Both Relationship and Couples therapy/counselling is about helping individuals navigate, improve and resolve challenges they are facing with each other. Recognising relationships that have developed unhealthy patterns and problems, is acknowledging that it is time to consider therapy. The earlier you address any relationship problems, the more chances you have of avoiding escalation into more significant issues, destructive behaviours and the possibility of your relationship with someone you care about ending.
The general definition of a Relationship is a close, personal and intimate bond (not necessarily sexual) between two or more people such as a friend, family member or partner for example, whereas Couples implies that there are romantic feelings and sexual intimacy between two people, and moreover in a conventional interpretation, it includes exclusivity and long term future or lifelong commitment, perhaps with marriage, civil union and possibly children together.
Feeling secure, safe, happy, content, cared for, respected, loved, considered and connected, are just some of the elements that are considered crucial for emotional wellbeing within a relationship. When these have been affected, they cause immense internal and emotional pain, and can wound deeply. It can create conflict with a person you care for and love, and it can introduce challenging psychological distress and turmoil. Sometimes, a fractured relationship can cause intense loneliness and a sense of isolation, even though you are meant to be an important part of someone’s life. It can feel like you are losing your person, your best friend, your confidant, your soulmate, your life partner, your family, and your protector.
Starting Relationship & Couples Therapy can bring up a multitude of complex and surprising emotions. The hardest perhaps may include shame, embarrassment, fear, hopelessness, hurt, anger, sadness, vulnerability, anxiety, frustration, disappointment and despair to name but a few! However, what it can also create is a sense of understanding, empathy, emotional intimacy, personal growth, self-awareness, resolution, forgiveness, relief and above all, hope.
As with all therapies, it offers a safe, non-judgemental, impartial and confidential space to work through all sorts of areas of a relationship. All relationships without exception have their ups and downs. There are so many life pressures and unpredictable events that can influence the course of any relationship, and often they are unexpected and unforeseen. Therapy offers the space to explore your feelings, take time with each other to reflect on your relationship in an intimate and detailed way, and look at patterns that have become unhealthy and troublesome. You can say what has not been said, what has been suppressed, locked away but cannot be left unsaid any longer.
It can help address past & present traumas, and it can help you to understand why you behave as you do in your relationships. There may be issues deeply rooted in the past, in your histories, in your childhoods, your own backgrounds, that you could never have foreseen that they would manifest themselves into your current relationships. However, by identifying and talking about them can help make sense of why you are the way you are in your relationship, find ways forward together, and work through everything with the support of therapy.
It is for anyone in any kind relationship, at any stage of a relationship, with any issue or concern. Not just if you are in crisis. People come to therapy not just because they are thinking of ending, but also because they just want to strengthen and improve it. Life events, age and personal experiences all impact lives and therefore it would be fair to assume that relationships will also change over time too. Sometimes, just coming to recognise and re-evaluate those changes, helps create a new path forward as the people you are today and what that can look like for the future, rather than mourning the version you were in the past and thinking that it must end, when perhaps, it doesn’t have to!
For couples, sometimes the hardest decision to reach is to recognise that the relationship may need to end, and the therapeutic process can help you reach this decision in a way that is healthy and amicable. For others, they come with the intention of separating, but when working through their difficulties they find they have something worth fighting for and leave therapy with a stronger and healthier relationship for it. And some just come to better understand themselves, their relationship and re-contract a new journey for themselves as the people they are now, rather than the people they once were.
I offer a safe, compassionate, non judgemental, therapeutic space for you to work through all and any aspects of your relationship and together, we will work towards the outcome that is best for you
Contact me today and let’s start this journey together!
Bob Marley
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