What's Involved with Couples Counselling?
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What is Couples Counselling?
Many people believe that couples counselling (also known as relationship counselling) is there only for when things are at breaking point - be it the discovery of an affair or pending divorce or separation. Although it's true that counselling for a couple during such a crisis is often not only helpful but healing too, couples counselling is there for any couple who may be experiencing conflict or pain as well as anyone who wishes to nurture and enhance their relationship. The way in which Angela conducts couples therapy is designed to help you understand what's going on for you individually. She will guide you in understanding your emotions and your communications. She will help you examine the effects of change and improved communication. She'll assist you in recognising healthy conflict and abusive communications. It's from that understanding and awareness that Angela can then assist you in moving forward to a more secure bonding. For most couples there will be a way forward. |
What can we expect from a couples counselling session with Angela?
Angela Jullings, a BACP registered psychotherapist with 24 years' experience, provides a supportive environment to help you express what you're both experiencing and to voice any concerns, fears or difficulties you may be facing. During the initial session she will ask you and your partner questions about you, your relationship and what you wish to achieve from your time in counselling. She will discuss how many sessions are to be set aside for you and outline how and when you'll review your time together.
The way in which Angela works is unbiased and non-judgmental. She will remain neutral and her aim is to try and help you understand what the issues are and assist in bridging the gap between you. She believes all couples are doing the very best they can in the relationship, despite how their behaviour might appear to each other.
She works in a number of ways - therapist, mediator, observer and facilitator, often pointing out patterns and communication issues for the couple as well as suggesting alternatives and ideas. She will never "sort issues for you" but rather offer suggestions and ideas and assist you in finding a way for you to enable yourselves to break through problems.
As well as face-to-face couples therapy, Angela is also available online via Zoom which she uses when distance is an issue for clients. She often uses Zoom with clients in the USA and Australia as well as other parts of the UK. Online counselling can offer greater flexibility for this reason. Appointments are available Monday to Friday daytime plus two evenings a week.
Is Couples Counselling for us?
One partner may find the thought of talking to a therapist easier than the other partner. One partner might be more open to the idea and one of you may be a more vocal communicator than the other. However, the only criteria that Angela believes is essential for beginning counselling is that both partners, however hesitant, are willing to commit to trying therapy, open to learning about themselves and their relationship and be willing to try to save or improve the relationship, even if they can't see a way forward to feeling connected again. It's natural for one or both partners to be fearful or wary of the process of couples counselling if they haven't been before.
Relationship counselling can be both a profound experience for a couple and the individuals involved as it increases one's self-awareness and therefore initiates personal development. What couples cannot expect from therapy is that their relationship will be "fixed" from purely engaging in therapy. However, it may be helpful to realise that without couples counselling there may only be a continuation of suffering and alienation within the relationship. Couples therapy with Angela offers an opportunity to explore the issues and understand them, move forward and heal together. Couples may have a variety of goals they wish to achieve from therapy together and Angela will elicit your goals during the first session. It is rare that therapy with Angela will not produce a feeling of moving forward or positive change. Some couples' relationships are transformed from working with Angela and other couples experience a greater understanding of themselves and their relationship, even if it means parting. Either way the couple will probably be able to move forward with less anxiety and more confidence.
Benefits of Couples Counselling
If you attend relationship counselling with Angela Jullings, here is an outline of what you might achieve:
What couples counselling is and isn't! Couples counselling is:
What Couples counselling isn't:
Angela Jullings, a BACP registered psychotherapist with 24 years' experience, provides a supportive environment to help you express what you're both experiencing and to voice any concerns, fears or difficulties you may be facing. During the initial session she will ask you and your partner questions about you, your relationship and what you wish to achieve from your time in counselling. She will discuss how many sessions are to be set aside for you and outline how and when you'll review your time together.
The way in which Angela works is unbiased and non-judgmental. She will remain neutral and her aim is to try and help you understand what the issues are and assist in bridging the gap between you. She believes all couples are doing the very best they can in the relationship, despite how their behaviour might appear to each other.
She works in a number of ways - therapist, mediator, observer and facilitator, often pointing out patterns and communication issues for the couple as well as suggesting alternatives and ideas. She will never "sort issues for you" but rather offer suggestions and ideas and assist you in finding a way for you to enable yourselves to break through problems.
As well as face-to-face couples therapy, Angela is also available online via Zoom which she uses when distance is an issue for clients. She often uses Zoom with clients in the USA and Australia as well as other parts of the UK. Online counselling can offer greater flexibility for this reason. Appointments are available Monday to Friday daytime plus two evenings a week.
Is Couples Counselling for us?
One partner may find the thought of talking to a therapist easier than the other partner. One partner might be more open to the idea and one of you may be a more vocal communicator than the other. However, the only criteria that Angela believes is essential for beginning counselling is that both partners, however hesitant, are willing to commit to trying therapy, open to learning about themselves and their relationship and be willing to try to save or improve the relationship, even if they can't see a way forward to feeling connected again. It's natural for one or both partners to be fearful or wary of the process of couples counselling if they haven't been before.
Relationship counselling can be both a profound experience for a couple and the individuals involved as it increases one's self-awareness and therefore initiates personal development. What couples cannot expect from therapy is that their relationship will be "fixed" from purely engaging in therapy. However, it may be helpful to realise that without couples counselling there may only be a continuation of suffering and alienation within the relationship. Couples therapy with Angela offers an opportunity to explore the issues and understand them, move forward and heal together. Couples may have a variety of goals they wish to achieve from therapy together and Angela will elicit your goals during the first session. It is rare that therapy with Angela will not produce a feeling of moving forward or positive change. Some couples' relationships are transformed from working with Angela and other couples experience a greater understanding of themselves and their relationship, even if it means parting. Either way the couple will probably be able to move forward with less anxiety and more confidence.
Benefits of Couples Counselling
If you attend relationship counselling with Angela Jullings, here is an outline of what you might achieve:
- A sense of increased respect and connection with your partner
- Increased understanding of yourself, your emotions and your partner's
- Awareness of the "dance" you've been dancing, its pattern and sub-text
- Gained confidence in self-expression
- The ability to voice the "sub-text" of your negative behaviours and reactions
- Learn how to resolve conflict when you feel disconnected or stuck
- Learn how to ask for what you need from your partner
- Nurture each other as a source of connection, security and comfort
What couples counselling is and isn't! Couples counselling is:
- A confidential dialogue that attempts to normalise and understand feelings
- Enable each person to be heard and to understand themselves
- The therapist is a mirror for the relationship's difficulties
- Potential for change
- Identify any negative interaction and pattern cycles
- Understand the source of uncomfortable emotions that drive and fuel the pattern
- Expand and reframe key emotions and responses in the relationship
- Identify when bonding is there and when it isn't and how we seek it usually through "demanding or withdrawing" behaviours
- Facilitate a shift in partner's interaction to new patterns of interaction
- Foster a secure attachment and bond between partners
What Couples counselling isn't:
- An ethical therapist will not "take sides" or advise on what you "should or shouldn't do"
- An ethical therapist will not just listen - they will be actively involved in helping you to work towards healing your issues and building bridges. They will be interactive, asking and exploring questions and answers.
- Often one or both partners fear that their therapist will take sides or turn the other partner away from them. An ethical therapist will facilitate a safe place for you both to reconnect, explore and bond again as an equal unit.
- A relationship therapist isn't a referee!
