Today I want to discuss a very important topic - the kinds of issues that are not suitable for couples counselling.. The reason I want to cover this is because I feel like there is a bit of misunderstanding around what couples counselling can do versus what it can't do.

Unfortunately there are situations and issues that are present in some relationships that make it very difficult to work with in an effective and ethical way in the counselling room. I have referred to couples counselling with several of my clients as being the “cross fit of counselling” because it can be really confronting and difficult, especially when there is a lot of deep pain for one or both partners that has never been addressed or dealt with.

Couples counselling does tend to “rock the boat” and the counsellor does intentionally look for and bring up all those areas of relationship that are problematic and are creating distress for the couple. If there are certain painful experiences from your past which you are trying to push down and not think about, couples counselling will definitely highlight them..

Listen to the end of the episode to find out more!

For further resources on abusive relationships and how to identify abuse, I highly recommend the following resources:

See What You Made Me Do - Jess Hill

What Gaslighting Means and How To Recognise It

So where does the tendency to withdraw come from?

It is different for everyone but it usually goes back to childhood and the relationship with primary caregivers- mum, dad or whoever raised us.

Someone with a tendency to withdraw will usually have come from a family in which their needs were dismissed or ignored, and they were encouraged or forced to look after themselves both physically and emotionally.

For example, a young boy who grew up in a family with an overbearing father who taught him that feelings are for weak people, and to be strong you need to hide your emotions rather than express them. If that boy also had a mother who had the same values, or he wasn't close to his mother, there's a fairly high chance that he will develop an avoidant attachment style as a means of protecting himself from those very emotion that he was taught makes him weak.

If you were taught that expressing emotions makes you weak, or you simply weren't encouraged to express your emotions, chances are high that anyone expressing strong emotion would likely make you feel very uncomfortable, or overwhelmed.

As usual, this episode is based on assumed prior knowledge of attachment theory, so if you're unfamiliar with it, here are some resources:

Attached: How to Find (And Keep Love)

I think it's fairly safe to assume that most people are aware of the term casual sex and what it entails or it's closely related cousin, friends with benefits.

However, the situationship is a relatively new term used to describe intimate relationships that are sexual and even romantic in nature. They tend to have almost all the elements of a fully committed relationship, but the main difference is that situation ships tend not to have an official label attached to them.

This is often because one or both people in the situationship doesn't want to label the arrangement, often because they don't feel comfortable doing so, or because they want the freedom of being able to see other people and not be tied down to one person.

Unfortunately what often does tend to happen in these arrangements is that one person does at some point end up wanting a fully committed relationship, but the other person is happy with the arrangement as it is. Yep, you guessed it, messy..

Similar to the last episode, this episode assumes prior knowledge of attachment theory so if you're not very familiar with it, here are some resources to help get you acquainted:

https://www.iamreddi.com/post/counterfeit-connection-how-to-recognise-that-you-re-actually-in-a-situationship

https://www.amazon.com.au/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139

One of the biggest underlying reasons that couples come to counselling is because one partner has anxious attachment and the other has avoidant attachment which results in what is called a distancer/pursuer dynamic in the relationship. This is something that they may not be aware of, and they likely won't talk about it in those terms (unless they have already done a lot of counselling in the past, or a lot of reading on attachment theory).

As you can probably guess, the distancer in this dynamic is the avoidant partner, and the pursuer in the anxious partner. It basically means that the anxious partner often fears feeling distant from their partner, and is constantly trying to get closer to the avoidant partner in a variety of different ways, while the avoidant partner feels very uncomfortable with a lot of closeness, and therefore creates distance in the relationship with what they call deactivating strategies.

This episode will focus a lot on attachment theory, so if you're unfamiliar with it, there are a lot of great resources out there. Here are a few to get you started:

Why Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Attract Each Other

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find (And Keep) Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Listen to the end of the episode to find out more!

Welcome to 'Just Listen to Me!' The Show that is all about relationships. I'm Julia Shay a couples counsellor practising here in Australia.

I am often asked what are the main issues couples present with in couples counselling are, so I thought I would make an episode about it! Some of the most common issues include: communication, difficulties, issues around trust, big life changes, feeling resentful/disconnected, affairs and more.

The biggest theme is often the repeated negative cycle of interaction that never goes away, no matter how many times a couple tries to talk it through - it keeps happening!

Couples counselling helps couples understand their negative cycles so they can work on their triggers and communicate their needs in a way that can be heard.

Watch to the end of the video to find out more!

Information on couples counselling approaches:

Emotionally focussed couples therapy:

https://www.eftresourcecenter.com/emotionally-focused-therapy-eft

Gottman method couples therapy:

https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/