Berkshire Counselling and Psychotherapy Services

Berkshire Counselling and Psychotherapy Services

Solution focused and CBT counselling

Specialising in couple, parent-child and individual relationships

Couple and Marriage Relationships

Problems and issues in couples are common but when these issues are interfering with the level of functionality of a couple, then they often seek professional counselling and psychotherapy to help them sort out those issues. The problems can take forms as: The symptoms can even take the form of bodily reactions such as IBS, pains and aches or migraines, heavy fatigue that only sets the scene for short tempers or silence in the couple/marriage. With the consequences of divorce, separation or hurt that can be avoided if these issues are addressed quite early in a relationship.

Clients come as a couple or sometimes the husband or wife comes in with a need to understand and clarity of his/her relation and then gradually the tools and techniques of communications he/she learns convinces the other partner to join in because at the end of the day the couple wants to save the relationship/marriage!

Couples will be the first to agree that sometimes they come home thinking they are going to say or do things differently today but as soon as they enter the front door, something else takes over and they find themselves acting differently. E.g. a woman decides that today she is not going to criticize the not so well done dishes( a criteria of dishwashing that she ahs obviously learnt from her own childhood, from her own mother or father probably!) and she will praise the food first. She enter the house but irrationally although she smells the nice food she cannot bring herself to say “thank you for the lovely dinner that I can smell honey.” But she finds it easier to feel resentment as soon as she sees the cup which still has a black mark on the bottom.

How do you think this woman is going to eat at the dinner table or respond to the conversation with her man? Next day she will again make the same resolution but until she does not understand with awareness and detachment what and why she is doing it (where psychotherapy and a counselling comes into play) her mind will keep operating along those old self-limiting belief-system that she brings with her to the relationship.

Let’s take an example of a man: He works so hard the whole day that when he comes home he wishes for a bit of quiet and peace in front of the T.V. he believes from having observed unconsciously his own parents’ relationship that men are providers and women are homemakers. So he cannot understand why he is being bombarded with information about the kids’ behaviour at school, or the queue at the banks and he is gets very irritated and angry; but he cannot say it and it comes out into a sullen expression that the woman perceives as lack of interest in the family!!

We all find relationships challenging but couple relationships can be the most challenging as it really challenges our deeply learnt beliefs and behavioural patterns from our childhood observations of our own and close people’s relationships. We read differently and react differently before the relationship gets deeper because we are still treating it as new and exciting and as human beings we put more fresh efforts and new touch into new relationships. But once that phase is over, we retreat to our old beliefs and behaviours that we often find couples repeating in consecutive relations until they come for psychotherapy a and counselling.

Couple relationship is just like any relationship at work or socially, with friends; the same efforts goes into them initially to compliment, praise or communicate but owing to the fact that the couple is together everyday, the routine of couple life sets in soon enough and partners fall into putting more efforts outside the house and leaves inside the house contained to housework or bills or children.

But the couple/marriage relationship can get worse by former issues that each partner carries into the marital relationship: beliefs about men/women, prior learning from their own parents’ marriage, definition of male and female roles in a family gained from one’s own parents, problems with prior relationships e.g. rejection, cheatings in the past, jealousy, anger from prior marriage, unresolved fears of being inferior. All the issues cause a number of men or women to either not go into deep and long term relationship or if they do embark on one, it breaks into separation or divorce quite soon down the line or misery in the couple for years to come.

As a Solution Focused Focused Counsellor/Psychotherapist in Reading, Wokingham, Windsor, Bracknell my aim and role is to be the detached observer and facilitator to help couples or even the man or woman who comes on their own to see me about problems with relationships to:

  1. Explore what are the scenarios that they are replaying constantly in their relationship history and learn how to break that script and define a healthier way of behaving in a relationship.
  2. Let go of all resentments, anger, frustrations and learn to let go especially of the blaming game that couples often fall into. Even single persons who keep falling out of relationship can learn to stop the blaming game and become a bit more understanding and self-aware of the reasons behind their own complicated behaviours.
  3. Learn to communicate and feel better and stronger not only as a couple but also as separate individuals; whereas before maybe they were feeding off each other’s weaknesses they can learn to grow in their own individual self-esteem and meet the other partner in the relationship more confidently rather than passively or aggressively.
People/clients come from several backgrounds and they can come on their own or as couples but they have a need to offload, be accepted and listened to and then helped to move on a bit more healthier, fitter and stronger into their same or future relationships.

Amreeta is trained not only as a Psychologist but also as a Hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner; she believes that her Psychology training helps her to understand people a deeper level and provide the therapeutic support they need to enjoy their love relationship or marriage, but her training as Hypnotherapist gives her additional tools to help clients implement new, efficient techniques into their future lives. It is one thing to understand the origins of our pain and symptoms but often clients find that even after understanding they do not necessarily k now a better way of functioning and the mind falls into the same old belief or behaviour system. This is where hypnosis techniques come along to help Amreeta provide a more complete and solution-oriented approach in six to eight sessions for individuals, couples and marriages.

For more information or questions call Amreeta on 0118 926 9978 or 0786 129 3634. You can also email her your questions by clicking here. Please note that she may be with clients so do leave a message as she aims to answer you within two to three hours. Amreeta understands you are making a huge step ahead by contacting her and she will definitely answer you by call or mail whichever you prefer!

Practices in Reading/Caversham, Wokingham/Bracknell, Woodley/Twyford, Windsor/Slough, covering Berkshire.

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