Couples Counselling in Bristol - Relationship Counsellor Bristol

I can help you and your partner find ways of overcoming problems that you may have been trying to fix for a long time.

In order to help you, we will work together on discovering the cause of the difficulties and how the dynamics between you may be repeating themselves.

Couples may come to me when they are at breaking point, and their relationship feels fractured. They may feel their love has diminished, or they cannot overcome a particular barrier to their relationship. It may be hard for a couple to decide if to break up or to keep trying, and my role is to support you in finding your way through this conflicting time.

I can give you strategies to communicate with your partner more effectively and to express your needs and your feelings in healthy ways. I do not work by simply trying to fix today’s current problems, but by looking into someone’s history for the original cause of their problems.

*Paul James Collison – Relate trained and BACP qualified*

Common Relationship Challenges We Explore:

Communication Breakdown: Identifying and addressing issues caused by ineffective communication.
Emotional Disconnect: Tackling feelings of detachment or lack of emotional connection.
Trust and Betrayal: Managing trust issues and recovering from past betrayals.
Intimacy Issues: Overcoming obstacles related to both physical and emotional intimacy.
Parenting Conflicts: Navigating and resolving conflicts related to differing parenting styles.
Persistent Arguments: Understanding and resolving recurring arguments or conflicts.

What kind of issues can counselling help with?

I can support couples who have experienced affairs, both emotional and physical. I can help couples who feel the romance is dead, or who have different physical needs within the relationship. Couples may find themselves in conflict without really knowing why the arguments escalate every time, and my role is to enable them to understand why this is happening and where the dynamic may originate from in their childhood.

I also look into the different ways people show love, and how important it is to have space from each other in a relationship. Couples with children can experience problems when they have opposing views on child-rearing and parenting can trigger significant anger and frustration towards each other.

Guiding you Through the Impact of an Affair

When a couple comes to counselling after discovering an affair, we take a thoughtful approach. First, we work through the immediate pain, shock, and trauma of learning about the infidelity. Once we’ve addressed these initial feelings, we can look into the details of what happened.

Affairs come in different forms. An emotional affair involves someone building a close emotional connection with another person, often through messages, without ever meeting in person. A physical affair involves physical intimacy, sometimes with little or no emotional connection, and the person might not even know the other’s name. Sometimes, an affair involves both emotional and physical aspects.

Finding out about an affair is incredibly painful and upsetting. We’ll work through these feelings together to help you move forward and start rebuilding trust.

The person affected by the affair often wants to understand why it happened. A response like, “I don’t know why it happened, but it won’t happen again,” can be frustrating and doesn’t help address the underlying issues.

I’m here to help you make sense of the situation by focusing on what was happening in your relationship before the affair and what communication issues might have contributed. We won’t focus on the details about the other person but rather on the relationship itself.

After we’ve worked through the pain and understood the situation, we can start working on improving and strengthening your relationship.

How to Manage Resentments and Build Effective Communication

When communication falters, it often leads to feelings of resentment. If we’re caught in resentment without discussing it, we tend to make assumptions about our partner’s intentions, which are usually inaccurate.

To begin, we tackle the accumulated resentments. This involves engaging in open communication in a therapeutic setting, where we listen to one another and, at times, write down our grievances and their impact. We then share these writings with each other during our sessions.

We also dedicate time to address the assumptions that arise when communication breaks down.

Understanding Emotional Dynamics: Ego States, Drama Triangle, and Winner’s Triangle

Parent, Adult, and Child Ego States: These core ego states shape how we communicate and respond to each other in relationships.
Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle: This model outlines the roles of the Rescuer, Persecutor, and Victim, helping us identify and address recurring negative patterns and emotional conflicts.
The Winner’s Triangle: A positive framework contrasting the Drama Triangle, featuring roles of Caring, Assertive, and Vulnerable. Our goal is to shift from the Drama Triangle’s roles to the more constructive roles of the Winner’s Triangle.

Mastering Effective Communication Techniques

Breakdowns in communication within relationships can be both frustrating and harmful. In our sessions, we focus on effective communication strategies, looking at how we approach each other and the quality of our listening.

Once we have addressed the primary issues, we will explore the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. These languages describe the various ways people give and receive love. When we’re not receiving love in a way that resonates with us, we can feel unnoticed, unappreciated, and unloved. By understanding each other’s love languages, couples can quickly begin to feel more loved and secure.

Issues I Have Experience Working With:

Navigating Affairs: Expert support for both emotional and physical infidelities, and strategies for rebuilding trust.
Revitalising Romance: Guidance for couples experiencing a decline in romantic connection.
Addressing Physical Needs: Solutions for differing physical needs and desires within the relationship.
Resolving Conflicts: Insight into the origins of persistent conflicts and actionable solutions.
Aligning Love Languages: Understanding and harmonising different expressions of love for a deeper connection.
Managing Parenting Disputes: Support for resolving disagreements on child-rearing and parenting challenges.

What outcomes can I expect from counselling?

After embarking on a couples counselling programme, you can expect to come away feeling heard, understood and validated. As a couple, you will learn how to communicate with each other in effective ways and how to express your needs with clarity. You will also be able to gain insight into each other’s triggers and how to support each other as a team.

There will be a healthy balance in the relationship, and a growing ability to show true vulnerability to each other. Sometimes couples can get stuck communicating ineffectively, by using sarcasm, criticism, sulking, blaming, withdrawing or shaming, and through counselling, you will learn how to express feelings honestly and constructively.

Before counselling, you may have worried about bringing up a sensitive subject with your partner, or your conversations may have felt like they were going round and round in circles, with a building sense of frustration, but after attending counselling you will feel that disagreements can be talked through effectively with empathy and understanding.

Please contact me for more information or to book your first session using the following methods, or visit my contact page

Call/Text: 07846 477726
paul@pauljamescounselling.co.uk