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As I Walked Out One Evening

Some years ago, I was given a card that quoted the second and third verse of Auden’s poem, ‘As I walked out one evening’. It was wonderful, the idea that someone could be loved until two continents met across the Pacific Ocean. What a romantic notion.

For many of us, when we fall in love we feel outside the ordinary world, a kind of intensity and madness that takes us beyond the limitations of everyday life. Auden illustrates this feeling at the beginning of the poem, The lover says that they will love the other until impossible things come to pass, ‘till the ocean is folded and hung up to dry’, that is they will love the beloved forever.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps they over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street

I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
 For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
 And the first love of the world.’

(verses 1-5)

The idea of a never-ending romantic love is a seductive narrative and I believe a pernicious one. This is because it implies that the power of romantic love, i.e. being in love, is enough to overcome the vicissitudes and transitions of human life. But these are inevitable because we live in time and in space.

In order to fall in love we have to avert our eyes from the ordinariness of the other, to believe they’re special and by being loved by them we are too. Time passes and the ordinary person emerges; time passes and what first attracted us is now irritating; time passes and what matters to us has changed and we don’t share the same interests; time passes and our bodies have grown older and less attractive; time passes and we become forgetful, frail and fearful; time passes, perhaps we become ill and eventually we die.

What happens to being in love? Auden’s poem continues with a warning that love cannot overcome time. Time is watching us from the darkness, perhaps occasionally we are aware that our relationship has a time limit, but often ‘In headaches and in worry, Vaguely life leaks away,’. In the poem there are warnings about the lover’s relationship, the glacier knocking in the cupboard, the desert sighing in the bed and the cracks in the teacups.

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
“O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
The glacier knocks on the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

(verses 6-12)

Couples come to therapy full of regret and resentment and tell me it’s been like this for years. They recognise there were signs that they needed to pay attention to their love and changes in their relationship and these opportunities were missed. I suggest that some of this is because people want what they had at the beginning, I want to it to go back to how it used to be. To recognise change in a relationship can mean mourning the loss of those early feelings of being in love, that intoxicating pinnacle of romance.

Part of the work of couple therapy is to be able to remember and respect those initial feelings and to find a more fluid and changing narrative about romantic love. One that recognises that time passes and we cannot, we just cannot, stay the same.

Where the beggars raffle the banknotes,
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

(verses 13-16)

Apologies for any misinterpretations of Auden’s poem.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Angela Rogers, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Angela Rogers is an Integrative Psychotherapeutic counsellor working with individuals and couples in Hove.

 

Further reading by Angela Rogers –

Thinking about the menopause in energetic terms

Poetry: A space to ponder

Relax: Watching people using their hands

What is Andropause and what happens to men when their testosterone levels decline?

Am I cracking up or is it my hormones? Pre-menstrual Dysphoric and the importance of tracking symptoms

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What does Couple Counselling do?

At a fundamental level, couple counselling provides an opportunity for a couple to explore their relationship with a therapist who facilitates the exploration. Couples have said to me that they really value the dedicated time, space and support to talk about feelings and difficulties that don’t feel safe to share with each other elsewhere. What else couple counselling does is more provisional and it’s perhaps helpful to think about what couple counselling can do?

First of all, I’d like to make it clear what, in my opinion, couple counselling doesn’t do. Couple counselling is not about the counsellor determining whether a couple should split up or stay together. Nor is it about the counsellor telling either individual how to behave or taking sides. (There are exceptions to this if one of the partners is coercive or violent.) The more behavioural approaches to couple counselling often provide communication exercises and homework between sessions, humanistic and psychodynamic approaches tend not to do this.

I think a key element of what couple counselling can do, is to give a couple the opportunity to see their relationship from a more objective position, to help a couple step away and see themselves as if looking in from the outside. People are often familiar with repeating patterns in the interactions with their partners. They know which situations end in a row or sulking or tears – “you always …,” “you never …” but they can’t necessarily recognise the dynamic that underpins the patterns. How they both act in a way that means these situations keep playing out in the same way again and again. They know that over time painful feelings have built up, such as hurt and resentment, frustration and fear, disdain and humiliation. These feelings can reach a point where one or both partners question whether they can carry on living like this or would it be better to break up. Then they come to couple counselling.

A couple counsellor can notice and comment on what they see being enacted between the partners in the session. They and the couple can think about how this dynamic can play out in the relationship and the way it impacts how they feel about each other. This close attention from the therapist can make couple counselling challenging, each partner becomes aware that their behaviour is coming under scrutiny. They may be fearful of owning their own behaviour and ashamed about revealing aspects of themselves, aspects that may be protecting them and hiding feelings of weakness, vulnerability or lack of self-worth that probably originate from their past.

A therapist can encourage both partners to be more compassionate with themselves and each other, to let go of the feeling that their partner is a potential threat and they need to defend themselves. A couple can then begin to see their partner as someone who is on their side, who is on the same team but perhaps brings a different perspective.

Hopefully a couple can recognise the dance between them and acknowledge the relationship they have created together is a shared responsibility, both the positive and negative parts. This means that the project of creating a more satisfying relationship, or a constructive separation, can also be shared and is perhaps more possible than they imagined at their first counselling session.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Angela Rogers, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Angela Rogers is an Integrative Psychotherapeutic counsellor working with individuals and couples in Hove.

 

Further reading by Angela Rogers –

Thinking about the menopause in energetic terms

Poetry: A space to ponder

Relax: Watching people using their hands

What is Andropause and what happens to men when their testosterone levels decline?

Am I cracking up or is it my hormones? Pre-menstrual Dysphoric and the importance of tracking symptoms

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Can Couples Counselling Fix a Relationship?

Most people enter into couples counselling when their relationship has got problems. These problems can take the form of a crisis, such as an affair, or be more chronic, such as a loss of intimacy between a couple over a long period of time.

What does it mean to ‘fix’ a relationship? The word ‘fix’ would suggest that something is broken, and in some instances this is indeed what may have happened, such as where one party in the couple feels their trust has been broken.

It may seem instinctive to want to simply ’fix’ a problem when one arises, however, more often than not, the problem is a symptom of a deeper issue that may need addressing.

Couples counselling can be invaluable in making sense of the problems in a relationship and in coming to understand each person’s perspective. This in itself can improve the dialogue and communication between the couple and make whatever decisions they need to make easier and more empathic. Couples counselling is a process of facilitating dialogue and empathy between a couple, but it does not have any investment in whether a couple stay together or not.

The idea that couples counselling is not invested in whether a couple stays together often comes as a surprise. However, the process works with the desires of the couple – which can often be in conflict – and it is contingent on the couple working out whether they indeed wish to continue with the relationship – essentially to ‘fix it’ – or whether they would be better separating.

As stated, most couples enter into the process of couples counselling as they are in a crisis and they are unable to have a dialogue that enables them to constructively find a way forward.

Couples also enter into couples counselling in order to make use of the facilitating element a trained professional can bring to a complex conversation. For example, it is not uncommon for couples to enter into couples counselling after a significant event such as a life changing illness, a child leaving home or a change in career. The facilitated environment can create a felt sense of safety for the couple to explore ideas and options relating to their future which otherwise may become inflammatory without the stability that a third person can bring – a little like the stability that
comes from adding a third leg to a two-legged table.

If a relationship has hit a real crisis and a couple present for couple counselling, then it is likely that your counsellor will work with you to both explore why the problem arose as well as to work through the feelings that each member of the couple feels. Even in the case of an affair, some degree of responsibility is likely to lie with both members of the couple, even if only one has strayed.

Therefore, rather than the onus being on ‘fixing’ a relationship, perhaps a more realistic approach is to see couples counselling as a process through which intimacy can be re-established and trust built whereby each member of the couple is willing to see the other’s perspective. At times, as painful as it may be, a successful outcome of couples counselling can be a conscious uncoupling – a decision to separate on friendly and kind terms.

One thing is for sure, if one or both parties feel that a relationship is ‘broken’ the way forward is rarely to try and ‘fix’ it the way we might a broken object. Instead it is to see whether something new can be born from what has gone before – and it may just be that something much more intimate, much stronger as a relationship, can rise from the ashes.

 

Mark Vahrmeyer, UKCP Registered, BHP Co-founder is an integrative psychotherapist with a wide range of clinical experience from both the public and private sectors. He currently sees both individuals and couples, primarily for ongoing psychotherapy.  Mark is available at the Lewes and Brighton & Hove Practices.

 

Further reading by Mark Vahrmeyer – 

How to improve mental health

How do I find the right psychotherapist?

Why do people get the birthday blues?

Is happiness the opposite of depression?

Are people with mental health problems violent?

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When do you need Couples Counselling?

It is not so long ago that couples would have needed to be on the point of permanent separation before they would consider any type of counselling for themselves. If they did decide to embark on such a course, it might well be done as a last-ditch attempt to save things, often within the context of one or other of the couple having already made up their mind as to the outcome they wanted.

A dearth of couples counsellors working in private practice was another issue, with couples often turning to church members and leaders to find help. Although, much excellent and wise counsel could be found through this route, it was not always perceived as a non-judgemental space, particularly when one of the pair was not committed to the church in the same way as the other.

This picture, a common one until relatively recently, might help to explain the reluctance of people to seek help with matters they feel (and those around them feel) they should be able manage themselves. It also reflects the general stigma associated with any thought of ‘not be able to cope.’

These social, systemic difficulties, which can prevent people seeking help, are often exacerbated by other less-conscious forces within the people themselves. People may be carrying feelings of shame, guilt or anger. Perhaps they have hurt each other; perhaps they feel their (or their partner’s) behaviour has let them or their family down. Whatever the difficulties, it would seem at times that they would lose the whole relationship rather than face the pain of working through whatever their issue might be.

Changing Attitudes

Over the last ten years, there has been a steady change in attitudes to mental health generally. This has been led by the young – often millennials – who have grown up in a society where it is becoming easier to discuss their inner world as a matter of course.

Schools are becoming much more mental-health savvy, with many staff trained in mental-health support.  Consequently, the stigma associated with seeking help is beginning to dissipate. It is no longer necessary to put a brave face on what is troubling us – either in our individual lives or in our relationships.

Learning from our children

I am not sure Wordsworth had matters of our mental wellbeing in mind when he wrote that ‘the child is father of the man’, but his sentiment, that we could learn much more from our young than we might first think, is a wise one. In the matters of relationship support, it is surprising how many middle-aged couples are seeking therapy prompted by their children.

Not only do those children suggest support, but they also model a non-judgemental approach to difficulties within the scope of wellbeing.

Changing patterns

What is noticeable in the therapy room is that there is a growing number of younger couples seeking counselling. Many of them are not seeking help with a relationship that is on the brink of catastrophe, but instead are looking for a space to better understand each other and, crucially, to learn how to communicate effectively. As one of my clients put it to me, they wanted to ‘future-proof’ their relationship, hoping to head off difficulties long before any crisis is reached, or defensive behaviours become so established that clear and effective communication becomes difficult.

Back to the question

When do you need couples counselling? It could be any time and it could be at different times for different purposes. If you feel there is a problem preventing you from communicating effectively, why not address it? If there is something driving angry or resentful feelings, why not talk it through with someone who will not judge but may well
help you to understand what is the root of the difficulty that feels so overwhelming. It may take a few sessions, or it may need longer. Of course, for some couples, the visit may be one of last resort – but it does not have to be.

 

Kevin Collins is a UKCP registered Psychotherapeutic Counsellor with an academic background in the field of literature and linguistics. He worked for many years in education – in schools and university. Kevin is available at our Lewes Practice.

 

To enquire about psychotherapy sessions with Kevin, please contact him here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

 

Blogs by Kevin Collins –

Facing the Green-Eyed Monster

When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

 

Further reading by Kevin Collins –

Facing the Green-Eyed Monster

When it comes to parenting, are you a builder or a gardener?

I never thought my son would watch pornography

Care for a dance?

Name that tune

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Attachment Styles and How They Affect Relationships

The way we relate to others, including our partners is complex and multi-layered.  It is developed over time and although we can to an extent control what we say and do within our relationships it is more difficult to understand why we behave and feel the way we do in relation to others. 

One way of describing how we function within relationships, is to talk about our style of ‘attachment’. How we attach to others affects everything from the partners we choose, to how well our relationships progress and how they end.  Once we recognise our attachment patterns we begin to understand our strengths and vulnerabilities within our relationships including those with friends and family. 

Attachment patterns are established in early childhood. The developing infant builds up a set of ‘models’ of themselves and others based on repeated patterns of interpersonal experiences with their caregiver (usually the mother and/or father).  These repeated patterns continue to function as ‘internal working models’ for relationships in adulthood. The problem is that much of this is happening at an unconscious level and as such we remain unaware of these models leaving us likely to repeat unhelpful patterns which may, in turn leave us feeling frustrated and hurt.

According to Attachment Theory there are four attachment styles. 

Secure attachment:

Securely attached people tend to have satisfying relationships. Broadly speaking their internal working model gives them a core sense of being safe and secure within themselves.  These people feel more or less good about themselves and their capacity to be effective and create positive relationships. This can also be described as having good self-esteem. This allows them to believe that if they experience a rupture or a falling out with a friend or partner it’s OK. The relationship can be repaired and things will get back on track between them.

Anxious-Preoccupied attachment

These people are often described as being clingy and needy.  Their internal working model does not provide them with a core sense of safety and security.  They look to others to provide this for them. Therefore when they experience a rupture or falling out they feel insecure and unsafe and in their attempt to feel secure and safe again they become demanding and possessive of their friends and partners because they cannot provide themselves with these feelings. Unfortunately this behaviour tends to push people away confirming their worse fear and so the cycle is complete. 

Dismissive-Avoidant attachment

People with this style of attachment tend to distance themselves from others emotionally.  Like people with an insecure-ambivalent attachment style their internal working model does not provide them with a sense of safety and security but they protect themselves from this by becoming ‘pseudo-independent’ and telling themselves that they do not need people.  They have the ability to shut down emotionally and turn off their feelings even in heated arguments with friends or partners. Their relationships often end because their friends and partners experience them as detached and unemotional.

Fearful-Avoidant attachment

A person with this style of attachment fears being both too close or too distant from other people and moves between these two states.  They often feel overwhelmed by their feelings over which they feel they have little control. Their internal working model is that in order to achieve any sense of safety and security they need to move towards people but that if they let people get too close they will get hurt.  This leaves them in a state of confusion as to how to get their needs met although this may not be entirely conscious. What they are conscious of are feelings of being trapped when they get close to people and clinging to people who reject them. Their relationships can end up being abusive.

How psychotherapy can help

By becoming aware of your attachment style, over time you can challenge the insecurities and fears that have formed your ‘internal working model’ and develop new styles of attachment for sustaining more secure and satisfying relationships with others.  This sounds easy but in reality it is more complex. Exploring and understanding your internal working model and resultant core state can be challenging as defensive strategies which have come into play to protect you from psychological pain are hard to change and can leave you feeling vulnerable.

However change is possible within a relationship of trust with a skilled and experienced therapist.  On a very basic level the relationship with the therapist provides a space where repeated patterns of interpersonal experience occur and can be thought about.  The therapist will be able to stand back and reflect what is happening between you with the intention of helping you identify the patterns which so far have remained unconscious and out of your awareness.  In this way over time you are able to choose to do things differently – bit by bit.

 

Please follow the links to find out more about about our therapists and the types of therapy services we offer.  We have practices in Hove and Lewes.  Online therapy is also available.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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Emotionally Focused Therapy: For Couples in Distress

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a short-term evidence-backed therapy with a high success rate in supporting clients to move through difficulties in their relationship. This includes one or both partners who have experienced early trauma. It is shown to to be an extremely effective way of helping distressed couples strengthen their attachment bond, particularly where one or both partners have experienced early trauma.

As a couple in distress you might feel you’ve reached the end of the line, or you are struggling to get past your partner’s infidelity. Perhaps you can’t seem to get your point across without a descent into conflict.  When this becomes a habitual pattern it becomes destructive, affecting how safe you feel which can erode intimacy, desire and emotional connection.

Emotional, or attachment bonds in our relationships are physiological and therefore potent.  Neuroscience is uncovering how important these attachment bonds are to our sense of safety: distance and separation is perceived as threatening and we go into fight-or-flight mode to get what we need.  This emulates our early life experience when we relied on caregivers to survive.  It might not feel like it but arguments are often a way to draw our partner closer when we feel they are not attuned to us.

Modern couples are subject to different stressors than previous generations. Socio-cultural shifts means we have higher expectations that both partners provide for all our emotional needs  as well as the financial and practical elements. Children may or may not be part of the way we configure our relationship.  Paradoxically we also expect to maintain excitement and passion throughout as we strive to emulate the sexually exciting worlds of the movies.  Yet though we know there’s a dissonance between fantasy and reality, disappointment follows and we may wonder if there’s someone better out there.  EFT considers the wider context that affects relationships, looking at the systems  around the couple that influences their relationship.

How does it work?

Our emotions play a key part in making decisions and in signalling to others our desires, feelings and intentions. Paying attention to our emotions can support us to gauge a situation and act in a way that benefits us and others.

One of the strengths of EFT is that it places emphasis on the negative cycle of conflict couples get pulled into rather than apportioning blame to either person.  The therapist works in collaboration with both partners to identify this dance of ‘pursue-withdraw’ or ‘criticise-defend’ as the couple interact in the room. This here and now focus illustrates the triggers, escalation points and underlying feelings that erode attachment bonds but often remain unspoken.

The therapist supports the couple to listen effectively, witness and ultimately validate the other person’s underlying feelings, emotions and desires.  Partners learn to express feelings from a place of vulnerability and ask for what they want and need from each other.

The ultimate aim of EFT is to reduce conflict and  restore a sense of safety, connection and  intimacy.  Whatever the outcome you will learn new skills of communication, increase compassion for each other and re-establish trust and safety.  It isn’t always an easy journey but you will learn a lot about each other and yourself in the process that will help you make clear decisions about your relationship.

If you would like to try out EFT please get in touch.

 

Please follow the links to find out more about about our therapists and the types of therapy services we offer.  We have practices in Hove and Lewes.  Online therapy is also available.

 

Resources –

Susan M. Johnson (2019) Attachment in action — changing the face of 21st century couple therapy  www.Sciencedirect.com

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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The language of love: how couples communicate

When working with couples I am often struck by how much they love each other!

This may sound surprising – by definition the couples I see in my practice have come to me because their relationship is in trouble.  However I rarely see couples who say they no longer love each other. In my experience the problem isn’t that love is no longer there, rather it is that the individuals no longer feel loved by each other.  

By the time couples come to see me one or both of them have been feeling unloved for quite some time.  This comes across in many different ways but often the individuals are hurt and angry. This is easy to understand.  One of our basic human emotional needs is to feel loved. As human beings when we are deprived of a primary emotional need we feel psychological pain which leads to feelings of anger and sadness. 

The emphasis here is on the word feel.  It is not enough to know that our partner loves us, we need to feel that love.  The difficulty is that what makes one person feel loved is often different to what makes their partner feel loved.  If couples are to develop and maintain long lasting intimate relationships they need to know what they need in order to feel loved and also what the desires and needs of their partners are so that they are communicating their feelings in a way their partner can understand on a deep emotional level.

According to Gary Chapman we communicate our love in 5 Love Languages.  They are:

  • Words of Affirmation
  • Quality Time
  • Receiving Gifts
  • Acts of Service 
  • Physical Touch (including sex)

However, we do not understand all 5 Love Languages in the same way.  For example an individual in couples therapy ‘A’ might express frustration that they are being accused of being unloving even though they are always telling their partner ‘B’ how much they love them – Words of Affirmation. The problem is that ‘B’s love language is Quality Time so although she is hearing the words they are not translating into the feeling of being loved.  The chances are that B in turn is using the ‘wrong’ language to express their love for A.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that very often individuals don’t actually know what makes them feel loved.  They might assume that they feel loved when their partner does nice things for them (Acts of Service) but what can emerge in therapy is that actually what makes them feel loved is being physically touched.  

Once couples have discovered what makes their partner feel loved they can then make the choice to actively love their partner in the language their partner understands emotionally.  This is necessarily an oversimplification but once individuals are giving and receiving more of what they need to feel loved by each other some of the feelings of hurt and anger dissipate leaving a healthier emotional climate in which to work on other aspects of their relationship.

 

Please follow the links to find out more about about our therapists and the types of therapy services we offer.  We have practices in Hove and Lewes.  Online therapy is also available.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

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Finding Intent in Criticism in Couple Communication

Cultural context

We are at a particular moment in our cultural and political narratives of relationship and identity where democracy itself seems under threat.

The assertion in some spheres of the perceived “right” to not be offended is at odds with the right (principle) of free speech in which there is always a risk of offence. We live increasingly in an age of “safe spaces” “trigger warnings” and narratives of victim hood and oppression. Now more than ever we need a relationship culture in which giving and receiving criticism is understood as a way to deepen connection and intimacy whilst simultaneously fostering emotional and psychological resilience.

In my last blog I wrote about the evolutionary context of criticism. How criticism could lead to ostracism, posing a threat to livelihood and even life itself. Whilst killing the criticiser is part of an evolutionary survival instinct, so open and compassionate listening in response to criticism is now an essential part of our evolutionary future.

In myriad subtle ways as social beings we organise ourselves to avoid the (life threatening)sting of criticism. We seek approval from our social groups through acts of conformity or denial. It is more often in our most intimate relationships that we reserve the right to unleash our most critical and savage selves… all in the name of love. Where there is love there is dependence and where there is dependence there is power.Understanding the balance and imbalance of power as a fact of life and love is important.

Power dynamics

Focusing solely on the content of our routine and familiar arguments with our partners is a way of missing the expressions of power and the underlying vulnerabilities they obscure. A major theme often at play is that of fear. For some this will translate as fear of losing the other(abandonment) whilst for others the fear will be of losing themselves (engulfment). This may translate into a relational dynamic in which one person, fearing abandonment is more likely to pursue or demand more (contact,closeness etc) from their partner whilst the other, fearing intrusion (exploitation) is more likely to maintain distance. We all emerge from our childhoods with different tolerances for connection.

When we perceive criticism from our partner it is all too easy (natural) to react defensively. How, in these moments  might we become less reactive and more reflective, less combative and more collaborative? Firstly of course you have to decide that this is indeed what you would like to do…to lay down your weapons, so to speak, to relinquish the need to be “right” in favour of the desire to understand and value the other such that you might deepen your connection rather than remain locked in a state of division. When this becomes your shared intent you each take your responsibility for the health and well-being of your relationship.

Relational practice

When in conflict with your partner try holding in mind their best intent, hear them out , resist interruption or the desire for distortion. One voice at a time. Keep your energy on your partners story rather than your own defences. Imagine that your partner cares! Check that you have heard them by clarifying what you have understood. Be aware of your body language….are you listening or pseudo listening? Notice what happens, energetically ,in you, in your partner.

None of this is easy, but all of the above are relational tools that require practice to refine. Of course they also have the potential to become weapons to deploy. We are less under threat from criticism perhaps then we are of our failures to listen to the communications beneath. If we value democracy we need to practice it in our relationships.

Gerry Gilmartin is an accredited, registered and experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor. She currently works with individuals (young people/adults) and couples in private practice in Hove.

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