Couple counselling can be a positive experience at any stage of a relationship. As relationships progress new challenges and possibilities arise where therapy can facilitate growth, change and alleviate conflict. Very often, couple counselling is helpful when one or both of you are feeling misunderstood or isolated, or when you identify negative and destructive patterns.
What to expect in couples counselling
As a couple counsellor in Alton I provide a warm, supportive and non-judgmental environment, and I do not take sides. I do not come to the sessions with an agenda. I am here to facilitate you in finding your own way forward; for some partners this will mean finding a more creative and positive future for the relationship, while for others it may mean helping you to accept and manage the end of a relationship.
When we meet I will listen carefully and respectfully, to both of you. I will honour your privacy, autonomy and independence and help you to identify the unhelpful patterns of interaction that have grown up between you.
Who comes for couple counselling in Alton?
Clients come with a variety of concerns including breakdowns in communication, parenting, fertility, sexual relations, infidelity, financial pressures, loss or bereavements, work issues, transitions including preparing for marriage or managing a break up, cultural differences and age differential. I have experience of working with couples with children, couples from mixed cultural backgrounds and couples from early twenties through to sixties.
Whether your relationship is relatively new or well established couples can have problems, I have extensive knowledge and expertise to help resolve any issues that you may be having.
I am experienced at working with couples and relationships both in-person and online so you can be certain I know how to ensure your sessions deliver the outcomes you want.
What approaches do I use?
I start from the idea that we are wired to be social. What one of you does effects the other and vice versa. I completely understand that it’s hard to see your own side of the pattern from the middle of the relationship
I am trained in one of the best validated and most successful approaches to healing distressed couple relationships: Emotionally Focussed Therapy (EFT). We’ll start from where you are – getting a clear picture of just what happens when you argue or when things don’t feel right. We’ll focus in on the patterns you get into and explore what triggers each of you to react in the ways that you do. I’ll help you make sense of why it’s so painful by gently supporting each of you to go inside and explore what goes on for you in those moments when you feel emotionally disconnected. When we feel that we might lose the very person we love most feelings can run extremely deep and as a result we can all respond in ways that pull us apart rather than ways that draw us safely back together.
I can help you identify and understand the negative pattern you’re in, tune into what's going on inside you, when you feel disconnected from your partner, and ultimately discover new ways to reinforce and strengthen the kind of secure emotional bond we all long for. Research has shown that 85% of couples who stay the course experience deeper, more connected relationships. And what is even more wonderful, these relationships last.
This approach is being used with many different kinds of couples and many different cultural groups. It is practiced around the world and is recognised as an effective evidence-based couple, individual and family therapy approach. This approach can give us what we all want: close, deep, trusting relationships with those who matter most.
