve difficulties without falling back into old patterns.
- Stay connected even when you disagree or see things differently.
- Understand what your partner needs and know how to give it.
- Manage your own reactions so they don't take over.
- Repair hurt and rebuild trust and safety.
- Solve problems together in ways that work for both of you.
- Support each other when it matters and help each other feel loved, valued and secure.
- Make your differences work for you rather than against you.
You don’t just resolve today’s problems. You become able to work through difficulties together and look after your relationship yourselves.
Your new way of being together
Over time, what you learn and practise becomes how you naturally are together. You understand each other, stay connected and can work through difficulties without needing outside help.
As clients often tell me:
“It feels like there is an us now.”
Find out more before deciding what to do next
You can read more about how to get started, including fees and practical details, on my Getting Started page, where you’ll also find my contact details.
If you’d simply like to ask a question or talk things through, you’re very welcome to call me. I’ll always make time for you, you won’t feel rushed and you don’t have to decide anything.
Sometimes a conversation can help you work out what you want to do next.
