Christabel Part

Couples usually come to therapy because something has been in the background of the relationship for a while and has started to press on the foreground. A distance that will not settle. A place you keep getting stuck. A pattern that has been going on for years and has stopped being bearable to ignore.

Psychodynamic therapy works on the assumption that what is difficult now almost always has a longer history. We work slowly, weekly, over time, making space for the patterns that keep repeating and the feelings that are harder to put into words. The point is not to apply a technique or to solve a problem within a session. It is to understand what is actually happening, underneath, so that something has a chance to shift.

Between a couple, that pattern plays out between two people. The argument you keep having carries something older in each of you, and the shape the two of you have made together usually has a logic, even when it feels only painful. Seeing that logic is where the work begins.

I trained as a psychodynamic counsellor and completed a post-qualifying year at Gloucestershire Counselling Service, which is accredited by the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). I am a registered member of the BACP. I also hold additional training in working with neurodivergence, which informs how I think about difference between partners. I am currently completing advanced specialist training in couples psychotherapy at Tavistock Relationships, accredited by the BPC. All of my couples work is conducted under close clinical supervision by senior practitioners at Tavistock Relationships.

Much of what interests me clinically sits at the point where something that has felt like 'just how I am' turns out to have a history and a meaning. The move from that is me to that is where I come from is a quiet one, but it often changes what is possible in a relationship.

If you would like to talk about whether this kind of work might suit you, you can get in touch through the contact form below.