Relationship Counselling

Why do People Come To Relationship Counselling?

People come to gain relief from the conflicts they experience in interacting with others, to understand their difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships, and to resolve conflicts with others.

Some do Personal Counselling around relationships with partners, potential partners, spouses, children, work colleagues or friends. Others come as a couple or as a small group, for Couples Counseling or Family Counseling.

Pre-Marital or Pre-Commitment Counselling

Some people come for pre-marital or pre-commitment counselling, especially if there are things they are wondering if they can live with long term. If there has been a breach of trust before they have made a full commitment they may be wondering if a commitment will solve the issue or if they will end up regretting the decision to stick in the relationship later.

Ways of Healing

Some are in recovery from broken relationships and want to heal, or are wondering if they can save the relationship. Often when a relationship becomes difficult one partner might decide to take a break. It can be hard to know if they want to enter back into a full relationship again.

Some people just need help overcoming the loss of an intimate partner.

Counselling as the Safe Place

A couple may come to us when they feel their relationship is breaking down and there is no way to make it work. In this state they cannot talk about anything important any more. They may fight about the smallest of issues – or they may not talk at all, so nothing gets resolved. They may resent each other and not feel the other cares enough to resolve things. This is where counselling can be the safe place from them to start to speak again.

The Complexities of Being Human

The ways in which humans negotiate the boundary between themselves and others has been an endless study in psychology.

As Jung said: “We are not masters in our own house”

Complexities derive from the fact that only a portion of our thoughts and behaviours are within our conscious awareness. There are always many subconscious (and/or unconsciousness) aspects to us (like the undersea bulks of icebergs) which we are usually unaware of or only dimly aware of; but which can come alive instantly, and can act upon us and so upon others, when invoked or triggered.

A goal of Relationships Counselling and Therapy is to become more masterful with our complexities and the riches of being human.