In couple therapy, you will learn to recognize, examine and change the patterns that you have developed together over time. You will understand what caused them and how you maintain them together. You will see what your underlying needs and desires are. You will experience how you can come closer to each other by sharing these needs and create a positive spiral together.

Every person develops patterns. These are formed within your family system of origin and what you have experienced during your life. In every relationship, you also develop patterns together. These can be helpful and strengthening patterns, but also negative, undermining patterns. Short-term struggles or occasional serious arguments do not have to be bad. But when negative interactions become a fixed pattern and you get caught up in it together, it can become very difficult. You can also feel lonely or distant from each other without having an argument.

During relationship problems you can feel very gloomy or sad. You may think about whether you should not break off the relationship. Maybe one of you feels attracted to another man or woman. You argue about small and big issues or you feel that you hardly have any real contact with each other anymore. During therapy I help you to become aware of your feelings and needs that are important to you and then convey them to your partner in a way that invites positive reactions.

An important starting point for relationship therapy is that you both want it. We start by looking at both of you as individuals and at your relationship. We investigate the patterns that you have developed. Then we look at the underlying needs under these patterns and how you can express them differently than you have done so far. Then we look at how you can come together again, how you can build and sustain new, helpful behavior, conversations and habits. See it as a bridge where you each stand on one side on your own piece of land. From your own "ground" you learn to express your feelings to your partner. To say what you need and thus feel connected to yourself and each other again. Sometimes it is necessary to have a few separate individual sessions during the therapy.

The number of sessions depends on what is going on. Expect about 5 to 10 sessions.

When in relationship therapy

The longer you wait to address a difficult relationship, the more complex the problems often become. The more entangled you become and the more painful it can become. Couples often only seek help when their relationship has completely stalled. Looking together in time at what exactly is going on between you can help turn the tide before it is too late.

Also for healthy relationships

Relationship therapy can also be very enriching in "healthy" relationships. You then schedule a moment to examine, evaluate and possibly adjust your relationship, patterns, communication and commitment. You can then come out of this even stronger than you already were.

Methods

I work with Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and systemic work.

EFT is aimed at looking at what is really happening in the contact between you on an emotional leval. Together with you I investigate:

• what the sticking points are in your relationship;
• what your needs are;
• what you can do for each other in this regard.

This is much more effective and sustainable than methods that focus on more general communication rules. Among other things, looking at attachment, your family of origin, upbringing and which patterns have arisen from this, is part of the therapy.

Systemic work

A constellation is a representation of a (family) system. Using various materials such as figures and colored surfaces, we create a representation of reality. The goal of a constellation is to gain insight into symptoms and unconscious dynamics in a (family) system. The insight and feeling of a constellation often have a lasting effect on people. It works further on an subconscious level.