Difficulties in relationships

What we look for first

Not who is to blame. In almost any entrenched conflict there is a cycle: one person makes a move, the other responds, the first reacts to the response — and both end up at a familiar point. Each of them behaves in a way that is understandable and explicable. What changes is not “who is right” but the cycle itself.

The classic example: the more insistently one asks for closeness, the more the other withdraws to escape the pressure — and the more acutely the first feels abandoned. Both are defending themselves, both are suffering, and neither is acting maliciously.

Individually or together

Family therapy is right when both are willing to take part. The work is with the system: we find the cycle, slow it down in the consulting room and learn to do things differently.

Individual therapy makes sense when a partner is not willing to come, the relationship has already ended, or the difficulties repeat again and again with different people. The last of these often means the issue is a stable pattern formed long ago — and here schema therapy is effective.

What we work on

• Communication. How to speak about dissatisfaction without moving into blame; how to listen without preparing a counter-argument.
• Boundaries. The ability to refuse and to set limits is a skill, not a character trait. Assertiveness can be trained.
• Expectations. Many conflicts rest on unspoken rules that each person considers obvious.
• Early schemas. If a relationship keeps producing “I will be abandoned”, “I am not good enough”, “my needs do not matter” — that is work with schemas, not with the current partner.
• Codependency. We distinguish care from dissolving into another; we restore your own interests and supports.
• Decisions. Sometimes therapy helps not to save a relationship but to reach a calm decision to separate and to go through it with fewer losses.

What we do not do

We do not take sides. We do not deliver a verdict on who needs to change. We do not work with a couple where there is violence: in that situation family therapy is unsafe, and the first step must be safety.

How long it takes

Work with a couple — often 10–25 sessions. Work with repeating individual patterns — longer, especially where schema therapy is involved.