Relationship Counselling
Proven methods to help you reconnect, manage conflict and improve communication.
Attending relationship counselling alone or with your partner
Individual Counselling
Learn to communicate effectively, build skills in managing conflict and techniques to enhance your relationships. A safe space for you to improve your relationship skills.
With Your Partner
Learn to manage conflict in relationships, build emotional intimacy and connection. A supportive space to understand and resolve the factors contributing to or maintaining your current situation.
How relationship counselling can help
Communication skills to strengthen your relationship
Repair and enhance your relationships
Learn to manage conflict in relationships
Stop getting triggered in relationships
Build emotional intimacy and connection
Overcome sexual difficulties
Why Relationship Counselling?
- Do you find yourselves have the same fights over and over, but never resolving anything?
- Are there old wounds that keep resurfacing?
- Do you or your partner feel criticized?
- Or get defensive?
- Do you or your partner stonewall or shut down during conflict?
- Are you stuck in the same dysfunctional patterns?
- Do you tend to avoid or create conflict?
- Do you struggle to hear or be heard by one another?
- Has your desire for one another waned?
- Are you drifting apart?
Maintaining a strong and healthy relationship doesn’t happen by chance. It happens by choice. Successful couples put more into the emotional piggy bank than they withdraw. They build one another up and tune in to each other’s needs. They grow together, challenge one another, are each other’s champions, yet maintain healthy independence (rather than co-dependence).
How partners and couples manage and process conflict is one of the key factors that determine the success of a relationship. Do you build one another up, or tear one another down? Do you provoke and chase, or shut down and avoid?
Many couples argue about perpetual issues, that is, issues that are about fundamental differences in personality or needs. For a relationship to succeed, you need to find a way to use differences as an opportunity to deepen your understanding of one another.
I help you
- Learn to communicate more effectively
- Manage conflict and use differences as opportunities to deepen your understanding of one another
- Build fondness and admiration
- Create shared meaning
- Connect (or reconnect) on a deeper level
- Resolve past hurts
- Learn the art of compromise
- Build emotional intimacy and connection
Getting Started is Easy
Free 20 Min Chat
This short consultation gives you the opportunity to ask any questions and ensure we're the right fit for working together.
Book Appointment
Improve communication, strengthen relationships, enhance your sex life, make better choices, live the life you want.
Workshops
On demand workshop series for women. Liberate Yourself: Roles, Bodies, Expectations. Understanding Desire. Rethinking Pleasure.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I expect from relationship counselling?
I work using the Gottman Method for relationship therapy, which is evidence-based (i.e. scientifically tested). This method involves an assessment phase prior to treatment, with treatment based on proven methods to help improve your relationships.
Assessment
The assessment phase involves an initial interview to understand what brings you to therapy, how you view the relationship and your goals for therapy. I also use this session to observe how you interact with one another.
You will each be invited to complete an online questionnaire about various aspects of your relationship. This online assessment helps us quickly and easily target your relationship strengths and opportunities.
I will then meet with each of you separately to gain a fuller picture of your family and relationship histories, and an insight into your hopes, expectations and commitment to the relationship. Occasionally at this point, I may recommend individual therapy before (or concurrently with) commencing relationship counselling.
We then come back together to discuss the results of the assessment and make a plan for therapy.
Treatment
Therapy sessions involve learning skills to help you interact more effectively in your relationships. I coach you through challenging conversations and teach you how to manage conflict.
You will leave with the tools to build healthier and stronger relationships, based on commitment and trust.
Maintenance and Follow Up
My goal is not to keep you in therapy, but to support you to get the help you need. We all know life gets in the way and we can slip back into old routines and habits, so my door is always open for couples to check in and revisit what they have learned, or to work on specific issues as they arise.
Do I need a referral?
You do not need a referral, however, if referred by another practitioner or health provider, please bring your referral with you to your appointment.
Is your practice LGBTIQA friendly?
Yes, I work with a diverse range of people, in many styles of relationship, and with diverse sexual interests.
Is relationship counselling only for couples?
The tools and techniques I use are useful for ALL relationships. Whether you want to resolve an old hurt, mediate a difficult partnership or friendship, relationship counselling can help you learn to communicate more effectively and to manage conflict in a way that deepens understanding.
I coach people through difficult conversations so that each person leaves feeling heard and understood, and so that each person understands and hears the other.
How many sessions will I need and how often should I attend?
This will depend upon your situation. My goal is not to keep you in therapy but to ensure you get the help you need to reach your goals, and that will vary according to your individual circumstances.
People typically attend sessions weekly. Depending upon your needs, you may reduce the frequency of appointments as you progress.
Where appropriate, I also offer more intensive therapy sessions (sometimes referred to as 'marathon therapy') where we conduct longer sessions in a short period of time, for example over a weekend. This mode of therapy often suits couples working on relationship and communication goals. If you are interested in working more intensively, let me know and we will evaluate whether marathon therapy is suitable to meet your needs.
Are your services covered by Medicare?
Medicare does not presently cover hypnotherapy, couples counselling or sex therapy services.
Some Private Health Funds offer rebates for hypnotherapy, however, so if we use hypnosis in our sessions, you may be able to obtain a rebate for this service. Please check with your health insurer or ask for details.
I also offer discount rates for concession-card holders, pensioners, and those experiencing financial hardship.
What are your qualifications?
Rest assured, I am a fully qualified clinical hypnotherapist and sex and relationships counsellor.
I studied Sexology at Curtin University and hold a Master of Science in Medicine specialising in Sexual Health Counselling from the University of Sydney, and I have completed Levels 1 and 2 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy.
I trained at the Academy of Hypnotic Science, studied process-oriented hypnosis and treating depression under Michael D. Yapko, PhD, and hold a Certificate of Applied Psychotherapy (Human Givens) with Human Givens Australia.
I am an accredited Clinical Member of the Australian Hypnotherapists Association (AHA), a Professional Clinical Member of the Australian Association of Clinical Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists (AACHP), and an Accredited Clinical Psychosexual Therapist member of the Society of Australian Sexologists Ltd. (SAS).
I am also a registered Clinical Supervisor with the AACHP and use the RISE UP Model of Professional Supervision.
I abide by the codes of ethics and practice as set out by my professional organisations, maintain professional indemnity insurance and undergo regular professional supervision and professional development.
Do you offer telehealth / sessions over Skype or Zoom?
Yes, I offer sessions online and in person.
If you are attending online (for example, via Zoom), you will need an internet connection and a webcam with a microphone enabled. Make sure you are somewhere you won't be disturbed for the duration, and where you can sit comfortably facing the webcam.
Contact Me
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