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Couples Counselling is a part of my job that I have really learned to love. My background in family law meant that I spent 20 years working with clients who were involved in family and relationship breakdowns. These were clients who were in pain, were angry, and often frightened. I would act for one party in the breakdown and it often felt like we were involved in a war. For this reason, once I qualified as a counsellor I remember saying that I could never imagine working with couples. How could I be impartial when I was so used to taking sides?   However, I learned that when the focus is on trying to find a way forward,  I can be neutral and look at the difficulties from outside rather than become involved in the war. I decided to do some additional training as I quickly came to realise that relationships were at the root of what brought most people to individual counselling...

You have probably heard lots of people saying "talking helps".  You may already have experienced times when something is troubling you and it has really helped to talk to friends or family about it.  So why choose counselling rather than just talking to your family or friends? Often those around us are involved in whatever is causing difficulty in some way.  They will undoubtedly have an opinion about it or may try to "fix" things for you.  We all know what it feels like if a loved one is struggling and we have an urge to try to fix the problem for them. Whatever is troubling you may sometimes be difficult to voice.  We are often too afraid to say what we are thinking for fear of rejection, judgement or causing upset to someone else.  Sometimes we just struggle to find the words to explain. The idea of talking to a stranger about personal issues can obviously be daunting and it is understandable that...