Relationship Counselling

At Charter we do a great deal of therapeutic work with the family members and partners of clients who are suffering from addiction. Most of the time, when an addiction has been present, communication will have broken down. In most cases, the addict's relationships are littered with misunderstandings, resentments and hurt. The main purpose of relationship counselling sessions is to re-establish healthy channels of communication and start to move towards a mutually satisfying future. You can find more information about how addiction penetrates and corrupts relationships in our Family Support, Relationships and Co-dependency pages.

We also work with many couples whose relationship has not been affected by the presence of addictive disorders, but who are experiencing difficulties in their relationship such as insecurity, infidelity, stress, and major change. Whether a couple or parent/child come to see us when their relationship has broken down, or when they acknowledge that they are not relating as fully as they want to, we are able to help to renew the ability to communicate and reopen a loving and mutually respectful emotional dialogue. In some cases, sad though it is, we can help to facilitate the respectful separation of couples who are no longer able to continue a life together for whatever reason.

In all these scenarios, our approach is the same: to listen carefully to the experience of each person involved, to explore the dynamic of the relationship, understand its impact on the extended family, and start to discover a way forward in which the best interests of each individual are respected and listened to.

At Charter we take an integrative approach to counselling and therapy from a person-centred standpoint. This means that our philosophical position is to draw on different therapeutic approaches (such as CBT, Gestalt, Humanistic/Person-Centred Therapy, Family Systems Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Personal Construct Theory and the Minnesota Model) within a non-judgemental and supportive frame. We recognise the influence of childhood and past events on a person's development, but are predominantly concerned with the subsequent choices that have been made and patterns that have developed, whether at a conscious or unconscious register. From this position, understanding the current state of the relationships between individuals becomes possible, and a process of growth towards a fuller, healthier relationship can begin.

Counselling is a process of acknowledging where the problems lie and working towards addressing them. We do not pretend to be able to 'fix' your relationship, but we aim to support each person in a process of self-development that provides them with a stronger sense of who they are, both individually and in terms of their relationships, and to furnish each person with an ability to make and honour decisions with respect and dignity.