Couple
Therapy
The Work
I imagine if you are looking for couples therapy the love and shared spirit Bly speaks of in his poem may seem a distant memory, or perhaps even something you have never experienced together.
The work of couples therapy, and it is often very hard work, is to try and discover what may be preventing this simple act of love that we are all capable of. In relationships we often develop what I call ‘relational trauma states’ which is a way of describing the terrible destructive, limiting places we can get into together.
Amazing as it may seem, these states if they can be apprehended accurately and understood with care and struggle can prove to be relationship gold! This may seem like a strange statement, so awful can some of these states be, but I have found that they often have a purpose. The intensity of the state can lead you to believe that the relationship needs to end, whereas it is the unravelling of this intensely difficult state that is the work that the relationship needs to do.
There is often an unconscious purpose to the build up of such a state, and it is this purpose that I am committed to help you find.
What we provide
Every breath taken in by the man
Who loves, and the woman who loves,
Goes to fill the water tank
Where the spirit horses drink.Robert Bly
Difficulties
These difficulties between partners (however you identify) often build up over years. It may be some life transition e.g. a bereavement or illness; loss of, or changes in work; having children/children leaving home or an affair that brings the trauma state to a head. It seems that often things have to get pretty bad before we will do anything about it, perhaps through fear of being left on our own or possibly an aversion to conflict.
Couples therapy can also help you to separate. Much can be learned from a ‘conscious separation’, leaving relationships (current and future) in a healthier state.
Perhaps you can imagine that the process being described above is not an easy one to be ‘sorted out’ in a few sessions. It is likely that this work will take some time, although that will be determined by the unfolding process of the work, rather than us agreeing to do a certain number of sessions at the outset.
A Way Forward
In the first instance we can meet and see how we go together. I don’t charge for the first session, unless we carry on in which case I will include it in the first invoice. I will endeavour to be reliable and committed to the therapy process with you and would ask you to do the same, although of course different feelings, sometimes strong, are felt at different times. We will agree to meet at a regular time, usually once weekly and this way carve out some time for you and your emotional process.
Fees
I charge £120/€140 per 50 minute session.
For those in financial hardship I carry two low cost places where the fee is completely negotiable please ask if these places are available.
"Sunset Birth" Ithell Colquhoun