Couples therapy
How I work in couples therapy
I offer a calm, thoughtful space to help both of you understand what keeps happening between you, particularly when conversations have become painful, distant or difficult to manage alone.
My role is to support you by slowing difficult exchanges down, giving each person room to speak and paying attention to the relationship as well as the histories, feelings and wider worlds each of you brings. The sections below introduce some of the difficulties I can help with, from affairs and repeated arguments to parenthood, loss of intimacy and uncertainty about staying together.
Your experience may not fit neatly under one heading, and more than one section may feel familiar. These pages offer starting points rather than a complete list of what we can think about together. Begin with whichever feels closest to what you are living through now.
Relationship difficulties
When closeness, trust or understanding become harder to reach
The relationship may still matter deeply, while something between you has become painful, distant or difficult to shift alone.
Couples therapy after an affair
After discovery, the same questions may keep returning. Therapy can make space for the hurt, secrecy and uncertainty about rebuilding trust.
Read about affairs and trust →Couples therapy after having a baby
Exhaustion, changed roles, resentment and reduced intimacy can leave you wondering where the couple has gone.
Read about relationships after a baby →When sex and intimacy disappear
You may feel rejected, pressured or frightened to begin another conversation that seems to end in the same place.
Read about sex and intimacy →Why do we keep having the same argument?
The subject changes, but the same hurt, anger or silence returns and you both leave feeling misunderstood.
Read about repeating arguments →When you feel more like housemates
Life continues and you may still care deeply, but warmth, affection and the feeling of being a couple have become harder to reach.
Read about emotional distance →Mixed-race and cross-cultural relationships
Race, culture, faith, family and belonging may enter the relationship in ways that are deeply felt but hard to name together.
Read about love and difference →When you are uncertain what happens next
When even beginning therapy feels complicated
You may not agree about coming, know if therapy can help or feel certain that the relationship should continue.
Should we stay together or separate?
You may move between wanting to repair the relationship and feeling unsure that staying is possible. Therapy can hold that uncertainty without deciding for you.
Read about relationship uncertainty →What if my partner does not want therapy?
One of you may be ready to seek help while the other feels doubtful, exposed or worried that therapy will become a place of blame.
Read about a reluctant partner →Does couples therapy work?
An honest look at what therapy may help to change, what it cannot promise and the different forms a helpful outcome can take.
Read an honest answer →Specialist couples work
Training centred on the relationship between you
Working with a couple is different from seeing two individuals in the same room. It means listening to each person while also paying close attention to the relationship taking shape between you.
My training has been centred on working with couples and understanding what takes shape between two people. I trained at Tavistock Relationships, a specialist centre for couple relationships, where I work as a visiting clinician.
I help slow difficult exchanges down and pay attention to who has room to speak, who becomes quiet and what is hard to say. I also make room for masculinity, race, culture, gender, sexuality, faith, class and family expectations, without reducing either of you to an identity or assumption.
Read about how I work with couples →Looking for something shorter?
The Reading Room begins with ordinary moments: another argument, a quiet evening apart, a message left unanswered or a feeling you cannot quite shake.
Visit the Reading Room →Looking for individual therapy?
Explore anxiety, self-criticism, family patterns, identity, belonging and other experiences that may be difficult to carry alone.
How I work in individual therapy →When you feel ready
You do not need to know exactly what is wrong, what needs to change or what you want the outcome to be before getting in touch. A few words about what has brought you here are enough.
Request an Appointment