Paul Cockayne - Relationship Counsellor

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

My work has brought me into contact with different sorts of addiction – primarily alcohol, drugs, smoking and also sexual addiction, such as compulsive use of the internet for pornography.

There are commonalities in dealing with these addictive behaviours, and my style is to work with addiction in two “strands”. The first is to look at the roots of the behaviour, to try to understand why my client is attracted to their particular sort of addiction, and what they get out of it – what emotions are they dealing with, what beliefs pull them towards their chosen addiction. The second strand is much more about the present and the future, focussing on techniques to help the client to change their behaviour, to be able to say “no” the next time an opportunity to get a hit presents itself.

It can also be helpful for clients to access a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous – and specific support groups also exist for other addictions. Many of these follow the same 12-step programme as Alcoholics Anonymous. Some people find this group environment very supportive, but others find it less helpful. Either way, counselling can help by providing a safe environment for the addict to discuss their particular issues and reflect on their progress.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

Some of us have good memories, some of us have bad ones and can remember very little of our childhood. In counselling, it is sometimes useful to look back to childhood to understand ourselves better. When did we learn that it was OK to tell lies? Who gave us that message? Is it still useful to us today or do we want to change it?

Piecing the past together is difficult for those of us with bad memories, but sometimes photographs can help to spark off lost memories. Just putting photos in chronological order and talking about the people and places in them can help us to think about events differently, to put things into perspective, to understand what from the past is influencing us in the present.

Counselling can be an important catalyst to encourage a process of self-reflection. Thinking about and understanding yourself are important steps towards making changes for the future.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

Sexual problems can be very difficult to deal with in a relationship because, even though we may know our partner extremely well, we still may not find it easy to talk about sex.

As with many other relationship issues, communication is very important. Are you able to sit down with your partner and talk about what you like and what you don’t like to do sexually? Can you tell your partner about things you’d like to try? Is your partner respectful of your right to say “no”?

If communication is difficult, sometimes that can be about having a language that is comfortable for you both. Do you have words you are both comfortable with using to describe parts of your bodies and different sexual acts? Some couples may talk about “making love”, or “being intimate” others about “having sex” or “screwing” – it doesn’t matter what words you use as long as both you and your partner are comfortable with them and can therefore talk openly about your sex life.

So sometimes, communication is the answer, to understand what you each like, and to know what anxieties your partner might have and how you can help them with those. Sometimes, however, sexual problems are more than just communication, and in those cases it may be that specialised sex therapy and/or help from your GP may be appropriate.

Counselling can help not only in improving communication but also in exploring other issues, perhaps stemming from previous relationships, which may be creating difficulties in your current relationship. Approaching sexual problems as a couple, rather than one individual taking the “blame” is also a healthy by-product of counselling.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

A common theme in the aftermath of an affair is that the injured party (IP) wants to know a lot of details about what has happened. This can be very difficult as often the guilty party (GP) will be reluctant to give information, perhaps because they fear it will hurt their partner, perhaps because the affair is now over and they want to forget about it and move on.

However, it is often important for the IP to “re-work” the past – because they may have been living a deception for quite a while, the IP will want to go back over events and work out what they were thinking, what their partner was thinking, where the GP said they were, where the GP actually was. It is natural to want to get answers to a million questions, and important that the GP is prepared to answer them honestly – this is a key part of starting to restore trust in the relationship. However, in this natural process lies a danger: in some cases the questioning can become obsessive for the IP and very repetitive for the GP. It is useful to bear two things in mind. First, only ask questions if you are prepared to hear the honest answers. Second, it can be useful to put time boundaries around the questioning, maybe an hour a day, or a couple of hours a week, and aim to reduce this over time.

Counselling can help with this process by providing a safe, neutral environment for the couple to talk about some of the more difficult subject areas and by giving the opportunity to take a step back and review what is happening, how it is affecting both parties, and their relationship.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

In a couple relationship, we can interpret things, at times, quite differently to our partner. An example from my recent work concerned silence, in my work with a couple I shall call Bob and Liz. Bob was very comfortable to sit together in silence – he felt it was safe, companionable and comforting. Liz, on the other hand, felt that silence was a bad sign – that Bob was upset with her, or was feeling unwell. And so Liz tended to break silences, to try to start conversations, while Bob saw this as a bit of an annoyance, an interruption to a peaceful happiness.

The origins of these interpretations seemed to come from childhood – Bob came from a large family where there was a lot of noise, and so silences were relaxing for him. Liz came from a family where silences were sulky or angry, and so for her silences were stressful.

Counselling helped Bob and Liz to identify their different interpretations of silence, and hence to work with them differently. Liz was better able to accept silences as positive, better able to work with her instinct to break the silence, to fix the problem. Bob was aware that silences could be stressful for Liz and so recognised the need, sometimes, to break the silence himself, just to reassure Liz that he was happy.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

When we talk about affairs, we tend to think primarily of a physical relationship, but not all affairs involve any kind of sexual element. And where there is a sexual element, the effect of that on the injured party can be very different if it is a “one night stand” as opposed to a long-running relationship.

Often (but not always), the most hurtful thing about an affair is not that one’s partner has had sex with someone else but the feeling of betrayal – and there are two main ways in which this is likely to manifest itself.

The first of these is the bond that exists between “affair couple”, which often becomes more important to the person having the affair than their relationship with their partner. So even without a sexual element, one’s partner may be sharing thoughts and feelings with the other party that they are not telling their partner about – and in these days of email and mobile phones it is easy to develop and maintain a relationship while meeting the other party comparatively rarely.

The second theme is that of concealment. The party having the affair will often claim “it’s just a friendship” but will not tell their partner details of it “because they might misunderstand and get upset”. So often even non-sexual affairs are accompanied by concealment and lying. When discovered, the sense of loss and betrayal for the injured party can be immense, and it is often these feelings that are most hurtful, rather than the thought of whatever may or may not have happened sexually.

Counselling can help by unpicking these themes and helping to re-establish the couple’s relationship as the most important one.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

Many couples find that they argue about little things – and can’t understand why they do it. It is also a common pattern that the little arguments become more frequent, and escalate more rapidly.

A useful technique to defuse arguments is to have a scoring system you both use. So when yet another argument about The Best Way To Load The Dishwasher threatens to start, just ask yourself the question “on a scale from 1 to 10, how important is it to me that the dishwasher is loaded the way I do it?”. If you find you are both scoring it very low, just let it go.

This technique can reduce the number of arguments you have, but it does not answer the question of why you have these arguments about silly little things. Generally, the answer to that tends to be “because it is a way of avoiding arguments about the big things”. Counselling can help you to get below the surface, understand what the big issues are, and talk about them in a safe environment. And if you can talk about the real issues in an adult way, the little arguments will just evaporate.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

In the aftermath of an affair it is common, and natural, for the injured party to feel jealous. The affair may have ended some time ago, as a couple you may be working together to understand the causes and regain trust, but nevertheless feelings of jealousy can overcome you without warning and with no apparent cause.

When this happens, it is useful if you can discuss it with your partner. Recovery from an affair is something that is best done as a couple, as this restores trust. So it is healthy to be able to say to your partner “I’m feeling really jealous at the moment, I’m not sure why”. Your partner can’t take those feelings away but they can be understanding present and to find joint solutions that can rebuild trust and improve your relationship., they can maybe give you a hug, reassure you that it’s all long over, say sorry for what they did again. How they can best help you will vary and it’s a good idea if you can talk about it and tell your partner what you need when it happens.

Sometimes you will be able to identify the trigger for these jealous feelings, such as your partner staying late at work or saying that they are going to visit a friend. In these cases you can talk about what your partner can do to reduce the feelings of jealousy, to reassure you that they are actually doing what they say they are doing.

Counselling can help by providing a safe environment to talk through these feelings with your partner.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

A common theme in my work as a couple counsellor is working with the aftermath of an affair. Affairs can destroy relationships, but paradoxically they can also be a trigger to helping couples to improve their relationships.

Affairs can have many different causes but the results are generally the same – a loss of trust for the injured party, accompanied by feelings of rejection and betrayal. Regaining trust is often a slow and painful process, and one that can seem impossible at first – but it can be done, through a combination of patience and understanding. Communication is immensely important in couples dealing with the aftermath of an affair. There have been secrets, big secrets, and it is important that both parties are able to be honest and open with each other in order to rebuild a sense of partnership.

Counselling can help in various ways, by improving communication, by building trust, by developing an mutual understanding of what has happened, by giving you some tools to help deal with difficult moments, and to re-negotiate the relationship in the future. I will write more on these themes in the next few weeks.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
This is a sort of counselling “blog” to give you a flavour of how I work. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links on the right of this page

Couples often ask me how counselling can help – “you can’t make us agree with each other, can you?” and of course I can’t – but I can help couples to disagree in a better way – a constructive way, rather than a destructive one.

The ability to communicate with each other is so important. In the early days of counselling, couples often communicate only through me – so that I see each of the couple talking to me – sometimes appealing to me to take their side of the argument. In such situations, I sometimes feel like a messenger – listening, passing the message on – getting a reaction, passing that back. And that is helpful because I am not reacting emotionally to what I am hearing – instead I am listening respectfully and understanding both points of view.

As counselling progresses, I often see couples start to dispense with my services as a messenger, so that increasingly, rather than talking through me, they start to talk directly to each other. And sometimes I find myself just sitting and observing a couple having a constructive conversation, when a few weeks before there were unable to speak to each other except through me.

And so counselling can be like riding a bicycle. To start off with, you need someone’s hand on the saddle, running alongside to make sure you don’t fall off. And then you look round and realise that they let go some time ago and you’ve been riding along all on your own.