Relationship and Parent & Child Counselling

Relationship counselling near Beaconsfield

Are you looking for a trusted relationship counsellor?I offer compassionate relationship counselling services for people of all ages. Call me today for more details.

INFORMATION FOR ALL COUPLE CLIENTS

Dear … and…..

Thank you for your enquiry about couple counselling. Please give yourselves a few minutes to read the information below before we meet for our first session and feel free to ask me for clarification, either before, or at, the meeting.

Guidelines and Terms of Engagement for Couple Counselling

The counselling session is a space for us to come together with the aim of enabling you to work towards meeting your objectives as a couple. In order to proceed with that, and make efficient use of time and energy I would like to suggest a basis for engaging with each other.

I call this initial basis for the work the ‘terms of engagement’ which may help to underpin our work together to ensure that we get to grips with meeting your objectives. I introduce these guidelines at the beginning of our journey on the basis of my experience and, at the same time, you are the experts on yourselves and on the relationship, so feel free to re-contract if anything doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ or work for you. The more you are able to negotiate these guidelines for yourselves the greater the likelihood of progress. The terms I propose are these:

✔ That, after an introduction and sharing of feelings about coming to couple counselling, we agree together on the objective(s) for the session and stay with that focus. If you want to change the objective(s) at any time we can discuss and amend if agreed by all three of us.

✔ That each of you speaks only about your own feelings rather than projecting them onto your partner. E.g “I feel sad that we never go out together” rather than “ B…… doesn’t want us to go out together”

✔ That you share the talking space more or less equally – each of you monitoring yourselves.

✔ That each of you listens respectfully until the other has finished.

✔ That you offer feedback to each other constructively and focus on delivering it as calmly as you can.

✔ That you support open communication by processing thoughts and feelings arising from the session and share these with each other, either before, or at the start of, the next session.

CAUTIONARY WARNING: I encourage you to refrain from talking about the session on your journey home and would suggest that, instead, you agree a time to talk during the week.

✔ For my part, I will maintain impartiality at the same time as facilitating reflection on the progress and process of the communication between you. This means I may press the ‘pause’ button to explore the dynamic in the room at any given moment. If something seems not be working I may encourage or model an alternative approach. I will sometimes act as umpire to make sure the terms are kept. I will sometimes make a comment from my perception of what is happening. I will summarise my perceptions towards the end of the session. I may set ‘Homework’ for you to work on individually and/or together between sessions. I will also offer to explore the gender dynamics with you to help facilitate secure and open communication.

✔ From time to time throughout the sessions I may leave the room, close the door (leaving you to engage in conflict, passionate embrace, silence, joyous laughter or whatever emerges) and come back in after a few minutes (after a loud knock on the door to give you time to readjust your……) and ask you how it felt to be alone with each other. You may find that this piece is the most informative/ transformative of the session!

✔ I look forward to meeting you ……………………..

Kind Regards

BARRIE HOPWOOD

How does relationship counselling help?

It can be very helpful for two or more people involved in a close relationship to seek counselling in order to work on the health of the relationship, finding ways to move forward.

Typically this would involve two partners in a relationship who are finding that they are struggling to communicate, avoiding intimacy or thinking about splitting up, to seek the help of a skilled facilitator in providing a managed, safe and neutral space. In this environment both parties are encouraged to express their own thoughts and feelings and hear those of their partner. In the sessions I would endeavour to provide an objective perspective on the relationship dynamics which emerge in the room and look at ways of changing unhealthy patterns.

I can help to establish a common ground

The parties can look at the ’space between’ them and establish common ground, an appreciation of each other’s needs, and practice new ways of expressing themselves and responding to each other. Unlike individual counselling I am likely to give ‘homework’ to be worked on between sessions, to ‘pause’ communication in the room to look at what is going on in the moment and to ask both parties to practice new ways of relating in the session. My one ‘Golden Rule’ is to ask the parties to refrain from discussing the session

immediately afterwards but rather to process it individually and agree a later time to look at it together

PARENT AND CHILD COUNSELLING

When couples request counselling for their children I usually direct them to my wife, Judy MacAuley, who is a BACP Accredited counsellor, specialising in Parent and Child Therapy. Her details are below and further information about her can be found on the next page of the website.