The pattern, not the person
We map the cycle you both get caught in, so it stops being a question of who is at fault.
Services · 03
Relationship Counselling
Every couple has conflict. What shapes a relationship is what happens next.
50-minute sessionsBoth partners onlineIndividual sessions available
Per 50-minute couples session, plus GST. 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.
Relationship counselling gives both partners a space where they can be heard without the conversation escalating. We map the pattern the two of you fall into — who pursues, who withdraws, what each of you is protecting — then build a different way through the same moment.
Sessions are balanced by design. Neither partner is put on trial, and neither is asked to hold the relationship together alone. Individual sessions can run alongside couples work where that helps.
Bring your relationship here if
- The same argument repeats with different words
- Trust has been damaged and you both want to repair it
- Conversation has gone quiet and polite
- Parenting, money or intimacy have become no-go areas
- One of you is deciding whether to stay
What we work on together
Repair skills
How to raise something hard, how to hear it, and how to come back after a rupture.
Emotional safety
Ground rules that make honesty possible without either partner feeling ambushed.
How the work unfolds
Emotionally focused workGottman-informedConflict repairIndividual sessions alongside
01
Both stories
The first session hears from each of you properly, without interruption or scorekeeping, and names what you each want from the work.
02
The cycle
We map the pattern you fall into — the trigger, the move, the counter-move — so the problem becomes the cycle rather than each other.
03
New moves
Rehearsed, in session, on real material: how to raise something hard, how to stay in the room, how to repair afterwards.
04
Making it stick
Weekly practices and a check-in ritual you can run without me, plus a plan for what to do when it goes badly.
“We stopped arguing about the dishwasher and started talking about what the dishwasher meant.”
Couple · relationship counselling
Common questions
Will you take sides?+
No. I will be direct with both of you about behaviour that is damaging the relationship, which sometimes feels like taking sides in the moment. Over the course of the work it lands evenly.
Do you see us separately?+
Sometimes one individual session each, early on, to hear things that are hard to say in front of a partner. Anything said there stays confidential, which is agreed with both of you upfront.
What if one of us wants to separate?+
That is workable material. Counselling can help you decide honestly rather than by attrition, and can make a separation less damaging where that is the outcome — particularly with children involved.
More answers in the general FAQs, or ask Anne directly.
Practical guides for this work
Often works alongside
Individual Counselling
One-to-one work to understand what is going on and decide what to do about it.
Anger Management Counselling
Understand the trigger, learn the pause. Court-recognised four-session program available.
Grief Counselling
For any loss — death, separation, diagnosis, estrangement — at your own pace.
Ready to start with Relationship Counselling?
Book online in under a minute, or send a question first — Anne answers her own enquiries.