Relationships & Couples Therapy
Couples Counselling
Rebuilding Connection, Clarity & Trust
A Clear, Structured Approach to Relationship Support
For couples who want to understand each other again — without judgement or blame.
Services offered:
Couples Counselling (Stroud or online)
Foundation Package — first four structured sessions (£450)
Ongoing Couples Therapy — blocks of six sessions (£495)
Appointments currently available on Fridays only — online or in Stroud (Brimscombe).
A Relationship Isn’t Something You Have —
It’s Something You Build
At the beginning, connection is effortless. You talk easily, laugh freely, and feel understood.
But over time, life adds weight:
Careers with pressure and responsibility
Parenting and logistics
Mortgages, routines, exhaustion
Stress carried home from demanding work
Unspoken expectations and attachment patterns learned long before you met
Even strong couples can lose connection — not because either partner has failed, but because the relationship has outgrown its old structure.
Therapy gives you a safe, structured space to slow down and understand what’s really happening between you.
Why Couples Often Come Too Late
An NHS colleague once told me:
“I’m really a divorce therapist — people come too late.”
Most couples wait until communication has broken down, patterns have solidified, or resentment has built up.
Starting earlier makes repair faster, safer, and far more possible.
This work isn’t about blame.
It’s about clarity — understanding the emotional patterns beneath conflict so you can rebuild trust.
Repair Is a Skill —
And Most Couples Were Never Taught It
A couple once said:
“We were together 15 years, had one argument, then divorced.”
It wasn’t the argument.
It was the absence of repair.
Relationship research is clear: couples who thrive aren’t the ones who avoid conflict — they’re the ones who repair well.
In therapy, I help you develop those core skills:
Staying regulated during conflict
Communicating without escalation
Understanding each other’s attachment responses
Repairing without defensiveness
Rebuilding intimacy and trust at a sustainable pace
These are learnable. And transformative.
How I Work
I’m an integrative counsellor drawing on:
Attachment theory
Relational and psychodynamic psychotherapy
Emotion-focused approaches
Mindfulness and regulation
My style is warm, clear, and collaborative. No one gets blamed. No one is the “problem”. We focus on what happens between you.
Sessions explore:
Emotional patterns
Communication styles
Conflict cycles
Unspoken needs
Practical repair strategies
Long-term relationship health
Appointments are available on Fridays only, either online or in-person in Stroud (Brimscombe).
The Foundation Package —
A Structured First Step
£450 — Four sessions designed to understand your relationship clearly and deeply.
Session 1 — 90-minute joint session
Exploring what’s happening, mapping your conflict cycles, and identifying emotional patterns.
Sessions 2 & 3 — Two individual 90-minute sessions
A private, safe space for each of you to speak openly and reflect on your personal experience.
Session 4 — 90-minute joint session
Bringing the insights together, clarifying what’s driving the patterns, and deciding the next steps.
You end this phase with:
A clear understanding of your relational dynamics
A shared language for what’s happening
A mapped-out repair process
A decision about continuing, pausing, or moving forward with deeper work
Who This Is For
This approach works especially well for:
Dual-career couples
High-functioning professionals
Intelligent, emotionally aware partners who feel stuck
Couples carrying work stress into home life
Long-term partners feeling more like flatmates
Those experiencing repeated arguments, distance, or miscommunication
Couples who want clarity before deciding next steps
Underneath it all is usually a simple truth:
You still care about each other — you just can’t find your way back.
If You’re Considering Couples Counselling
You don’t need a crisis to seek help.
Most couples who start early say:
“We finally understand each other again.”
“We’re talking in a way we haven’t in years.”
“This gave us clarity.”
Whether you want reconnection, repair, or direction, therapy gives you a structured and compassionate framework.
Book a confidential 15-minute consultation
Appointments currently available Fridays only.
Some thoughts from Relationship experts
Relationship: "The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected."
Love: "A very strong feeling of liking and caring for somebody or something."
Intimacy: "The state of having a close personal relationship with somebody."
Esther Perel
Background: Esther Perel is a Belgian-American psychotherapist and author who has worked with couples for over 25 years across five continents. She is known for her books "Mating in Captivity" and "The State of Affairs," as well as her popular podcast "Where Should We Begin?" Perel brings a cross-cultural perspective to relationship therapy and is recognized as a leading voice on modern love and sexuality.
Definition of Couples/Relationship Counselling: Perel understands modern coupledom as a perpetual balancing act between our twin longings for security (love, belonging, predictability) and freedom (desire, mystery, exploration). When either pole is starved, intimacy or erotic vitality wilts.
• Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy—they must coexist for passion to thrive • Developed the concept of "erotic intelligence"—the capacity to cultivate novelty, vitality, curiosity, and playful distance inside committed bonds • Reframes infidelity as a crisis of identity rather than simply a crime to punish • Argues that reconciling the erotic and the domestic is a paradox to manage, not a problem to solve
Key Quote: "Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure."
Terry Real
Background: Terry Real is an American family therapist and founder of Relational Life Therapy (RLT). He has written several books including "I Don't Want to Talk About It" and "Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship." Real is known for his direct, no-nonsense approach to couples therapy and his work on healing toxic masculinity and patriarchal patterns in relationships.
Definition of Couples/Relationship Counselling: Real's Relational Life Therapy treats partnership as a relational ecosystem that flourishes only when both parties practice full-respect living—minute-to-minute behavior that never drops below basic respect.
• Full-respect living: commit to speak and act without contempt toward your partner—or yourself • Helps clients move from their "Adaptive Child" (old, trauma-wired defenses) to their "Wise Adult" state • Identifies the Five Losing Strategies—being right, controlling, unbridled self-expression, retaliation, withdrawal • Tackles patriarchy and "male relational dread," insisting intimacy requires equal worth and equal responsibility
Key Quote: "You can be right, or you can be married."
Dr. Orna Guralnik
Background: Dr. Orna Guralnik is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst based in New York. She became widely known through Showtime's documentary series "Couples Therapy," which follows her work with real couples. Guralnik combines psychoanalytic training with contemporary relationship therapy approaches, bringing both depth and accessibility to her practice.
Definition of Couples/Relationship Counselling: Guralnik views partners as mini political systems whose power plays conceal deeper vulnerabilities; therapy invites them to decode these dynamics and co-author new rules of engagement.
• Power struggles are often organized around gender, class, race or privilege and mask unspoken fears or shame • Keeps "the couple, not either individual," as the true patient • Teaches couples to watch their own "dance"—naming triggers, slowing escalation, and experimenting with alternative moves • Uses calm witnessing, gentle irreverence, and strategic silence to let patterns surface
Key Quote: "People really do want to do better—they want to transcend, they want to grow."
Juliet Grayson
Background: Juliet Grayson is a British relationship therapist and author of "Landscapes of the Heart." She is a pioneer of the Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) approach in the UK, combining body-based therapy with relationship work. Grayson has developed specialized approaches for working with emotional fusion and differentiation in couples.
Definition of Couples/Relationship Counselling: Grayson targets emotional fusion—the blurring of self-and-other that fuels reactivity—using body-based Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) work to restore healthy differentiation.
• Maps four fusion roles—Boss, Pleaser, Loner, Self-Developer—that couples cycle through under stress • Developed the Five-Star Conscious Relating model charting a developmental arc from co-dependence to genuine intimacy • Uses "structures" where clients enact corrective scenes, creating new somatic memories of nurture, protection, support and limits • Combines NLP, PBSP and sex-therapy tools in her approach
Key Quote: "It's called emotional fusion—when you're caught up in what the other person thinks or feels rather than your own feelings."
Summary
These four perspectives offer different lenses for understanding relationship dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Perel's approach focuses on the fundamental tension between security and freedom in modern relationships, emphasizing the need to maintain both connection and individual autonomy. Real's Relational Life Therapy takes a direct, behavioral approach that emphasizes respect, accountability, and moving beyond patriarchal patterns. Guralnik's psychoanalytic perspective views couples as complex systems where power dynamics mask deeper vulnerabilities, requiring careful observation and gradual pattern recognition. Grayson's body-based approach addresses emotional fusion through somatic interventions, helping couples develop healthy differentiation while maintaining intimacy. Together, these approaches suggest that effective couples therapy must address both the emotional and behavioral aspects of relationship patterns while honoring the complexity of modern partnership dynamics.
— LBW Counselling