Relationship Counselling Programme

Of course you may want the other person to listen, apologise, behave differently or finally understand your point of view. Sometimes they might, sometimes that’s never going to happen.

But we don’t have to wait for that before something can change for you.

The work is about helping you become clearer about what you feel, what you want, what you don’t want, and how you want to respond — regardless of whether the other person gets there at the same time.

We talk, obviously, but we don’t only talk. I may ask you to slow something down and notice what actually happens inside you when you think about a particular person or situation. We might look at an argument that keeps repeating, why one comment affects you for hours, or why you keep giving in and then feeling resentful afterwards.

Sometimes something from the past becomes relevant, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not interested in digging for the sake of it. We follow what is useful and work with whatever seems to be getting in the way of you feeling clear, grounded and more like yourself in the relationship.

Inner work can become terribly serious, and I don’t think it always needs to be. Sometimes there is something wonderfully freeing about suddenly seeing a pattern you’ve repeated for years and thinking, Oh God… I do that.

When we can see ourselves clearly without immediately judging or trying to correct ourselves, things often begin to loosen quite naturally. There will be space for the difficult bits, of course, but also for humour, perspective and remembering there is a great deal more to you than the problem you arrived with.

Working in a short programme gives us enough time to go beyond talking about the problem, without creating the feeling that counselling has to go on forever.

The first session is longer, so we can properly look at what’s happening and what you’d like to change.

From there, we follow what shows itself.

You’ll be able to make sense of the way you react - to criticism, or why you find it difficult to say what you really want, why you keep hoping somebody will finally give you something they simply cannot give, why conflict makes you shut down or explode, or why you can be completely confident everywhere else and strangely unsure of yourself with this one person

By the later sessions, something usually starts to shift. Not that you’re a changed person, but because you’re able to stay in contact with yourself when things get difficult. And that changes a lot..

By the later sessions, you’ll have experienced the difference that comes from when you relate from a clearer and more centred place.

Not a perfect place.

Just one where you can remain more in contact with yourself.

The aim isn’t for nothing ever to bother you again. It’s more ordinary than that.

You may find you don’t replay conversations for hours afterwards, or that criticism doesn’t knock you sideways in quite the same way. You may become clearer about what you actually want, find it easier to say no without feeling dreadful about it, or notice an old reaction before it turns into the same argument all over again.

Sometimes the relationship itself changes. Sometimes your understanding of it does. And sometimes you realise that something you have been trying very hard to make work simply isn’t right for you.

Whatever the outcome, the important change is that you are less easily pulled away from yourself by what somebody else says, does or doesn’t do.

I grew up around conflict and abuse, much later, had to recognise some of the ways those early experiences were still showing themselves in my adult relationships.

I could love someone deeply and still push them away, want closeness and then unconsciously create distance, or react very strongly to something happening now without realising how much of that reaction belonged somewhere else.

Understanding why I did these things helped, but experiencing what was happening in me was what really began to change them. Over time, relationship stopped feeling like somewhere I had to protect, please, prove or fight for myself. Today there isn’t a relationship in my life that feels chronically conflicted - not because everybody behaves exactly as I would like them to , but because I don’t lose myself in the same way anymore.

And that, to me, is the important part.

There may be one relationship you think about far more than you want to, or one person around whom you become unusually anxious, angry, defensive or unsure of yourself. Perhaps you already recognise the pattern but understanding it hasn’t stopped it; you give in and resent it later, fight when what you really want is to be understood, or constantly wonder whether you are asking too much or accepting too little.

You don’t have to be in complete relationship crisis. You may simply have reached the point where you’re tired of the same thing happening and would like to understand what changes when you stay more connected to yourself.

We’re not going to spend six sessions diagnosing the other person. You may be absolutely right about them, but however fascinating their psychology might be, they aren’t the person sitting in the room with me.

And this isn’t about keeping a relationship together at all costs. Becoming clearer about yourself sometimes brings people closer together, sometimes it changes the nature of the relationship, and sometimes it makes a decision that has felt impossible much clearer.

I don’t know what your situation will be before we begin - the point is to help you find enough clarity that you have more insight and freedom to choose what is right for you.

This is a six-session individual process, beginning with an extended first session so we have time to properly understand what is happening. The following five sessions are usually weekly to begin with, although there can be some flexibility depending on what is going on.

You don’t need to bring the other person. This is about your experience of the relationship, so the person might be a partner, parent, boss, friend, adult child, ex — or even someone you no longer see.

Before booking, I’ll ask you to tell me a little about what’s happening and then we’ll have a short introductory call. That gives us both a chance to meet and see whether this feels like the right kind of work for you before you make the commitment.