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Couples Therapy
Relationships can be deeply loving and still feel difficult. When you’re stuck in repeated arguments, growing distance, or a loss of trust, it can start to feel as though the relationship is running you rather than supporting you.
Couples therapy offers a structured space to understand your relationship pattern and shift it. Some couples come because things have reached a crisis point. Others come earlier because something has quietly changed: less closeness, more tension, or the sense that you’re managing life together but not really connecting.
At Hampstead Psychology, we offer couples counselling in London and online across the UK. Our approach is warm, evidence-based, and practical.
This page is for information and does not replace a clinical assessment, diagnosis, or medical advice.
When relationship difficulties start to take over
Many couples wait a long time before seeking help. Often it’s because you’re hoping things will settle, you’re unsure how to talk about it, or you’re worried counselling will make things worse. In reality, therapy is often most effective when you address patterns early, before resentment and distance become entrenched. You might recognise some of these experiences:
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You keep having the same argument, even when the topic changes.Small issues escalate quickly, and you both feel misunderstood.
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One of you pursues, the other withdraws — and neither of you feels safe.
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You feel more like housemates than partners, with little warmth or playfulness.
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You avoid difficult topics because they end in conflict or shutdown.
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There has been a breach of trust, and you don’t know how to rebuild.
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You feel lonely in the relationship, even though you’re not alone.Intimacy has changed, and it’s hard to talk about without tension.
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You’re trying hard, but nothing seems to shift, and hope feels fragile.
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You’re worried about the future and don’t know whether to stay, repair, or separate well.
If any of this fits, it doesn’t mean your relationship is “broken.” It often means you’re stuck in a pattern that has become self-reinforcing. Couples counselling helps you step out of that pattern, understand what’s underneath it, and build a safer way of relating.
How relationship difficulties can show up
Conflict cycles that repeat
Many couples don’t argue because they don’t care. They argue because the relationship matters, and the threat system comes online. You may find yourselves locked into a predictable cycle: criticism and defensiveness, pursuit and withdrawal, anger and shutdown. Over time, the cycle becomes the problem, not the original issue.
Distance and disconnection
Some couples aren’t fighting, but they’re not close either. You might be functional, kind, and responsible, but emotionally separate. This can happen after years of stress, parenting demands, illness, busy schedules, or unresolved hurts. Counselling helps you understand how disconnection formed and how to rebuild closeness gradually, without forcing it.
Trust, rupture, and repair
Trust can be damaged through betrayal, secrecy, repeated broken promises, or ongoing patterns of unreliability. Repair is possible, but it requires clarity, accountability, emotional safety, and a shared process that both people can trust. Therapy supports couples to move out of blame and into a structured repair path, at a pace that is realistic.
Different needs, different ways of coping
Many relationship problems are intensified by differences: different emotional styles, different attachment needs, different expectations of closeness, different conflict habits, different experiences of family, and different thresholds for stress. The aim isn’t to make you the same. It’s to help you understand each other more accurately and respond in ways that protect the relationship.
What keeps couples stuck?
When relationships feel threatened, both people usually move into protection. The problem is that each person’s protection can trigger the other.
A difficult moment happens.
One person tries to get closeness or change quickly (pushing, criticising, pursuing). The other tries to reduce threat (withdrawing, shutting down, becoming practical or silent). One feels abandoned; the other feels attacked. The cycle repeats and becomes more entrenched.
Therapy helps you see the cycle clearly, understand what it’s made of (hurt, fear, longing, unmet needs), and build responses that create safety rather than escalation.
See our other pages here: Psychosexual Therapy, Stress and Burnout, Parenting, Anxiety Therapy, Menopause Support, Fees, Meet the Team, Contact.
How couples therapy helps
We tailor therapy to what you’re dealing with. For many couples, the work includes:
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Understanding your cycle and learning how to interrupt it.
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Improving communication so you can talk about hard things without spiralling.
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Strengthening emotional attunement, so each person feels seen and safer.
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Building repair skills after conflict, rather than carrying unresolved resentment.
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Working with trust and rebuilding reliability where it has been damaged.
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Making sense of recurring themes (criticism, shutdown, jealousy, control, avoidance) so the roots of the pattern change, not just the surface behaviour.
The goal is not to assign blame. It’s to help you become a team again.
What to expect from sessions?
We start by understanding what’s happening in your relationship: what you’re stuck in, what you’ve tried, what each of you is experiencing, and what you want to be different. We agree clear goals and a shared map of the pattern.
Sessions are structured and collaborative. You’ll be supported to speak honestly without escalating, and to listen in a way that increases understanding rather than defensiveness. Between sessions, we may suggest small experiments to practise new ways of responding, and we’ll review them together.
How long does couples therapy take?
It varies. Some couples want focused work on communication, conflict, or intimacy. Others need longer, particularly where trust has been damaged or distance has built up over years. We review progress together so therapy stays purposeful and aligned with your goals.
Couples counselling in London and online
We offer couples counselling in person in London and online across the UK. Online therapy can work very well when both partners can attend consistently from a private space.
Contact Hampstead Psychology to enquire about couples counselling in London or online.
Meet The Team
At Hampstead Psychology, all of our psychologists have extensive training to doctoral level and decades of experience in their field of expertise. You will be matched with a psychologist that has the knowledge and skill to help you understand and overcome your problem - not just in the short term but for good.
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