How Couples Therapy Works

David Bowie was the master of self change. He was whoever he wanted to be.

I’m not going to attempt to suggest that we are all talented, magical song writers, but guess what, we can all affect huge changes in our lives, whenever we are ready.

It is also widely researched and true to say that if people really want something, including repairing a damaged relationship, healing hurt and pain, finding a new path, making a long term ambition work for you and pretty much anything that seems to lie beyond our grasp, then depending on how much you want it, there is usually no reason not to make it happen.

Using couples therapy to repair a relationship for example, is not magic but it can be transformational.

During couples counselling, the key factors are:

• Both people learning to take responsibility for their part in the problems in the relationship, (unless they include violence).
• How much you each want to repair the damage.
• How much confidence each person can develop in their ability to increase the things mentioned above.

Successful relationship counselling really boils down to how important it is for you to stay together and how confident you both are in making this happen, and of course both taking responsibility and not passing along the blame.

Those three ingredients, and a good relationship counselor, can set you on the road to enjoying your lives again, either as lovers, co-parents or friends. Why waste a relationship of any kind?

Not exactly simple but not over complicated either.

I really don’t believe that we humans are as complex as we’d like to think we are. Sometimes, over complicating our situations is a great way to shy away from changes, no matter how much we tell ourselves we need counselling, sometimes it all feels too hard and we’d rather have a cup of tea or read a magazine.

We have a very high success rate with both relationship counselling and our individual counselling programme, because we focus on the crucial points above.

The other very important issue that works against couples is the closing down of communication and trust, which often happens when a relationship is suffering. Without knowing anything about you, I can be 99% sure that these two things will be issues too. I’m not trying to be clever, I’ve just been working with couples for a very long time and have seen the issues above repeated again and again.

I’ve lost count of the number of couples whose faces start to glow with a new kind of wonder, as they realise that they are communicating again, sharing special memories and gradually remembering why they are together in the first place.

I also have pages of photos of couples who have made things work.

Often children bring a couple together and sharing the very special love that children awaken in us is an extraordinary experience. Children are brilliant in so many ways, but even the strongest relationship can be shaken by a small person with very big wants and needs, becoming part of a family, which used to be just a couple.

Children or not, we can work together to bring back the relationship you want and need.

Please write to me at [email protected] to talk about where to begin or check out our couples therapy page and begin to look forward to a proper relationship again.

Thanks for reading.

Chrissy Richman.