What we can work on

Recurring conflict, defensiveness and miscommunication.
Emotional distance, disconnection and relationship burnout.
Expressing needs, negotiating boundaries and making room for differences.
Difficulties with emotional or physical intimacy.
Pressures around parenting, work, family expectations and life transitions.
Difficulties with trust or uncertainty about the relationship’s future.

Therapeutic modalities

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)

My approach

My role is to help you understand each other more accurately, rather than arbitrate who is right or wrong. We explore how each partner’s attachment style, personal history and experiences shape expectations of closeness and responses to conflict. By tracing the recurring cycle between you, we make the feelings and needs behind each response more understandable to both partners, while recognising each person’s responsibility for their actions.

What to expect in the first session

We begin with a joint consultation to understand your concerns, the history of the relationship and what each of you hopes to achieve through therapy. This is followed by one individual session with each partner, allowing space to explore personal history and each person’s experience of the relationship. Subsequent sessions take place together, with the focus and pace guided by your needs and the goals we establish collaboratively.

What we do in sessions

We work with specific exchanges to identify how a cycle begins, what each partner experiences and how one response shapes the next. I help you put words to feelings and needs that may otherwise emerge as criticism, defensiveness or withdrawal, and support you in hearing what your partner is trying to communicate. Understanding these interactions provides a basis for practising different responses and carrying that learning into your relationship outside the sessions.

What you take beyond the therapy room

The aim is to develop a shared understanding of your relationship that you can draw on when familiar tensions arise. This includes recognising the cycle before it takes over, understanding the more vulnerable feelings beneath a protective response and expressing a need for closeness or reassurance in a way your partner can hear. Alongside this understanding, you practise staying emotionally available to each other during difficult moments. Over time, these experiences can help you approach disconnection with greater confidence in your ability to find your way back to each other.

What change looks like

Change becomes visible in how you reach for each other and how that reaching is received. A criticism may give way to an expression of hurt; withdrawal may become an opportunity to name a fear and remain engaged. Recognising the cycle creates an opening, while repeated experiences of being heard and responded to help a more secure connection develop. Progress is rarely linear, and familiar reactions may return under stress. We attend to how you recognise and repair these moments, adjusting the work when needed and making room for setbacks along the way.