Many of us feel trapped in dysfunctional relationships with partners, parents, children and siblings. For more see my Psychotherapy website
It is not about a lack of love usually – or even a lack of good will – but a lack of skill. Plus an accumulation of baggage that has built a brick wall of resentment in relationships.
To help remove that brick wall I will teach healthy communication techniques like Non-violent Communication to open dialogues with your loved ones. Replaying the rows in the therapy room simply does not work.
It means you finally get the chance to say what has never been said before and restore the love in your relationship or find the courage to forge an amicable parting of the ways.
For a deep loving, conscious long term relationship, there’s Imago Therapy to help couples unravel their triggers and express their needs and heartfelt desires.
I create a safe and nurturing environment for you to build healthy, loving relationships.
Experience has shown me that a longer session of 90 minutes is required for effective family and couples therapy. This is to ensure that each person has a chance to speak; that there is time to spend on skills coaching, and that everyone is settled and contained before leaving the session.
Some couples have been in an invisible divorce or at war with each other for so long that I recommend mediation first, rather than conventional therapy.
Some relationships have hit an impasse, a brick wall, a torrent of tension, that requires mediation rather than therapy.
What’s the difference?
Mediation is a single process that may last the whole day, or just a few hours, however long it takes to find an agreement.
It maybe that the agreement is to go forward and have psychotherapy to transform the relationship.
Or you might each decide to go your separate ways but rather than endlessly going round in circles, or tearing strips off each other, mediation is a safe neutral space to work out the best way forward for both of you, and your children, if you have any.
I recommend a pre-mediation telephone conversation with each of you separately first to assess whether this process might help each of you.
- Mediation helps you tap into the most positive aspects of any conflict:
- It helps to open up discussion of an issue
- Results in the problem being solved rather than it remaining a source of irritation
- Increases the level of individual involvement and interest in an issue
- Improves communication between people
- Releases emotions that have been stored up
- Helps people to develop their abilities.
- Ultimately results in families being closer, happier and more intimate emotionally.
EMDR: Oxford Therapy 