After the ending
Grief without ceremony. Sleep, rumination, contact rules, and the slow rebuilding of a week that used to have someone in it.
Services · 19
Relationship Counselling for Individuals
You do not need both people in the room for relationship work to be useful.
Counselling for one person after a break-up or divorce, or while still in a relationship your partner will not attend counselling for. In Melbourne or online across Australia.
50-minute sessionsOne person, not a coupleAfter a break-up or duringOnline, phone or in person
$198 per 50-minute session, GST included. Full fees are on the packages and pricing page. Sessions run online by secure video across Australia and New Zealand, by telephone, or in person in Melbourne by arrangement.
In short
You do not need both people present for relationship work. Individual relationship counselling helps after a break-up or divorce, or while still in a relationship your partner will not attend counselling for. One person changing their part reliably shifts the pattern. Sessions are 50 minutes at $198, GST included.
A break-up is a bereavement that nobody sends flowers for. The loss is real, the routine is gone, and the usual advice — give it time, get out more — does not touch the part that keeps replaying the last conversation at 3am.
The other version is just as common: the relationship is still going, and the person who most needs to change will not come. Working alone is not second best. One person changing what they do reliably changes the pattern, and it also gives you a clear read on whether the relationship can hold.
Come on your own when
- A relationship has ended and you cannot get traction
- You are divorcing and the legal process is not the hard part
- Your partner will not attend counselling
- You keep choosing the same kind of relationship
- You are grieving someone who is still alive
What we work on together
While it continues
What is yours to change, what is not, and what happens to the pattern when one person stops playing their part.
The pattern underneath
Attachment, the partners you pick, what you accept early and what you tolerate late.
How the work unfolds
Attachment-informedGrief-awarePractical between sessionsTRTP available where trauma is involved
01
Where it actually hurts
Not the summary you give friends. Rumination, contact, sleep, the specific hours that are worst.
02
Stabilise the week
Contact rules, a plan for the 3am spiral, and what to do with the shared photographs, friends and calendar.
03
Make sense of it
What the relationship was doing for you, what ended and when. This is the part that stops it repeating.
04
Rebuild forward
Identity beyond the relationship, and readiness for the next one without dragging this one into it.
A break-up is a bereavement nobody sends flowers for. Time alone does not do the work that grief needs.
Anne Evans · Counsellor & Psychotherapist
Common questions
Can counselling help if my partner will not come?+
Yes, and it is one of the more common reasons people book. Relationships are patterns between two people, and a pattern changes when either person changes their part of it. It also gives you a clear read on whether the relationship can hold, which is hard to see from inside it.
Is this different from couples counselling?+
Yes. Couples counselling has both partners in the room and works on the relationship. This works with you: your grief, your decisions and your patterns. Some people do this first and couples work later, and some only ever need this.
How long after a break-up should I wait?+
There is no waiting period. People come the week it happens and people come two years later, still stuck. Earlier tends to mean shorter work, because less has hardened by then.
I am divorcing. Do I need a counsellor or a lawyer?+
Usually both, for different problems. A lawyer handles the settlement. Counselling handles the decisions, the co-parenting relationship and the part that keeps you awake, none of which a legal process addresses.
More answers in the general FAQs, or ask Anne directly.
Often works alongside
Couples Counselling
If both of you will come, couples work addresses the pattern directly.
Separation Counselling
Deciding whether to separate, and separating with less damage.
Grief Counselling
Loss is loss, including the kind where the person is still alive.
Ready to start on your own?
Book online in under a minute, or send a question first — Anne answers her own enquiries.