If you’re single, become relationship ready.
If you are partnered, transform your relationship from the inside.
Many people come to therapy because their relationships seem to follow the same difficult patterns. They may feel overwhelmed during conflict or drawn to partners who cannot meet their emotional needs.
Individual relationship therapy uses relationship psychology to help you understand the emotional parts and protective patterns that become activated in relationships and form a barrier to intimacy and trust. As these patterns become clearer, it becomes possible to respond differently – developing healthier boundaries and creating more secure and satisfying relationships.
Intimacy is foundational to emotional security and strength and also provides an exquisite richness to the quality of one’s life. Even in solid relationships the quality and type of intimacy we experience will wane and shift as our external and emotional lives undergo pressures and change.
Whether we are single or partnered self-understanding and relational skill are key to intimacy and connection in all types of relationships.
Individual relationship therapy can assist you to change your relationship from the inside, even if your partner does not participate in therapy.
Despite people feeling like they have learned from past mistakes or chosen different types of partners, often they keep encountering the same relationship difficulties again and again.
Conflict patterns repeat, emotional reactions feel overwhelming, or intimacy becomes difficult despite genuine desire to connect.
Our early relationships shape how we experience closeness, conflict, vulnerability, and trust. They inform our attraction patterns, our conflict cycles, our boundaries, our emotional triggers and power and relationship dynamics. Understanding our family-of-origin and how we adapted to cope with the family dynamics of the past, help us see patterns at play today.
By using the insights of relationship psychology, meaningful change can happen when you develop greater awareness of your internal responses, attachment patterns and relational habits.
There’s three elements to the relationship therapy I practice: creating self-awareness, healing wounded parts and patterns, and building the skills of being relationally minded.
Developing the ability to be relationally minded means firstly overcoming allowing your defensive, reactionary parts to dominate and instead enabling your wise, considered and responsible parts to lead and respond to life’s events.
It also means learning to assert your needs with love and respect and cherishing the good in your relationship.
Being relationally minded means managing rupture and repair with skill. Rupture and repair are normal and important aspects of every healthy relationship; however, without the skills and perspectives to manage the dynamic as conflict arises – or to repair and reconnect when it does – relationships can suffer damage that prevents building and growing intimacy.
Individual relationship therapy uses relationship psychology to help clients begin to recognise the protective patterns, emotional triggers and attachment dynamics that shape how they relate to partners and significant others.
It helps explore how our early relationships shape how we experience closeness, conflict, vulnerability and trust.
When you understand how your subconscious is driving your experience and you heal your wounded protective parts, you become free to apply your newly learned relational skills and influence your relationship experiences for the better. You will find you are both empowered with knowledge and your emotions are more easily regulated – of course, it all takes practice, but new ways of relating become available to you.
A preparedness to look within, is all it takes to get started.
To become relationally minded I assist my clients to:
I help my clients to do this by drawing on the very effective models of relationship psychology:
Relational Life Therapy developed by Terry Real, and
Internal Family Systems developed by Richard C. Schwartz;
along with multiple other modalities including Emotion Focused Therapy, Attachment Theory, Psychodynamics, Family Systems Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Of the many evidence based approaches available to work with I find these to be most effective.
At the get-go I ask my clients if they are seeking short-form therapy (8-20 sessions) or outcome-focussed therapy. In both scenarios we identify the goal and review progress every 6-8 sessions.
Of the three elements to becoming relationally minded, the first, self-awareness involves enquiry. As your therapist I will ask gentle questions to assist in the reflection and awareness process. This may take between 1 and 5 sessions and involve some family history before we name the patterns.
The second element, healing past patterns involves understanding your family of origin and possibly relational trauma work. Even small ‘t’ trauma’s need to be surfaced to enable the consciousness required to be relationally minded. To do this I introduce the language of parts to my clients to assist them to gain nuance about their feelings and we explore approaches to accessing and processing emotions.
The third phase of treatment is the skill-building of relationality. Skills to sustain intimacy come to the fore when phase one and two are understood. Without the first two steps you can be triggered and your new skills will go out the window. Skills such as speaking up for yourself and cherishing your partner in the same breath. Or not being reactive when your partner is triggered, but holding the space for them to work it out. Its a cultural mindset of taking the team approach rather than the triggered individualistic one.
Even if your partner does not attend therapy, navigating pressures in any relationship demands personal growth and self-reflection to resolve along with skill development to addresses the specific issues and patterns present in your dynamic.
After therapy, your new relational skills will very likely engender a new dynamic between you and your partner even if you attend therapy on your own. They are also invaluable skills to bring to every significant relationship in your life.
And, if you are not in a relationship now, learning these skills will be invaluable when the right person comes along. Then you’ll know how to overcome the natural hurdles and keep your new relationship healthy and growing in the long term.
What experts say about the power of therapy and coaching
Therapy and coaching for real change
No, it wont stop you having arguments initially but it will equip you to take more space and get less overwhelmed by them. Later, you will begin to see and understand the patterns and dynamics at play, and be able to manage your own part in that dynamic which will reduce the overall intensity. You will also learn strategies to repair after rupture. All relationships have rupture, what distinguishes great relationships is that they repair well.
Feeling supported, understanding the patterns at play and then feeling the agency to rebuild connection with help alot. You will feel much better about the situation when you have greater clarity and a plan.
You need both. Therapy will assist in healing many of the wounds that divorce and separation bring and assist in reforming your identity and self-belief.
Yes, huge amounts can be achieved when you understand your own internal make-up and access self-compassion and self-love.
