Couples Therapy

Understanding what happens between you

Relationships can be places of profound connection, intimacy and belonging. They can also be where some of our deepest vulnerabilities become activated.

You may love one another deeply and still find yourselves caught in painful patterns that neither of you seems able to change.

Perhaps you have the same arguments repeatedly. Perhaps one of you pursues while the other withdraws. Perhaps you have become distant, resentful or disconnected. Perhaps trust has been damaged, or your sexual relationship has changed in ways that neither of you quite understands.

Couples therapy offers a space to slow these patterns down and begin to understand what is happening between you.

My approach is relational, psychodynamic and trauma-informed, with a particular emphasis on embodiment, sexuality, desire and intimacy.

I am interested not only in what each of you thinks and feels, but in what happens in your bodies, in the space between you, and in the relationship that you are creating together.

The relationship is more than two individuals

When couples become distressed, it can be tempting to ask:

Who is the problem?

Who is too demanding?
Who is too withdrawn?
Who is unreasonable?
Who is not listening?
Who has stopped trying?

I work differently.

Rather than beginning with the assumption that one person is the problem, we can become curious about the pattern that has developed between you.

A cycle can become established in which one person's attempt to move closer leads the other to pull away. That withdrawal can then intensify the first person's pursuit, which makes further withdrawal more likely.

Both people may end up feeling unseen, misunderstood and alone, while simultaneously feeling that they are trying desperately to reach one another.

Over time, the pattern itself can become the enemy.

Couples therapy can create enough space to see that pattern together, understand what maintains it, and begin to find different ways of responding.

There is no single definition of a "normal" relationship.

Every couple brings its own histories, attachment experiences, identities, values, expectations and ways of making meaning. My role is not to impose a template for how your relationship should look, but to help you understand what is happening and consider what you want to create together.

The body in the relationship

Intimacy is embodied.

We don't experience our partners only through words and thoughts. We experience them through sensation, breathing, tension, movement, proximity, attraction, anticipation, pleasure and the impulse to move towards or away.

Our bodies can sometimes register an experience before we have found language for it.

You might notice yourself becoming tense when your partner approaches a particular subject.

You might find yourself shutting down before you consciously know that you are overwhelmed.

You might feel your body soften when you experience genuine attention.

You might notice desire disappearing when intimacy begins to feel pressured.

These bodily experiences are not simply background information. They can offer another way of understanding what is happening in the relationship.

In our work, I may therefore invite attention to what is happening in the body as well as what is happening in the conversation.

Not to diagnose every sensation or turn therapy into an exercise in interpretation, but to develop greater awareness of the embodied experience of being in relationship.

Sex, desire and intimacy

Sex can be one of the most difficult areas for couples to talk about.

It can carry enormous amounts of meaning.

Sex may represent love, reassurance, desirability, acceptance, freedom, connection or vulnerability. Equally, it can become associated with pressure, rejection, obligation, shame, fear or conflict.

Sometimes couples arrive saying that they have a "sex problem", but what emerges is a much larger story about how they have learned to relate to one another.

At other times, sexual difficulties are genuinely central to the relationship and deserve to be explored directly.

I offer a space where sex and sexuality can be spoken about openly and without judgement.

We might explore:

differences in sexual desire
loss of desire within a long-term relationship
mismatched levels of arousal
periods of little or no sex
sex becoming pressured or obligatory
difficulties initiating or responding to intimacy
shame or anxiety around sexuality
body image and feeling desirable
the impact of trauma on intimacy
changes in sexuality across the life of a relationship
fantasies and erotic preferences
rebuilding sexual connection after betrayal
questions around monogamy and relationship agreements
pleasure, sensuality and erotic connection

Desire is not a duty

One of the questions I find particularly important in couples work is what happens when desire becomes something we feel we ought to have.

For some people, desire is spontaneous.

For others, it develops through closeness, attention, anticipation, touch, sensuality, imagination or the experience of having enough psychological space to become curious.

Desire can also change.

It can fluctuate across the life of a relationship. It can be affected by stress, parenting, illness, medication, ageing, body image, resentment, trauma and major changes in identity or circumstance.

And sometimes loving someone and desiring them do not move in perfect synchrony.

This does not necessarily mean that something is fundamentally wrong.

Rather than assuming that there is a correct amount of sex or a universal model of sexual functioning, I am interested in helping couples understand how desire works for these two particular people.

From performance to pleasure

Sex can become another arena in which people feel they are failing.

Am I attractive enough?

Why don't I want sex?

Why aren't they aroused?

Why can't I orgasm?

Why don't we have sex often enough?

Am I satisfying my partner?

The more attention becomes focused on performance, the harder it can become to remain present to the experience itself.

An embodied approach offers another possibility.

Instead of asking only "Did it work?", we can become curious about:

What feels pleasurable?

What helps you feel present?

What creates curiosity?

What allows your body to feel safe enough to open?

What interrupts arousal?

What happens when there is no particular outcome that has to be achieved?

The aim is not to turn intimacy into another therapeutic assignment.

It is to create space for sexuality to become less about performance and more about pleasure, presence, curiosity and choice.

Arousal is more complicated than an on/off switch

Arousal is embodied.

It involves the nervous system, attention, sensation, emotion, imagination and our experience of safety, freedom and connection.

We can know intellectually that we love our partner while finding that our bodies are not responding sexually.

We can desperately want to want sex and discover that wanting it cognitively does not make desire appear.

Equally, physiological arousal does not automatically mean that someone wants sexual contact.

This distinction between desire, arousal, willingness, pleasure and consent can be important in couples work.

Rather than treating arousal as a simple measure of attraction, we can become curious about the conditions in which each person's body becomes more or less available to intimacy.

When trust has been broken

An affair or betrayal can destabilise a relationship at its foundations.

There may be shock, anger, grief, fear, shame and profound uncertainty about what happens next.

I don't approach infidelity through a simplistic division between a wholly innocent victim and a wholly defined perpetrator.

Understanding the relational context does not remove responsibility for choices that caused harm. It can, however, allow us to explore what happened without reducing either person to a single role.

For some couples, therapy becomes a place to determine whether the relationship can continue.

For others, it becomes a place to understand what happened and what would need to change for the relationship to become viable again.

Where a couple chooses to remain together, we can explore accountability, honesty, trust, intimacy and the possibility of creating something different from what existed before.

Making room for the erotic self

Long-term relationships can accumulate many identities.

Partners become parents, housemates, carers, financial partners, organisers and companions.

Sometimes the erotic self becomes harder to locate underneath everything else.

Eroticism can require something different from ordinary relational security.

It may involve curiosity, autonomy, novelty, imagination, playfulness, difference and the experience of encountering your partner as a separate person rather than simply as someone with whom you share a life.

This can create an interesting tension.

We need enough security to feel safe enough to be vulnerable, but enough separateness to experience one another as distinct and alive.

Couples therapy can offer a space to explore that tension without assuming that there is something wrong with either person.

A space for difficult conversations

Couples often come to therapy because they can no longer have certain conversations without becoming overwhelmed.

Therapy provides a third space in which those conversations can happen differently.

We can slow things down.

Notice when the familiar cycle begins.

Make room for experiences that have previously been difficult to communicate.

Listen not only for the content of what is being said, but for the longing, fear, hurt or protective response underneath it.

Over time, couples may begin to move from:

"You never want me."

towards:

"I feel rejected and frightened when we don't have physical intimacy."

Or from:

"You're always putting pressure on me."

towards:

"When I sense an expectation that I should want sex, my body closes down."

That change matters.

It creates the possibility of being understood rather than simply defended against.

What are you creating together?

Couples therapy isn't about teaching two people how never to disagree.

Difference is inevitable.

The question is whether differences can be expressed and negotiated without either person having to disappear.

Sometimes the work is about repairing a relationship.

Sometimes it is about rediscovering one another.

Sometimes it is about changing the relationship into something neither person had previously imagined.

And sometimes therapy helps two people arrive at a clearer and more compassionate understanding of what they need, including when the relationship cannot continue in its present form.

My aim is to help create a space where both people can remain fully present, while becoming more curious about the relationship between them.

Together, we can explore the patterns that have developed, the histories and vulnerabilities each person brings, what happens in the body, what happens to desire, and what kind of intimacy you want to create.

Couples therapy in Wimbledon and online

I work with couples in Wimbledon and online.

If you are experiencing difficulties with your relationship, intimacy, sex or desire, you are welcome to get in touch to discuss whether couples therapy might be helpful.uples Therapy