Couple psychotherapy / counselling & Group psychotherapy

Relational, trauma-informed support for couple relationships, group process, attachment difficulties, conflict, and patterns of connection, distance, and belonging.

Difficulties in relationships often affect far more than one part of life. They can shape how safe you feel with others, how easily you can speak openly, how conflict unfolds, and how much closeness, trust, or belonging your system can tolerate.

Sometimes the difficulty is most visible in a couple relationship. At other times, it appears more broadly in how you relate to other people — in groups, families, friendships, work, or social settings. In both couple psychotherapy / counselling and group psychotherapy, the work is not only about what you think or say, but also about what happens in relationship, in the body, and in the nervous system.

My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and attentive to attachment, emotional regulation, and the patterns people can become caught in when safety, connection, or repair feel difficult.

Read more about my overall approach: About me ›
Read more about trauma, attachment, and nervous system difficulties: Specialisms ›

Couple psychotherapy / counselling

Couple psychotherapy / counselling can help when a relationship feels stuck, strained, distant, fragile, or caught in painful repetition.

Many couples come for support not because they do not care about each other, but because they have reached a point where the same tensions keep returning. You may find yourselves having the same argument in different forms, struggling to feel heard, withdrawing from each other, or becoming trapped in cycles of criticism, defensiveness, shutdown, or pursuit.

Even when both people want things to improve, it can be hard to change a pattern once it has become established.

When couple psychotherapy / counselling may be helpful

You may recognise some of the following:

• recurring conflict that does not seem to resolve

• feeling misunderstood, criticised, blamed, or emotionally alone

• difficulty speaking openly without arguments escalating

• cycles of pursuit and withdrawal

• loss of closeness, intimacy, or trust

• differences in emotional needs, communication, or ways of coping

• repeated ruptures without enough repair

• one or both partners feeling shut down, overwhelmed, or guarded

• old hurts continuing to shape the present relationship

• a sense that something important between you has become difficult to reach

Sometimes the issue is not constant conflict but distance, tension, or a growing sense of disconnection. Sometimes one or both partners feel they are walking on eggshells. Sometimes the relationship still matters deeply, but the current way of relating has become painful or exhausting.

What couple psychotherapy / counselling focuses on

In couple psychotherapy / counselling, the focus is not simply on deciding who is right. It is on understanding the pattern the two of you get pulled into together.

For example, one partner may push for closeness while the other withdraws. One may become critical while the other becomes defensive or silent. One may pursue reassurance while the other feels pressured and backs away. Over time, both people can feel hurt, unseen, or blamed, even if neither intends to create that outcome.

Therapy can help slow these cycles down enough to understand:

• what each of you experiences during moments of tension

• what triggers defensiveness, shutdown, anger, or withdrawal

• what deeper fears, longings, or vulnerabilities may sit underneath the visible conflict

• how earlier experiences or attachment patterns may be influencing the present

• how to create more room for honesty, listening, boundaries, and repair

The aim is not perfect communication or endless analysis. It is to help the relationship become more understandable, more workable, and, where possible, more emotionally safe.

A relational and trauma-informed approach to couples work

Relationship difficulties are not always just about habits or skills. They may also involve trauma history, nervous system activation, old experiences of criticism, unpredictability, emotional absence, or fear, and long-standing expectations about closeness and disappointment.

When conflict escalates quickly, or when one or both partners go into anxiety, anger, collapse, numbness, or disconnection, it may be that the nervous system is doing far more than either person realises.

This is one reason why insight alone is not always enough.

My work with couples is informed by relational psychotherapy, trauma-informed practice, and attention to how emotional experience is held in the body and nervous system. Where clinically relevant, this may include drawing on ways of thinking from Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) and other body-aware approaches — not as techniques imposed on the relationship, but in service of helping each person remain more present, more grounded, and more able to engage.

Read more about Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) in Reflections ›
Read more body and nervous system regulation at ILF neurofeedback ›

What couple psychotherapy / counselling can support

Therapy may support you to:

• identify the cycle you are caught in together

• understand each other more clearly beneath the surface argument

• reduce blame and increase mutual understanding

• communicate with greater clarity and steadiness

• recognise moments of escalation earlier

• create more space for vulnerability without overwhelm

• strengthen the possibility of repair, trust, and emotional connection

• make more thoughtful decisions about the relationship

For some couples, the work supports reconnection. For others, it helps bring clarity, honesty, and a more grounded understanding of what is happening between them.

Group psychotherapy

Group psychotherapy offers a different but equally valuable therapeutic space. Alongside your own reflections and feelings, the group becomes a place where patterns of belonging, self-protection, trust, difference, and connection can be explored as they happen in real time.

Many difficulties that feel intensely personal are also deeply relational. You may want closeness but hold back. You may feel unsure where you fit, highly sensitive to how others respond, reluctant to take up space, or afraid of being judged, overlooked, or exposed. In group psychotherapy, these experiences can become more visible and more workable within a thoughtful therapeutic setting.

For some people, group work complements individual therapy. For others, it becomes a particularly powerful place for understanding how they relate to other people.

When group psychotherapy may be helpful

Group psychotherapy may be helpful if you struggle with:

• feeling alone even when around other people

• difficulties with relationships, trust, or belonging

• fear of rejection, exclusion, or being misunderstood

• social anxiety, self-consciousness, or shame

• finding it hard to speak openly or show vulnerability

• patterns of people-pleasing, self-silencing, withdrawal, or over-adapting

• uncertainty about your place with others

• wanting connection but also feeling cautious, guarded, or overwhelmed by it

• recurring interpersonal patterns that seem to repeat across different settings

You do not need to be confident in groups to benefit from group psychotherapy. In fact, people often come because being with others feels difficult, exposing, or confusing.

Why group psychotherapy can be powerful

In individual therapy, relational patterns can be reflected on and understood. In a group, some of those same patterns may become visible in the moment.

You may begin to notice:

• whether you move towards others or pull away

• how easily you trust, compare yourself, or doubt your place

• whether you tend to accommodate, disappear, hold back, or brace

• what happens when you feel seen, missed, supported, frustrated, or different

• how you respond to closeness, tension, misunderstanding, or repair

This can make group psychotherapy a rich place for working with attachment, relational trauma, and long-standing interpersonal expectations.

A relational and trauma-informed approach to group work

My approach to group psychotherapy is grounded in relational psychotherapy and informed by an understanding of trauma, attachment, and nervous system regulation.

That means the emphasis is not on pushing people to disclose more than feels manageable, nor on encouraging performance or exposure for its own sake. The work is paced, respectful, and attentive to safety. We make room for what happens between people, while recognising that each person will have their own way of entering the group and finding a place within it.

For some people, being in a group initially stirs anxiety, uncertainty, or self-consciousness. That does not necessarily mean the group is wrong for them. Often, it means something important is becoming visible and can be worked with carefully.

What group psychotherapy can offer

A therapy group can offer the possibility of:

• feeling less alone in what you experience

• understanding yourself more clearly in relationship with others

• experimenting with more honest and grounded ways of relating

• noticing old patterns without being defined by them

• developing greater tolerance for closeness, difference, and emotional presence

• receiving and offering thoughtful feedback in a therapeutic setting

• discovering that connection can become more manageable, real, and sustaining

Is group psychotherapy right for everyone?

Not always. Sometimes individual psychotherapy is the better starting point, especially if someone is feeling highly overwhelmed, unsafe, or under too much pressure in daily life. In other situations, group psychotherapy can be an important next step, or a valuable part of longer-term therapeutic work.

If you are unsure whether group work might suit you, we can think about that together.

Read more about relational patterns: Examples of relational patterns › (external link)
Read more about my background and approach: About me ›

Choosing between couple psychotherapy / counselling and group psychotherapy

Although couple psychotherapy / counselling and group psychotherapy are different, they share something important: both can help bring relational patterns into clearer view.

In couples work, the focus is the relationship between you and your partner. In group psychotherapy, the focus includes how you experience yourself with several others in a shared therapeutic space.

Both can help with:

• relationship patterns that feel repetitive or confusing

• difficulties with trust, closeness, or communication

• fear of conflict, rejection, disappointment, or exposure

• patterns of withdrawal, accommodation, shutdown, or defensiveness

• deeper work around attachment, trauma, and nervous system regulation

If you are unsure which form of therapy may fit best, that can be part of the initial conversation.