Ninety minutes, fortnightly, with a point to it
A clear framework rather than open ended talking, and a free 30-minute call before you commit to anything.
How it goes, start to finish
Nobody enjoys the first phone call. Everything after it is more ordinary than people expect.
A free 30-minute call
Either of you can make it. You tell me what's been going on, I tell you how I work, and we decide together whether I'm the right person. No charge, no pressure, and no obligation to book anything afterwards.
The first session
Ninety minutes, both of you. We map the landscape. What is working, what is not, where it gets stuck. By the end I can usually describe your cycle back to you, and most couples find that oddly relieving. It's the first time the problem has been outside the two of you.
The work itself
Fortnightly, ninety minutes. We work on the pattern rather than the latest incident, though we will use the latest incident, because that is where the pattern shows itself. You'll leave each session with something concrete enough to actually try.
Stopping, and coming back
You stop when it is done, and you are the one who decides when that is. Some couples take six sessions. Some take a year. There is nothing to cancel and nothing to explain.
And the door stays open. If something new arrives in two years, a bereavement, a redundancy, a child leaving home, you come back. I will still know your pattern, and I will still be the person who never took a side.
Fifty minutes is an individual therapy hour
It was never designed for two people who disagree about what happened.
Ninety minutes
Two people need time to both speak, be heard, and then get somewhere new. In an hour you have each given your account and the session is over, which is how couples end up paying to have the same argument in a nicer room. The extra half hour is where the actual work sits.
Fortnightly
Weekly can turn therapy into the place the relationship happens. Fortnightly gives you two weeks to notice yourselves doing the thing we named, catch it once, and bring back something real. The gap is doing work, not wasting time.
What you are not signing up to
- No package you have to buy before you have met me.
- No minimum number of sessions, and no notice period.
- No weekly slot you feel obliged to keep filling.
- No taking sides, ever, and no secrets kept from one of you.
The commitment in this work runs from me to your relationship, not from you to me. I will not work with either of you individually afterwards, in this practice or any other, and not within a future relationship either. That is what lets you both speak freely while you are here, and what lets you come back later without it being awkward.
Two ways in. Most couples take the first.
Ongoing sessions
Book as you go, usually fortnightly. No package, no minimum, no tie-in.
- Start after your free 30-minute call
- Book session by session
- Pause or stop whenever it's right
- Clifton, Stroud or online
The Foundation Package
Four 90-minute sessions with a defined beginning and end, for couples who'd rather start with a shape.
- Session 1, together. Map the landscape. What's working, what isn't, where you're stuck. We identify the recurring pattern and agree what we're aiming at.
- Session 2, one of you. Space to speak freely and think without managing your partner's reaction.
- Session 3, the other of you. The same time and the same attention.
- Session 4, together. Name the cycle plainly and agree specific, observable changes.
Afterwards you can stop, or carry on at £135 a session. No obligation either way.
Ask about the packageEvery couple starts with a free 30-minute callNothing is booked or paid for until after it.
Book the callDifferent presenting problems. Usually the same underlying work.
Whatever brings you, the job is the same: find the pattern, change it together.
The hardest part is the first phone call
Thirty minutes, free, no obligation. You tell me what's been happening and we work out together whether I'm the right person for it. Either partner can make the call.
Book a free 30-minute call