Couple counselling

If your couple is going through difficult times and, despite your attempts, the two of you can’t find a way to get out of this challenging situation, couple counselling can be of great help.

When couple counselling can be of help

Sometimes this dissatisfaction can be caused by reasons within the couple, other times it may be external situations that have a strong impact on the balance and well-being of the people involved.

Bereavement, infertility, conflicts with family members, traumatic events or a severe disappointment in the expectations of one towards the other can stop the the communication within the couple. And when communication and intimacy become frozen, the problem can manifest itself in many ways.

These manifestations can include:

• Numerous or very intense arguments
• Unsatisfactory or non-existent sex life
• Difficulty or inability to speak freely about the couple's problems
• Presence of some form of abuse (physical, psychological or verbal)
• Difficulty separating, despite the difficulties in staying together
• Unfulfilled desires that negatively affect the life of at least one individual in the couple.

If you are also going through a difficult and demanding time and, despite all your attempts, you cannot resolve the situation, couple counselling could help you.

The object of this type of intervention is facilitating communication within the couple to allow you to find a satisfactory solution to your problems. It can therefore be very useful when you have tried everything to resolve your conflicts, but with disappointing results.

What couple counselling is NOT

When you are in couple counselling, you are not in court, where someone can judge you and sentence the guilty part for whatever crisis the couple is going through.

Couple counselling works on the basis that it is the couple that has a problem: it is possible to face it, only if each part is willing to explore their personal responsibility and fragility.

My goal is to help the couple members identify the dynamics and the type of communication that is causing pain. Therefore, I make myself available to support a change that can help the partners find a new balance or, if this is not possible, to find a respectful and gracious manner of parting ways.

How does couple counselling work?

First of all, we can organise a short 30-minute Zoom or Skype introductory interview. This meeting is free of charge and is not binding for the purposes of couple counselling. Its goal is to get to know each other and respond to any of your doubts.

If you decide to work with me after this introductory interview, we will go on to an initial assessment session. This first session takes place with both members of the couple and lasts about 2 hours (110 minutes). In this meeting, you will both have the opportunity to talk in detail about your problems. Together we will then identify your goal with respect to your counselling journey and how to achieve it (including the number of sessions).

This first session will also be particularly important to assess each individual's level of motivation. In fact, I consider your participation and determination to be key elements in the success of our work together.

After the first session, subsequent meetings will typically take place every two weeks. Each meeting will last 90 minutes and both individuals should be present.

In general, my couple counselling is structured over 6 -12 sessions.
The exact number of sessions will however be agreed after the first session.