Therapy with couples

What is it for?

Therapy with couples is provided to help with relationships.

It's not easy to make a close relationship between two people work. Whatever made you want to be together, there may be times when it doesn't seem to be the way that it was or could be. Talking with somebody else (who is not in the relationship) can help you both explore and understand what is going on.

How does it work?

While a lot of the benefits of individual therapy can apply with couples, there are important differences. The focus is very much on the relationship itself. If you have particular issues as individuals, this is not the space to deal with those except where they directly affect the relationship.

As the therapist, I am an outside observer. I can offer observations about how the relationship appears to me, and about you as individuals in the relationship. Full confidentiality applies.

There are also differences because there are two of you; for example, the sessions will be longer, and normally there will be fewer of them. Commonly there are gaps of a few weeks between sessions in which you can both continue to work together on matters that come up when with me.