Sessions for couples

 Any couple is welcome – Mum and daughter, friends having difficulties, and those with new or established relationships.

What couple or relationship counselling can offer

Relationship counselling offers a safe, non-judgemental space to explore the issues that are important to you.  It is about helping you to have the difficult conversations that you are struggling with.  It is not about giving advice, saving the relationship or telling you what to do – that is for you to decide.  What it can also do is to provide you with some tools to think about your relationship, why it is like it is, and what you could choose to change.

The emphasis is on open communication – which for many people is a really hard thing to do.

In my view it is a brave first step to recognise that you need help, and then take the next courageous step of asking for the help.

What problems to people come with

• Communication difficulties (probably the most common)
• Understanding what is going on
• Wanting things to be different
• Affairs
• Loss – all kinds
• Challenging health issues
• New families, changing families, extending families
• Life events
• Sex problems
• Ending a relationship

The first session – assessment

The first session is a one off assessment. This is for you to work out whether couples counselling is the right thing for both of you, whether you think I am the right person to help you, or whether one or both of you might want to think about individual therapy first.  The first session is also for me to assess whether I am the best person to help you. If it’s appropriate, I will help you find someone or a service, who better meets your needs.

For some people, this single session  may be enough to clarify what the key issues are.

At this 90 minute session, we will have a think about what each of you are looking for in counselling, what each of you thinks the key issues are, what each of you would aim to get out of it, some exploration of where each of you think the problems came from, and look to see if there are some patterns about how you learned to live your life that are contributing to your strengths, or are limiting how you live your life.

After the session you will go away and think about what you have learned about yourself and each other, and decide whether you wish to continue.

If you do decide to continue, I recommend that you commit yourselves to and additional x8 sessions.  The first session is best 1 week after the assessment.  After that, sessions can be weekly, but we can assess whether, as a couple, you will find it more beneficial to have a 2-3 week gap between sessions so that you can review what you’ve learned and practice in your daily life.

Following sessions

At each session we will ask about how each of you are, how you think the relationship has been since we last met, and what you want in this session.

During the sessions I will offer you some ‘tools’ to work with between the sessions.  These include:

•  Forms of communication
•  Identifying how each of you predominantly responds to issues: feeling, thinking or through action
•  The drama triangle and the winning triangle

Recommended length: 1 assessment session and x8 90 minute sessions, either weekly or spread out.