Relationship Building

Our relationships are so vital. Sometimes they offer great joy and other times (or even at the same time) they can offer challenges, stress or conflict. Counselling might be sought for relationships with family members, intimate partners, caregivers or parents seeking respite, support workers, co-workers, or community advocates.

My approach to working with people in relationship is strength-based. We ask collaboratively: What works – when does it work – when else do we need it to work? During sessions I encourage partners:

• To be compassionate

• To be attentive to the stories and the feelings that underlie them

• To notice patterns of connection, disconnection, or being ‘out of sync’

• To help one another to identify and share your needs and to support one another’s vulnerabilities

Working with a counsellor allows people to reshape patterns of interaction. Vulnerabilities that have been enflamed by repetition can be held caringly, to enable people to reconnect with the strengths that drew them into relationship.