Coupleworks Blogs
My Experience Working with Clients
I often read about what it’s like from the client’s experience working with a therapist. I thought it might be interesting to know what it’s like seeing clients from a therapist’s prospective. Since I started seeing clients back when I was training at TCCR some 25...
Cultivating Understanding in Our Relationships
I was listening to an interview with the Composer, Phillip Glass, last night and was struck by an answer he gave regarding his own father. After Glass told him that he was marrying a woman outside his faith, his father responded by telling his son that he would no...
Easter – a rebirth and resurrection of the couple relationship
Regardless of what your religious beliefs are, Easter can be seen as analogy for our relationships. Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar. Easter Sunday is the day that Jesus was said to come back to life after being crucified. At Easter,...
Mothers’ Day.
For the card designers and printers, the flower sellers and restaurants, this is another bonanza day for selling. From a mother’s point of view, who should she be, both to herself and to her children. She has already been the child of a mother and therefore has...
Couple counselling – the dilemma of that dress
So what did you see in the viral phenomenon of that dress? For you was it blue and black or white and gold? Well I still don’t begin to understand why it was different for some people from others. I’ll leave the neuroscientists to puzzle that one out. And what is even...
Sex in a long relationship
Sex in a long relationship very often needs a conscious re-awakening. Starting at the beginning when things have become lacklustre and routine can mean concentrating on four A’s. They may not be the words you would expect in a description of foreplay but keep them in...
Separation – helpful hints for ending a relationship
Separation. Helpful hints for ending a relationship because ..... Breaking Up Is Hard To Do Remember when you held me tight, And you kissed me all through the night. Think of all that we been through, And breakin' up is hard to do. sang Neil Sedaka in the...
Valentine’s Day is nearly here!
No sooner have shops packed away the Christmas cards than we are besieged by rows of red heart shaped cards, pink champagne and heart shaped chocolates - all demanding our attention, waiting to be sent, perhaps anonymously, to a partner, a longed-for lover or a secret...
Couples and immigrants – looking at the similarities.
How often do couples choose each other, in part, for their differences? In our therapy rooms we notice this choice is often a slice of the whole seduction. Couples who work through these differences on their own or by choosing couple counselling find their bond and...
Benefits for Couples who Exercise Together
More and more people are making time to exercise on a regular basis and spend hours committing themselves to going to yoga, spinning, Pilates, the gym or a run in the park. It makes us fitter, healthier and look better. We do it for ourselves and for our partners....
Can your relationship survive a new baby?
Recently I have been talking to a number of parents of young babies asking them for some ‘top tips’ about what has helped in their relationships under the pressures that a new baby brings. These are their ten top tips and I would be interested for others to add their...
Keeping Close
Couples, when first in a romantic bubble, have no trouble protecting themselves. It's instinctive. But as time goes on and life gets busier with work and children - that's when priorities can change. Every relationship needs some effort to stay healthy and close....
Taking the next step..preparing to move in together
In her novel, ‘You Should Have Known’, Jean Hanff Korelitz explores the idea that we deny problems in a relationship in order to maintain the belief of a great partnership. We ignore niggling anxieties because we feel so in love. Not allowing the doubts to surface we...
A New Year – A New Relationship
Many of us start the New Year with various resolutions ranging from the need to eat healthier, stop drinking, commit to more exercise etc. Let’s spare a thought to starting 2015 by thinking about making resolutions in our relationships that will help make them more...
Happiness
It is interesting to look up the word happiness in Google. It appears in countries which in our privileged part of the world we might assume it doesn’t exist. Happiness could be felt momentarily by a child on a rubbish heap finding some piece of cast out scrap which...
How the Festival of Chanukah can bring light and hope to relationships
Jewish families around the world are preparing for the festival of Chanukah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication. It is very happy and enjoyable time for families, an eight day holiday commemorating the dedication of the Holy Temple in...
Are Couples using Social Media to avoid Intimacy?
A young couple in their early 30’s sits in front of me trying to understand why they’ve been struggling with intimacy. He describes coming home from work and how his girlfriend spends their evening with the phone, IPad and computer surrounding her, not speaking....
What’s irritating about your partner?
In the Times newspaper last Friday there was a report of a recent survey on the top ten irritations that people named in relation to their partners. These were: • Leaving clothes on the floor • Leaving wet towels around the house • Bad bathroom habits • Always using...
Making Sense of Love
In her Ted Talk ‘Why we love’ (September 2006) Helen Fisher describes the Darwinian purpose of love. Love ensures the survival of the species! It ‘pulls two people together strongly enough to begin to rear babies as a team’. She suggests the ‘pull’ of love combines...
Online Relationships Vs The Couple
Losing closeness The act of connecting on social media of all kinds is really quite narcissistic. It's about 'ME' - my popularity, my selfies, my adeptness at games, my rating on twitter. In a close couple we have to learn to give, to listen and sometimes allow...