RELATIONSHIP COUNSELLING

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
Henry Winkler 
 

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.
Hugh Mackay

 

 

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Relationships are a challenging and demanding area of our lives, replete with rewards, benefits, struggles and wonderous moments and awful disasters. It is astonishing to think that we leap into them, maybe settle into marriages and make life changing decisions without any or very little guidance in what we are doing. 

 

Do we ever sit back to think what it is that makes a relationship work, what makes a relationship healthy, what enables some couples to live their whole lives together and for others not to be able to? Why do we marry and what did we want from marriage? What do we do in the face of problems, what and how do we react?

 

The nature of relationship is of course complex. Two worlds come together with great hope, feeling, love, passion and desire. But we also move through stages with life. Romance drops off, children come, jobs and careers dominate etc etc.

 

It is a wonder that they can work out at all.

 

The quality of a relationship can often be enhanced via the process of improved communication and understanding and the enemy to understanding someone else is familiarity and assumption. 

 

Familiarity and assumption invade relationships through the medium of time and slowly cement in place patterns of interrelationship that are not in any way related to the person one once knew, but related to the person we now find ourselves in struggle with.

 

Compounding this problem is the area of unresolved historical issues accumulating in the background, resentments can build up, stresses and strains can begin to become every day tensions, and the relationship become burdened by these dominating forces. The relationship is then under the yoke of this daily grind and may become unrecognisable or certainly not sustainable.  Issues like this can ultimately lead to break down, seperation or even divorce. Years of problems, poor communication, misunderstood issues, lack of mutual understanding have got in the way of being able to relate to one another and maintain the sense of support and mutual understanding that is so essential to healthy living and relationships that support us.

 

Often couples or one partner will seek help when their resources are at an all time low but they want to make their relationship work. They still care for and love their partner, but for some reason outside of their own understanding, their capacity to make it work is failing them, or patterns have become overwhelming.

 

This is an excellent time to seek help and explore the problems of the relationship.

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Over the years of working with couples in therapy it can become clear that many themes and patterns exist around relationships, some of this can be put down to differences between the sexes, styles of interacting and that human beings are creatures of habit, and therefore pattern. Understanding and knowing this can therefore lead to providing very effective and quick ways of bringing insight to a couple and each partner in a clear and precise way about what is occurring in their relationship. This is very important as it appeals to the logical mind and it appeals to the emotional senses and feelings associated with inclusion within a relationship - feelings of being seen, understood and heard. 

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Exploring themes of conflict within the relationship and observing patterns of communication can quickly lead to pointers and support around why and how communication is breaking down. Guidance and techniques are then shared of how to work more effectively around this. Where there are difficult issues to examine, this can be done pragmatically and safely within the safe and confidential space of therapy with a view to resolution or understanding. Therapy seeks to be helpful and orientate toward resolution, it provides time and space and professional objectivity to do this. Therapy offers an environment within which frustrations can be aired and discharged and where discussions can occur around what one would like ones relationship to be like.  This is then supported and brought forward within the therapy and shaped and supported as an outcome.

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Good therapy should cool the heat of a relationship that is over heating with tension or issues of complexity. Each session should make the couple feel calmer and in a process that will be productive and progressive for them toward a better quality of experience. This should be the same for both partners, and good couples therapy should and needs to facilitate this. It is not a process of wrong or right, nor should it be about getting involved in the minutiae of detail in subjects of discontent. The therapist should help and support and provide the way forward to help a couple reshape their relationship into how they want it to be and provide them with the tools of how to do that in a practical and down to earth explanatory manner. 

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An effective therapist as a prerequisite, well versed and able to read and support dynamics, tensions, disputes and conflicts in a relationship, should to be able to demonstrate, guide and assist a couple with proven ways in which change can be brought quickly and progressively. Essentially it is the power of communication that will press forward change if it is to come. So helping a couple improve the clarity and meaning of their words, what they mean, have meant and need or desire in the future will go a long way to handing them the ability to take control of their relationship and shape their destiny as life unfolds. This is central to the tenet of relationship and personal change. 

 

Relationships can be greatly enhanced and saved by counselling and therapy that is effective, but not everyone, or every 'relationship counselling' organisation is able to do this. We hear many reports of disappointment from couples we have seen who report of their previous experiences of 'couples therapy' that has fallen short of expectation, sometimes leaving them put off of therapy as an effective tool for change.  Relationships and issues within relationships can certainly be resolved and repaired if not commonly enhanced when the approach is both dynamic and focused while working within the requirements of what is comfortable, acceptable  and safe for both parties.  Doing this in a pragmatic, down to earth manner by using everyday language combined with practical realistic methods and excercises is central to the style of therapy offered here. It is a 'seamless approach' that delivers results, has wide application and focuses on flexibility and quality of experience. 

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If you would like to explore the options and methods briefly outlined here please get in touch and an appointment or initial discussion can be arranged. An initial meeting or consultation will be relaxed and informal in feel. It will be undertaken to demonstrate a thoroughness of approach and consideration and assessment of themes, allowing for the couple to reflect and consider the suitability for them and their requirements.

 

Please get in contact to book an appointment or to make an enquiry.

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For more information on relationship therapy and support  or any of the areas mentioned in this website in Middlesbrough, Durham, Newcastle, Harrogate or UK wide, please call for more information.