Couples Counselling
Hunter Valley & Online
Understand the patterns between you and find your way back to each other.
Most couples don't come in at the first sign of trouble. They come in after months or years of the same fights, the same misunderstandings, and the same feeling of being on opposite sides. They no longer recognise the relationship they once had. Maybe everything looks fine on the surface - but underneath, you're disconnected and can't quite reach each other.
It's more than just communication. Like most couples, you probably communicate quite well in other areas of life. What's happening between you runs deeper than that; and as you begin to understand it, something starts to shift.
Why couples get stuck
Most couples think the problem is the thing they're fighting about - money, parenting, intimacy, housework, in-laws. But those are usually the surface.
Underneath, there's a cycle running and you miss each other end both end up feeling alone when you're right there together.
That cycle didn't start in your relationship. It started much earlier - in the families you grew up in, the attachment patterns you formed as children, past relationships and the beliefs you built about whether it was safe to need someone or show them what you actually feel.
You're not fighting about the dishes. You're fighting about whether you matter to each other. You've just lost the ability to say that in a way the other person can hear.
The longer the cycle runs, the more it sets in. You stop reaching for each other and start managing the relationship instead of being in it. Or you blow up, then shut down, then pretend it's fine until the next time.
None of that means your relationship is irreparable. It means the pattern has taken over, and neither of you knows how to interrupt it on your own. Yet.
How I work
I don't just teach you surface-level communication skills. I work underneath the conflict - with the emotions, attachment patterns, and core beliefs that are driving the ongoing cycle between you.
Using elements of Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottman Method, I help you:
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See the negative cycle clearly - not as something one person is doing to the other, but as something you're both caught in
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Understand what's getting triggered for each of you and where it comes from
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Access the softer, more vulnerable emotions underneath the anger, withdrawal, or numbness
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Begin turning toward each other with those emotions - instead of against each other or away
I also work with each of you individually within the process. Your patterns didn't form together - they formed long before you met. Understanding your own attachment history and core beliefs is part of changing how you show up in the relationship.
This work isn't always comfortable, but it gets to the depth required to create lasting change. As the patterns become clearer, you'll find new ways of responding, communicating, and reconnecting naturally beginning to open up. The relationship starts to feel safer, steadier - more like yours again.
Where helpful, Eye Movement Integration Therapy (EMIT) may also be used with one or both partners to support emotional triggers or past experiences impacting the relationship.
Getting started
Everything begins with a Couples Intake Session.
90 minutes - $200. This is where I meet you both, hear what's been happening, and understand what you're actually dealing with. From there, I'll recommend the path that fits where you are.
Location
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In-person: Aberglasslyn, NSW (Hunter Valley)
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Online: Available Australia-wide
Appointments available Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (evening), Thursday, Friday, and some weekends.
Ongoing sessions
After the intake session there are a few ways to continue:
Rebuilding Connection Process
8 sessions - $1,450 paid upfront (save $220)
Sessions booked weekly or fortnightly, to be completed within 16 weeks.
This is the full process for couples who are ready to do the deeper work - not just manage conflict, but understand what's driving it and change the dynamic between you.
What's included:
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Gottman Assessment (completed before your first session)
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2 individual sessions with schema assessment (90 mins each)
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6 couples sessions (90 mins each)
Phase 1 - Understanding Your Cycle (Sessions 1-4)
We start with an individual session each. I learn your history, your attachment patterns, and what gets activated for you in conflict. Then we come together and map the negative cycle - the loop you're both caught in - using what I now understand about each of you.
Phase 2 - Changing the Conversation (Sessions 5-6)
We slow down the reactive patterns and access what's actually underneath - the fear, the hurt, the unmet needs you haven't been able to say. This is where the conversations between you start to shift.
Phase 3 - Strengthening the Bond (Sessions 7-8)
We work through remaining stuck points using your new way of relating. You'll leave with a shared understanding of your cycle, the ability to interrupt it, and a foundation to keep building on.
3-Hour Couples Intensive
$480 - One session, one issue.
For couples who want real progress on a specific stuck point - without committing to a full process yet. We go deep on the one thing that's causing the most pain or conflict right now.
Some couples do the Intensive first and then move into the Rebuilding Connection Process. Others find they get what they need in the three hours. Either way, you'll leave with clarity on what's actually happening between you and a concrete shift in how you're approaching it.
This can also be used prior to the Rebuilding Connection Process as a lead-in.
Single Couples Sessions
If a package or intensive isn't the right fit right now, you can book couples sessions individually after your intake.
$200 per session - 90 minutes
When couples therapy may not be the right fit
Couples therapy isn't always the right starting point. There are situations where individual work needs to come first, or where couples therapy isn't appropriate at all.
That includes:
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Active domestic violence or coercive control - couples therapy can make this worse, not better. If one person isn't safe to speak honestly in the room, the process can't work.
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Active addiction that isn't being addressed - if alcohol, drugs, or another addiction is an issue, this must be addressed also with individual support for that partner.
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One or both of you have already decided to leave - if the decision is made, that's a different conversation. I can help to support separation work, but the Rebuilding Connection Process is not designed for this.
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One person is attending under pressure - this work requires both people to be willing. You don't need to be enthusiastic about it, but willing to look at oneself and what might need to change. If one of you is only here because you were given an ultimatum, we'll talk about that in the intake and decide together whether to continue.