Couples Counselling Services in Melbourne

There are thorns in even the most beautiful bed of roses. And these thorns serve a valuable purpose. They are protective; they remind us to “take care” as we go.

Our relationships also need us to take care, to stay aware of what we are doing, to attend to what hurts, to recognize what can cause harm. The thorny times provide an opportunity to learn what can help support healthy growth, and what can help to heal pain. We needn’t get stuck in the thorns, those often unspoken “dangerous” thoughts and feelings that fuel unresolved arguments and lead to withdrawal and disconnection.

I have specialist training and experience working with couples with a broad range of issues or concerns, including:

• Improving communication and connection
• Moving beyond feeling struck or frustrated
• Building shared understanding of family-of-origin challenges
• Healing wounded feelings or loss of trust
• Creating safe space to talk about sex, money and vulnerability
• Restoring a loss of intimacy or joy together
• Struggling to understand repeating patterns
• Balancing and clarifying priorities
• Pausing before making the choice to separate
• Navigating, with care, a relationship ending
• Repairing a path to reconciliation and growth

Fertility challenges

I also provide supportive counselling to couples experiencing fertility challenges, including riding the IVF roller-coaster.

A Diagnosis of Cancer in the Family

I offer experienced, knowledgeable support for individuals, couples and families during all phases of cancer treatment, recovery, and beyond. Click here for further information.

  Extended weekend appointments - Giving the extra time your relationship deserves

In addition to daytime and evening availability, I also offer extended weekend appointments for couples.  In turn, this provides partners the opportunity to offer to each other an unhurried, committed time together to work through a problem or worry with the support and safety of a skilled facilitator.

Couples often find these extended sessions provide the needed starting point for safer, less reactive conversations about challenging, vulnerable issues that have felt “too big” to safely contain or address in a briefer session - or on their own.   The extended time creates an opportunity to experience “surviving” a challenging conversation while remaining present and connected to one’s own, and each other’s, feelings and needs. For some couples, this experience has been transformative.