Couples and Relationship Therapy
What is couples and relationship therapy?
Couples and relationship therapy is an opportunity for you and your loved one to explore presenting challenges within your relationship. It is a facilitated space where the therapist can support you in navigating arenas of your relationship where things have become stuck or need reshaping. This therapy is suitable for a myriad of relationship types inclusive of romantic (monogamous or ENM), sibling, parent and child, friendship and more.
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What can couples and relationship therapy help with?
- Support you in navigating life transitions such as pregnancy, children leaving home, illness or death​
- Questions and choices around fertility and planned parenthood
- Understand how your family of origin may be influencing relational dynamics, inclusive of parenting style
- Rebuild trust where it may have been eroded or broken, inclusive of infidelity
- Provide a space to enable conscious uncoupling, allowing you to end the relationship with integrity and peace
- Help you unpack the cultural and identity dynamics in your relationship that may be impacting communication and connection
- Work to deepen intimacy, improve your sex life, and reconnect to each other and desire with openness and vulnerability​​​​
My Practice
I approach couples and relationship therapy with an open mind and clear intention to centre the relationship itself as the client, as well as the each individual client involved. Often clients come with an issue that can feel insurmountable; a disagreement, a misalignment, a communication breakdown. As with individual therapy, trust and rapport are front and centre of the process. I work with you both as a unit and individually to understand your communication needs and support you to feel safe, so we can effectively explore the material brought to sessions.
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Sometimes we need to find our way back to each other, or perhaps support is needed with conscious uncoupling or greater separation. There are often words we have not found the courage to say to the people we need to be the most honest with. In many cases our own truth is hidden even from ourselves. Blockages in relationships can often be rooted in historical experiences and attachments that need healing, together we can unpack how your past may be impacting your current dynamic. A safe and facilitated space can open the doorway to the relational truth that needs to be spoken.
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Culturally, we are often caught in a trap of seeking our main support from one person. This is often a partner. We are fundamentally built to exist in a village, in a community. So, while I work with the relationship you bring to the therapy room, I am also interested in the wider context your relationship operates in. Are there other supportive relationships around? Do you have other mutual relationships, if so, how do they influence your connection?
“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
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Sessions fees are on sliding scale of £120-180 per 50 minute session. I usually work with couples on a fortnightly basis, but can work weekly if this suits the need of the individual couple or relationship. In the first instance we would set up an initial session to ascertain if it may feel like a right fit for everyone involved, and from there I would suggest an initial 6 week block of sessions with the option to review. The work can be ongoing or short-term.