Relationship Counselling In Melbourne
Camberwell | Online (Australia-Wide)
Struggling with communication, trust, or emotional disconnection?
Partners bring their unique histories and preconceived ideas about what relationships should be like. When conflicts persist or the relationship loses its vitality, couples therapy provides a valuable outside perspective.
Many couples struggle to address underlying issues and face communication breakdown, difficult transitions, parenting challenges, betrayals of trust, grief and loss, and/or emotional disconnection.
We offer a non-judgmental and compassionate approach to guide you through difficult conversations. By fostering trust and closeness, therapy facilitates understanding and creates emotional safety within the relationship.
We can help you and your partner:
Identify and transform harmful patterns into healthy interactions that foster a strong and lasting partnership
Improve empathy and emotional understanding between each other
Strengthen your friendship and intimacy
Explore and identify the root causes of conflicts
Understand and address individual and relationship stressors
If you are unable to find a suitable appointment time, please consider completing our enquiry form below. This will allow us to check for any potential availability, including possible cancellations, and accommodate your needs accordingly.
Emotion Focused Therapy in Melbourne
Support to strengthen connection and emotional safety in your relationship
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) helps partners understand and transform cycles that create distance, conflict, or disconnection. EFT supports each partner to explore the deeper needs and fears that often remain hidden beneath the surface of our arguments.
These patterns can be compared to a familiar path, where the steps feel familiar and the effects on each partner is profound. Many relationships find themselves caught in this repetitive cycle, struggling to break free from its grip.
EFT provides a gentle and non-blaming approach to address the distress within couples and relationships. It values and validates the unique perspectives of each partner, by diving beneath the surface to uncover the deeper needs and fears that often go unnoticed, enabling partners to authentically express these emotions to one another. This transformative process paves the way for new steps, one rooted in connection, safety, and security.
The ultimate aim is to facilitate the development of a secure attachment within couples and relationships.
“AS HUMANS, WE ARE HARD-WIRED TO FORM LOVING CONNECTIONS WITH SAFE OTHERS. OUR EARLIEST CARE-GIVING RELATIONSHIPS SHAPE OUR EXPECTATIONS OF CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS LATER IN LIFE.”
Attachment
John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is one of the founding figures of attachment theory, claimed that our early relationships with caregivers provides us a blueprint for how we view and navigate relationships later in life.
Our attachment styles, shaped by our caregivers' responsiveness to us in our early life, influence how we cope with seeking support. If our caregivers were responsive and available, we learn that we can rely on others for support and comfort, and feel safe and worthy in doing so. However, if our caregivers were less responsive, we may have learned that we cannot rely on others to meet our emotional needs and that we are not worthy of doing so. We develop strategies to amplify our emotions OR we learn to manage on our own. These strategies helped us cope when support was unavailable.
“Losing connection with your loved one not only jeopardises your sense of security but also triggers an alarm in the amygdala, the brain’s threat and fear centre. In that moment, rational thinking takes a back seat, and primal panic takes over, prompting immediate reactions. Understanding and addressing this primal response is key to restoring a sense of calm and fostering healthier connections”
Individual Work on Relationship Patterns
Relationships with others ask us to be in close relationship with our Self.
Sometimes the challenges in your relationships will mirror patterns you’ve carried since childhood, such as attachment styles, people‑pleasing, perfectionism, or boundary struggles that can leave you feeling stuck.
Individual therapy focused on relationship patterns offers a space to:
Understand your attachment style and how early experiences shape your needs and fears.
Heal relational ruptures and inner‑child wounds that still influence your interactions.
Build self‑compassion so you can bring your whole self to relationships.
Set and maintain healthy boundaries with less guilt and anxiety.
Understand codependency or over‑accommodating patterns that drain your energy.
When you heal your relationship with yourself, you transform how you show up for others.
Navigating Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Relationships
Cultural and spiritual diversity can enrich a relationship, and it can also bring complexity, especially when unspoken expectations, communication differences, or family pressures come into play.
You or your partner might feel torn between cultural values and personal needs. Perhaps you're navigating differing views on family roles, gender expectations, or emotional expression. Or you may struggle to feel truly seen and understood in your unique experiences.
Relationship counselling offers a space where both of you can explore your values, deepen your understanding of each other's worldviews, and find ways to honour your differences without losing connection.
Together, we can build bridges, not just between each other, but between the past and the present, tradition and future paths.
Relationship Changes After Becoming Parents
The transition to parenthood can shake even the strongest relationships. Amidst sleep deprivation, shifting roles, and heightened emotional needs, it’s common for couples to feel disconnected or overwhelmed.
You might find yourself arguing more often, withdrawing, or struggling to communicate. One partner may feel unsupported, while the other feels unseen. Intimacy may change. Time together might feel scarce.
We support couples during this time of change, whether you're expecting your first child or navigating the early years of parenting.
Counselling can help you reconnect, voice unspoken feelings, and find new rhythms of support, respect, and care as you learn how you wish to parent together.
Becoming parents doesn’t mean losing your partnership. It means learning how to care for your relationship in new ways.