Our relationships are where we can feel most alive, and often most exposed. Many people come to therapy because something in their intimate life feels stuck: the same argument that never resolves, a pattern of choosing partners who aren’t available, difficulty trusting or letting someone close, or a long relationship that has gone quiet. Others are struggling with being single, the end of a relationship, or questions about sexuality and identity.
Individual therapy for relationship issues
I work with individual adults rather than couples. If you have been looking for relationship counselling in London but would rather come on your own, individual psychotherapy can be a good place to start. You don’t need your partner in the room to make sense of what happens between you. Together we can look at what you bring to your relationships – the hopes, fears and expectations that shape how close you let others get, and how you respond when things become difficult.
Understanding repeating relationship patterns
What happens in our relationships now is often shaped by what we learned much earlier, in our first relationships.
These patterns usually have a history. The ways we first learned to love and be loved tend to echo later, sometimes in ways that are hard to see from the inside. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy offers a space to notice those echoes, including as they come up in the relationship with the therapist, where they can be thought about rather than simply repeated.
Working on relationships on your own, not as a couple
I see individuals, not couples, so this is a space to think about your own part in what happens, at your own pace. People might come after a break-up, or when the same pattern keeps returning with different partners.
You don’t have to be in a relationship, or in crisis, to find this useful. Sometimes the work is about loneliness, family, friendships, or a sense of not quite belonging. I see adults at the Liberis Practice, 27 Emperor’s Gate, South Kensington, and am registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council.
If you’d like a conversation first, please book your time.