Couples Therapy

   Evidence-Based 
  Expert Psychologist 
  Near you or Online

If you have too many or too heated arguments or simply find it difficult to talk respectfully to each other, you have come to the right place.

I've a toolbox of proven techniques to help you overcome & manage communication issues and heal past hurts.

When our partner's manners, habits, beliefs or temperament clashes with what we expect or prefer, a number of negative emotions are triggered.

This is common in all relationships and the good news is that it doesn't affect your long-term relationship happiness.

However, if these differences lead to lingering dissatisfaction or recurring conflicts, something needs to change otherwise you may become increasingly emotionally distant.

You will be guided through the science of how to get along, partly based on Game Theory, and practice new ways of interacting and responding to differences.

Moving in together, health issues, financial problems, career changes and losses of loved ones can trigger conflict and tension, which can be better managed and resolved with help.

Drawing on research on what have worked and not worked for other couples facing similar situations, interventions may include goals to strengthen your connect, build resilience, problem solve and facilitate productive and emotionally attuned conversations.

Learn how you can grow stronger and maintain passion, intimacy and fun.

It will be based on over 60 years of scientific study on what makes and breaks long-term happy relationships.

Enjoy being coached in new and exciting ways to interact and grow closer.

As for physical health, prevention is better than cure. Your long-term relationship happiness can be supported and nurtured by resilience training, and by learning how to prepare for and avoid well-known couple challenges.

A comprehensive couple health check will help you identify strengths and areas you may wish to bolster or deepen.

This can also be very helpful for couples planning to get married, move in together or start a family.

For engaged couples, this intervention is also called premarital counselling or therapy.

Similar to the enhancement & prevention programme, you will be offered a comprehensive couple health check to help you identify strengths and areas you may wish to strengthen.

If helpful, we will adapt and discuss what we have learned about what makes and breaks relationship, and celebrate and build on your strengths and all the positive qualities that brought you together.

Having told your story, you now will have access to support and assistance from a relationship expert who knows you if you need any help in the future. This is part of our aftercare service.

Without trust a happy long-term relationship becomes impossible.

Any type of trust breach can have a devastating effect on the relationship, creating lasting emotions such as betrayal, sadness, anger, fear and loneliness.

What is a breach is different from person to person, and apart from emotional or sexual affairs can also include flirting, pornography, virtual affairs and lying about important things.

The aim of therapy is to rebuild trust by a thorough historical assessment of the relationship, guided discussions to increase understanding, emotional healing and an action plan based on taking responsibility, setting boundaries and radical openness.

The good news is that it is possible to recover from trust breaches.

Mutually rewarding physical, mental and emotional intimacies are the most important qualities of a relationship.

To be sustained over time, they need to be actively nurtured. It is not uncommon for intimacies to dwindle over time.

Therapy aims to discover and practice ways to revive, maintain and strengthen all three intimacies.

The decision to start a family or not is one of the biggest decisions we make in life.

It is not uncommon for couples to disagree about whether or not to try for a baby, and if deciding to go ahead, the logistics and timing of it.

In therapy, you will be guided through a programme to help you come to a decision that is best for both of you.

Disagreements about how to bring up your child(-ren) such as deciding on discipline, education, customs, faith and manners are common cause of tension.

Other issues covered include the specific challenges of blended families and parenting following parental separation.

Couples therapy aims to build and combine your individual strengths and help you to develop strategies for effective co-parenting, manage gridlocked conflicts, and strengthen your affective bonds as parents

Living apart and seeing each other infrequently can be very challenging.

After a careful assessment, we will adapt what we have learned about how to handle a long-distance relationship and how you can maintain the bond, closeness and trust.

The term Marriage Counselling or as it is practiced here, Marriage Therapy, is a an approach which focuses specifically on the institution of marriage.

Therapy is different to counselling in that it refers to a broader range of interventions and theoretical underpinnings. It is commonly delivered by professionals, such as psychologists and psychiatrists, with a more comprehensive and longer training than those conducting counselling.

The Bath Couples Therapy Practice stands out in comparison with most other services in that it is an evidence-based practice staffed by a specialist clinical psychologist with extensive training in both individual and couples psychological methods.

Whether you just have met or been together for years, having a period of doubts about the relationship is both normal and common even in the happiest of relationships.

It is not easy to talk about mixed feelings and plain speaking can be upsetting for both partners. On the other hand, if doubts are lingering they can endanger the relationship.

In therapy, we will establish a safe space to talk openly about the issues that have given rise to doubts and if you wish, find ways to overcome dissatisfaction or difficulties, learn more about the science of love and relationship, and give help to move your relationship in a more positive direction.

financial conflicts, division of house chores, jealousy, power imbalance, co-dependency, in-law issues are just some other common therapy targets.

Whatever it is that effects your relationship, I'm here to help, including individual mental health problems, and managing and coping with external stressors.