Are you in a relationship crisis? Are you suffering in silence? Do you feel unappreciated, unacknowledged, robbed of a voice? Are you in a war of words? Do you need help but are afraid, embarrassed or confused to look?

Most relationships suffer at some time or other from internal or external influences. Changes in circumstances can have a profound effect on a relationship. Physical health, financial troubles, love affairs/betrayals, bereavements, everyday stresses can greatly alter the behaviour and actions of every one of us. Thus, helping to contribute to the breakdown of a relationship.

As a Couple Relationship Therapist I work with people who find themselves at a complete loss of how to relate to each other. Sometimes they begin to feel that they are living ‘alone together,’ leading separate lives, having lost the connection that originally bound them together in exciting passionate, nurturing relationships. They now experience depression, anxiety, sadness, anger, grief, panic, shame, betrayal, sexual rejection, impotency, loss of desire, jealousy, loss/abandonment and rejection. A complex range of emotions depending on the issues involved but primarily based on fear. The fear of being rejected and abandoned and the deepest one of all the fear of not being loved understood or accepted. Many people who suffer in their relationships experience a deep sense of abandonment and loss, resulting in a lack of self-confidence and self-worth.

The aim of relationship therapy is to help facilitate a better mode of communication, understanding and respect between the couple or family members involved. As summarized by Tannen, ‘women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence.’ Relationship therapy enables each person to be heard and to hear themselves. To assist in examining the difficulties and problems within the relationship. Helping to detect, repetitive, negative/dysfunctional patterns that are creating problems. Often people in relationships operate from different value systems. It is important to remember that we are unique individuals, stemming from different cultures, religious groups and social structures. All of which has shaped our individuality and how we interact with each other.
 

My work involves listening to how people relate to their experiences of love and betrayal, intimacy, separation and attachment. I explore secure and insecure patterns of relating, working through such issues as the fear of abandonment and rejection, enabling individuals to find a secure base within themselves. One of self empowerment, moving away from living ‘alone together’ to experiencing ‘living together’ but independently.

"But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bound of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of yours souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not form one cup.
Give one another your bread but not eat from the same loaf.
And stand together, yet not too hear together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow."

Kahil Gibran on marriage.

“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your heights and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”

Kahil Gibran on love.

CBT and other Therapies can assist with the recovery of the above anxieties. Please contact me on 01732 453758/07882 369 663 or email enquiries@psychotherapysevenoaks.com for a free half hour introductory consultation.