What We Do Best

Couples

“A couple’s emotional life together and their physical life together each have their ebbs and flows, their ups and downs, but these don’t always correspond. They intersect, they influence each other, but they’re also distinct.”  Esther Perel….

Couples come to therapy at different stages in their relationship. Some when things are really difficult and feel the relationship is nearing the end, whilst others early on when perhaps they want to avoid repeating patterns. 

Some couples come to therapy because they notice unhelpful themes or patterns in their relationship and find themselves stuck having the same argument over and over again without any resolution. Other couples come to therapy because they are approaching a significant life event – becoming parents, getting married, children leaving home etc.

Many couples don’t make it to therapy until they reach a crisis in their relationship, entrenched in behaviours and emotions that make it difficult to see a way forward.

What happens in couples therapy?
The main goal of couples therapy is to understand the dynamics of the relationship and what are the patterns that are being played out.

When two people enter a relationship they each bring their histories with them, their relational experiences from childhood, expectations, hopes, fears, desires etc. For many of us these are not always known or understood by ourselves and so are certainly not by our partners. These misunderstandings lead to feelings of resentment and hurt that can undermine the foundations of the relationship, trust, security, safety.

In couples therapy, we work to understand these dynamics, how they came to be and their relevance within the relationship. Once we’ve identified them, we can begin see how they impact the relationship…these are not always negative, for instance unmet expectations, hopes or desires are perhaps due to a partner not expressing them for fear of rejection. This fear is born from previous experience in relationship and their current partner is not aware of them at all and is in fact willing and open to fulfilling them. This can be a huge relief for the partner who has hidden their needs and also a great relief for the other partner as they too can feel more connected, more valued in the relationship.

Some couples therapy can be more pragmatic, issue focused such as parenting issues, certain behaviours or how to separate, coparenting. Relationship is central to our being in the world, whether it be with a friend, neighbour, a family member or, as in couples, with our primary partner.

The quality of these relationships is determined by the quality of our relationship with ourselves, the blueprint of which is overlayed onto those we are in contact with. Seen through this lens we can see that if we are able to gain a better understand of ourselves, we can be more conscious of developing healthier, more fulfilling relationships with others.