Coupleworks Blogs
Is Fleabagging your drug of choice?
Huge respect to Phoebe Waller-Bridge for her amazingly creative and groundbreaking tv series, but the term ‘Fleabag’ actually originated in 1839 and was a noun used to describe an inferior bug infested rooming house - a place that should be inviting but proves to...
Do as you would be done by.
The above quote by Mary Wakefield in Water Babies sometimes comes into my mind when I set a task for a couple who are having difficult communication problems. The task involves them talking about what their idea of a ‘couple’ is and what they feel they need from each...
What to do when your Therapist gets in wrong
Most therapeutic relationships start with what psychotherapists call the ‘positive transference’ between client and therapist. This is where the client projects their positive feelings on to the therapist based on their experience of a “good object’ from previous...
How do we cope with difference in our relationship?
Difference is a factor common to every relationship. Whether it is foods or sex or hobbies or other interests each partner will have their own preferences and these are things that can bring life and energy to the relationship as well as being things that need to...
Can a relationship survive the discovery of an affair?
‘The revelation of an affair is eviscerating. If you really want to gut a relationship, to tear out the very heart of it, infidelity is a sure bet. It is betrayal on so many levels: deceit, abandonment, rejection, humiliation - all the things love promised to protect...
How can we make sure that 2020 is a better year for our couple relationship?
Already into the third week of the New Year, how many of us are still going strong with our new year's resolutions to do dry January or Veganuary, to do more exercise and eat less sugar? How many of us have found the novelty has worn off all too easily and returned...
Is stonewalling spoiling your relationship?
A New Year and better ways to resolve 2020 conflicts Back in the day, this was only known as ‘shutting down’ Actually the term has been around since the 1800s and is linked to the American Civil War when the Confederate troops were encouraged to...
The Return Journey by Steve Bull
Many emotive and inspiring books have been written about bereavement. This book, The Return Journey by Steve Bull describes in a generous way his attachment to his late wife Kathryn in the past, present and his future life without her. The switching...
Mothers and Daughters
Following on from my previous blog about The Book of Gutsy Women co written by Hilary and Chelsea Clinton, I recently attended a packed Royal Festival Hall watching Mary Beard in conversation with Hilary and Chelsea Clinton about their book. They were also...
Fair Fighting in Relationships
Watching Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn last week, wearing my ‘therapist’s hat’ it was very clear psychologically what was going on. In relational terms (or rather ‘non-relational’ as neither of them wanted to develop a genuine rapport with the other) it was a...
Imposter Syndrome
This was a short talk I presented at The Wing, an all women’s private members club in London, on 6 November before a panel discussion with high achieving women in the music industry. The topic was Imposter Syndrome. I am a couples and individual therapist and...
Couple Conversation and Healthy Communication
A review of ‘Eight Dates - Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love’ (John & Julie Gottman) Falling in love can bring an intoxicating feeling that we are seen as we are, and that we are accepted as we are, and that we are perceived to be special. We...
Menopause and the Couple
World Menopause Day - remember it? Sadly that’s unlikely as it drifted under the radar for most of us. What should have been a great chance to really flag up a pivotal part of every woman’s lifecycle just melted away. October 18th since you ask Of all the reasons that...
Choice.
When couples or individuals come to my Practice I sometimes get a sense that they feel life is controlling them and they have no alternative but to continue on in the same, possibly negative and damaging way. It feels as if there is no way out. Becoming stuck in a...
Having Difficult Conversations Needs to Happen before Real Change can Happen
I watched an interview with Melissa Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. Bill and Melissa work with partners around the world to help effect change globally and then scale solutions down to a local level. The foundation works to empower...
Listening with two ears
Epictetus, a Greek philosopher once said ‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak’. In practice of course, for many of us that is easier said than done and we need to train ourselves in the art of listening carefully to what...
The Autumn of a Long Relationship
In his poem ‘To Autumn’ Keats describes this time of year as the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…’ describing Autumn as having its own richness and ‘music’ that is different from, but as lovely as, ‘the songs of Spring’. At the beginning, a new relationship...
Is it Gutsy to stay in a marriage after Infidelity?
Hilary Clinton was speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America this week to promote a book she wrote with her daughter Chelsea The Book of Gutsy Women. When asked “what was the gutsiest thing Hilary had ever done” she replied “politically running for President and...
Autumnal Change and Uncertainty
Let’s start with the premise that change is usually unsettling. The human brain is generally not programmed to thrive on risk, so habits and learned ways of thinking can be a source of comfort in our daily lives. The wise American philosopher William James stated...
Memory
It is now six weeks since the moving and emotional D-Day landing anniversary which made people in Europe and the wider world stand still and marvel about the courage…
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