Couple Therapy – Relationship Tips
Thinking About Couples Therapy?
If your summer holiday didn't live up to expectations for rekindling romance, connection, or intimacy, you're not alone. Many couples find themselves seeking relationship counselling after a disappointing vacation. It's common for people to have high hopes that a...
Children Moving Out: What this might mean for your Relationship
Children going to university is a bittersweet experience for many couples. While this key rite of passage is often celebrated – a marker of being a successful parental couple, it can also mean the loss of a parent’s major focus in life – the day-to-day role of school...
Reconnecting with Your Partner During Holidays
As many of us venture off to sunnier destinations, the anticipation of rekindling our relationships often grows. For couples in high-pressure, demanding jobs, holidays offer an often overdue opportunity to focus on each other and their children. However, bridging the...
It takes a village to raise a child – the importance of a support network for a family
As a couples therapist I work with couples of all ages, from different countries of origin and levels of wealth. The difficulties they are experiencing are also hugely varied, from a loss of connection as a couple, to high levels...
Do you feel like a parent to your partner, or a child even?
Parent, Child and Adult Roles in Relationships In working with a couple, I was recently reminded of a long established and widely used model of relationships, called Transaction Analysis. Developed by Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne in the 1940s, I first came...
Have the ‘culture wars’ made couples more polarised too?
Image by Freepik I have been listening recently to writer and broadcaster Jon Ronson’s series about the origin stories behind contemporary culture wars, entitled ‘Things Fell Apart’. It is an excellent set of stories about how issues such as divides between...
The Best Time to Start Couples Therapy?
After the new year, many couples start thinking about whether to embark on couples therapy. The festive season can often be difficult for couples who have already been struggling with their relationship. The presence (or absence) of extended families; high...
Families at Christmas
My clients, both couples and individuals, are all talking about Christmas in sessions right now. Whilst many of us hope for a joyous time, where conflicts and differences can be put aside, there is often a gap between our hopes and realities. And when the gap comes to...
Managing Anxiety Together
We seem to live in a world in which anxiety is never far away. A glance at social media or news channels can quickly be unnerving. And in couple therapy, different versions of anxiety are often central to the difficulties couples face, even though that might not be...
Couple Therapy – how long, how often, and when to end
These three questions are often asked of me when couples come for their first couple therapy session. Often clients hope for a fairly simple answer, but all three depend on the specific couple. In this article I discuss ways of thinking about these questions, which...