Contents
Havant Marriage Counselling.
About Marriage Counselling.
When your marriage is in conflict, and you’re both in trouble.
It can be a relief at what a professional perspective brings a relationship.
You see, although Dean is a fully qualified and experienced marriage counsellor he has an advantage that you both do not…
…he isn’t involved in your marriage in the same way you are; he is able to see the wood for the trees.
Dean avoids taking on the role of a “marriage expert”; because experts judge, prescribe and “tell”.
Dean’s therapeutic approach is to encourage curiosity (employing use of effective therapeutic frameworks) because curiosity can bring new knowledge. Knowledge brings the marriage the power to make new decisions (again).
When your marriage is struggling to exist and you’d like to bring back the happier, calmer times, Dean Richardson is the marriage counsellor for you.
A Summary of Marriage Counselling.
No Waiting
Weekly
Not Time Restricted
Suitable for…
Private counselling near me serving the UK Nationwide over Zoom & Skype, plus locations in and around, Havant, Petersfield to Waterlooville, Cosham to Portsmouth & Southsea, Southampton to Chichester, Fareham to Gosport, Hayling Island, Emsworth, Westbourne, Rowland's Castle, local residents anywhere in between and regularly further afield!
Marriage Counselling in Havant.
Marriage Counselling is an effective therapeutic intervention for adults: intimate marriages, platonic marriages and celibate marriages.
Marriage Counselling supports both you and your partner together in identifying and then working-through the marriage’s problem(s).
With the counsellor’s intervention, you will both be creating your own unique therapy, ideal to your unique relationship.
We stop when the marriage can make the counsellor redundant (which means you can work on the problems yourselves on your own).
Dean’s approach to marriage counselling helps the marriage not only address current problems, but also prepares the marriage to manage new conflicts in the future.
So, counselling comes to an end not when all the problems are resolved (as you might expect), but rather when the marriage identifies that it can make the counsellor redundant. This also means that they may continue to work on current and future problems themselves without growing a dependence upon any marriage therapist.
Marriage Counselling using effective (science bit…) systemic / psychodynamic therapeutic interventions, without reference to religious or moral rules, encouraging a marriage to teach each other how to work their relationship through conflicts in their own unique way.
IMPORTANT: when considering Couple / Marital Counselling via Video Conference (a speciality of Dean's practice) you need to be aware of Dean's approach. You will be using two x video devices (Smartphone, Tablet, PC, MAC, Chromebook etc), and you will situating yourselves in separate rooms. Read more about Dean Richardson's Distinct Approach to Video Counselling for Couples…Non-Traditional Marriages!
My approach to couple counselling allows me to work with all sorts of couple relationships…
- Open Relationships
- Polyamorous Relationships
- Kink/BDSM Relationships
- Friends-with-benefits (“fuck buddies”)
- Purely sex
- Affairs
- Parental/child relationships (adults only)
- Sibling relationships (brothers, sisters, twins)
- Flatmates
- Neighbours
- Friends
- Good-on-paper-but…
- Long distance
- Co Dependent / Independent
- Dominating / Submission
- Rebound
- Toxic
- “Trophy”
What happens in Marriage Counselling?
Generally the first few sessions of couple counselling are known as an assessment.
The couple and Dean work together to discover what the relationship needs to focus upon (“the focus”).
The couple might think they know what the problems are, but often they are surprised to learn new facts as we unpack the relationship.
Some couples remain in counselling for support in working through the focus, whereas others leave counselling able to work on the focus themselves.
An aim of Dean Richardson’s couple counselling is to enable the couple to see their marriage with different eyes, listen with new ears, and feel with different approach.
The couple will discover how they can address their own problems themselves without further need of future counselling.
Topics Couples Discuss in Counselling.
Without going into the private details of couples Dean has worked with, here are some generalised topics that couples have worked through with Dean in counselling.
- Behaviour outside of the relationship's agreement (such as infidelity, sexual behaviour etc).
- Repeated arguments / unresolved discussions.
- Struggles with one partner's needs being unfulfilled (i.e. the other partner doesn't understand such needs).
- Difficulties with someone outside of the relationship threatening to expose private information about the couple.
- Incompatible needs from a partner (whether sexual, social, intimate or secret).
- Conflicts that are attributed to age differences (for example).
- Difficulties with the couple's family not seeing eye-to-eye with the couple's relationship (e.g. mixed religions, sexuality, race, colour, creed).
- Decisions about the relationship getting stuck (such as decisions that affect the family that the couple cannot agree upon).
- A difficult subject that cannot be brought up by the couple on their own (for example: gender transition, thoughts of separating, confessions).
- Sex or sexuality - difficulties expressing intimate need.
Divorce Counselling.
During my post-graduate training in Couples Counselling, the tutors asked a question of the class:
“Is divorce a solution to a marriage falling apart?”
Most students responded: “yes”, very few answered: “no”. Both tutors responded: “No” and “No”.
I had replied “yes” because I thought if two people in a marriage were so unhappy, then of course divorce would be the solution to the couple’s problems. Some 18 months later (when I qualified) I was no longer so sure.
A couple can regard divorce as a way to separate from their marriage and move on from the problems. However, couple counselling can effect a couple eager to identify their marital problems (including problems they hadn’t previously recognised) and then become empowered to resolve their problems together.
All the couple needs to do is to take a step into couple counselling together to find out.
Couples that separate can reconcile, and couples that reconcile can separate, all perfectly normal during the time they are in counselling. The therapy work helps the couple negotiate through trying times to a final resolution to their relationship needs.
Dean Richardson’s Distinct Approach to Marriage Counselling.
- Dean's primary client is the couple's relationship (not the two individuals in the relationship). Inexperienced counsellors - or those untrained in relationship work - miss this important aspect when trying to work with a couple.
- Dean's primary aim is to become redundant: the couple can end their counselling work without thinking that they've become dependant on a counsellor; nor feeling they will have to come back for 'top up' sessions in the future.
- The couple stay only for as long as it's helping: meaning they might come to counselling for just a handful of sessions, or may choose to stay longer, until the couple can work on their relationship's needs on their own (again). Dean does not set a compulsory minimum (or maximum) period.
- The couple work with just the one therapist: and Dean practices "neutrality" which means both members of the couple will be understood by a single therapist (no risk of multiple interpretations by multiple therapists in the room). Plus? the common factors that are underlying the couple's relationship problems can be understood and communicated back to them by a single couple counsellor as a single, consistent, understandable whole.
- Dean does not solve the couple's current relationship problems. Dean is not a "Relationship Expert", doesn't promote his services as being so, and doesn't claim to have solutions and answers for the couple. Instead, Dean focuses on assisting the couple to learn and understand their own problems so that they can address and resolve matters using their own solutions.
- The couple develop their own unique approach that can be helpful for years to come. Looking at the relationship's problems as if they are a symptom of a system that has become faulty (say, like a washing machine that works until it comes time to rinse). Understanding? and then amending? the relationship's behavioural-system can help the couple understand what's at the centre of their problems. With understanding, the couple can learn to manage & resolve not only current problems? but future ones too? for themselves.
- Dean involves & immerses the couple in the counselling, rather than operating as a pseudo-advice-giving consultant with-all-the-answers.
- Dean's couple counselling approach integrates effective systemic and psychodynamic approaches. Rather than using whatever is the latest fad in therapy, Dean successfully applies methods that have been tried and tested for a long time (30+ years: systemic, 100+ years: psychodynamic). This helps the couple (through curiosity, hypothesising & modelling) learn what's happening in their relationship and then helps them develop their own 'fault' resolving strategies.
- Unlike some couple therapists who respond to questions with 'answers' (whether such generic answers can actually apply to the couple's specific relationship), Dean empowers the couple into being able to answer their own questions by understanding & resolving their own relationship-conflicts. This helps the couple become independent of the counsellor.
- Boundaries are important: the session is contained within 50 (or 90, optional) minutes, weekly, in a safe room, with the same counsellor. For example, the couple always knows that they can open up (difficult) topics but not fear getting swept up into long arguments? because the session's end time is set.
- Future "top-up" sessions become unnecessary: the couple ends counselling when they don't need the counsellor any longer. Dean doesn't "fix" the relationship for the couple, he assists the couple in learning how to fix their own relationship problems together. Added bonus: the couple uses the same techniques to manage future difficulties. Once the couple feel that they are more capable at addressing their relationship problems together, they can begin to bring couple counselling to a close without having to come back for "top-up" sessions (as if they'd somehow run out!).
About Havant Online CounsellOR
You could choose any counsellor in and around Havant, 'natch!
Yet, when you think that this may be the most personal, private and possibly vulnerable you're going to be with someone professional, you'd probably choose:
- someone you can grow to trust,
- someone who demonstrates highly competent skills, ethics and sensitivity.
- someone who speaks plain English (rather than psychobabble),
- someone who's as happy to use base/swearing language as much (or as little) as you do,
- someone who considers himself a frank, no bullshit counsellor, particularly you when you're in need of an authentic response (rather than an "hmm"),
- someone who would become an equal part of your therapeutic partnership (e.g. doesn't just sit mostly in silence for 50 minutes).
Counsellor Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg) - a simply private choice.
Couple Counselling Fees.
Couple Counselling
Counselling for an Adult Relationship- Suitable for individuals
- Suitable for couples
- Suitable for groups
- Payable weekly
- Available in Havant
- Available Skype/Zoom video
- 50 minute session
- 90 minute session (£125.00)
How Counselling Fees Work.
Unlike NHS services (where you have already paid through NI taxation), private counselling will cost you some money.
Couple Counselling sessions are weekly, and last for a standard 50 minutes (with the option to book 90 minute sessions if you both prefer). Although sessions are once a week (except for holidays), you may also attend more than once a week if all three of us think that this would be helpful.
Our sessions will continue one or more of us thinks that we've done enough; then we'll have a conversation about bringing our counselling work to a close.
Fees are payable on the day of our session.
You may pay your counselling fees online (e.g. by a bank transfer, credit/debit card payment or PayPal) or pay in person (cash, cheque [made out to Dean Richardson], credit/debit card).
Restricted Income: If I have spaces available, a lower fee is negotiable should your income make private counselling a struggle to afford. This is not charity (you still must contribute a fee) and it will involve discussing your income and expenditure with the aim to discover a rate that you can afford responsibly. I do not always have any lower-fee spaces available, so please ask when you first get in contact.
Got a Question? Don't Hold Back…
Got a question about Dean Richardson's counselling services in Havant (Hampshire)? Want to make contact, maybe asking about a first appointment? Send Dean a message any time…
