Paul Cockayne - Relationship Counsellor

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paulcockayne3@gmail.com
For more information about me click on a link on the right

Communication is often a central theme in couple counselling, and people sometimes forget that communication is not just about talking – it is also about listening. And sometimes we fall into some bad habits when we listen. Are you guilty of any of these?

“I know what you’re going to say” – you’ve heard it before, a hundred times, you know what your partner’s going to say, so you don’t need to listen, do you?
“I really need to dive in there” – your partner says something that’s unfair, or annoying. You can’t let them get away with that! So you interrupt before they’ve finished.
“You’re sounding like my mother” – so rather that listening to what your partner’s saying, you start instead to think about your mother, and the things she used to say.

Counselling can help you to identify these, and other unhelpful patterns in your communication and to find ways of listening properly to your partner. And if you can both do that, suddenly it can become much easier to negotiate and compromise.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paul_Cockayne@hotmail.com
For more information about me go to http://www.paulcockayne.counselling.co.uk/

They say that opposites attract and it’s true that often we choose a partner who is different from us in important ways. Some people like to talk, others prefer to listen. Two talkers in a relationship might fight to get a word in edgeways – two listeners might spend their evenings sitting in silence. While such clashes are not necessarily terminal for a relationship, a couple is likely to “fit” better if a talker and a listener pair up.

But this too can lead to problems. Over time, the listener may allow the talker to fill the silences more and more. The talker, rejoicing in the space they have, may fill it eagerly. And eventually, that may go too far – the talker may be heard to say “all you do is sit in silence, I’m doing all the work!” and the listener might think (but maybe not say) “I can never get a word in edgeways”.

Counselling can help by enabling couples to identify this sort of pattern and hence to change it. Typically, that change requires effort by both parties to change their natural tendencies so that a better balance – perhaps the balance that existed at the sart of the relationship – can be found.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paul_Cockayne@hotmail.com
For more information about me go to http://www.paulcockayne.counselling.co.uk/

I was talking to a couple recently about communication and they asked for some practical tips. Here are a few of the ideas we came up with.

1. Be curious. If your partner expresses an opinion that you don’t agree with, don’t just express your point of view – that can easily lead to an argument. Instead try saying something like “That’s interesting. I’m not sure I agree, so could you explain why you hold that view?”
2. Listen. Really listen. Sometimes when I am listening, an idea pops into my head and I am so taken by this that I start thinking about that, waiting for a gap in the conversation when I can get in and say it. While I am doing this, I stop listening to whoever is talking. I try not to do this when I am counselling!!
3. Think about banning certain words. “Always” and “Never” are very definite sort of words which can be accusatory – try “sometimes” or “often” instead. Similarly “right” and “wrong” are problematic. Instead of “you’re wrong”, try “I hold a slightly different view”.

There are many more ways o trying to improve communication, and of course all couples are different in the way they communicate. Working directly with a counsellor on this can enable you more easily to identify particular patterns of conversation that are problematic for you.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paul_Cockayne@hotmail.com
For more information about me go to http://www.paulcockayne.counselling.co.uk/

It is worth starting off by saying what counselling is not. It is not psychoanalysis – there is no lying on couches, I do not speak with a strange Austrian accent, and I will not come out with psychobabble or weird theories about you wanting to kill your father and marry your mother – or the other way round.

Counselling is quite a practical sort of help, focussing on what you want to talk about in a way that makes sense to you. That can involve talking about your history, including your childhood, because experiences we have as kids can influence how we are today. But if there are things you prefer not to talk about, we won’t talk about them. Very often in couple counselling we will focus on the present rather than on the past, working on the interaction between you as a couple, seeking to improve communication between you.

There are no magic answers in relationships. In successful relationships couples listen to each other, understand each other, and are prepared to negotiate and find “win-win” solutions. Counselling can help you to do that, not by giving you the answers, but by helping you to communicate more effectively.

Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406 – paul_Cockayne@hotmail.com
More more information about me go to http://www.paulcockayne.counselling.co.uk/

Opposites attract, they say, and there’s a lot of truth in that – if we are a good listener, we are likely to get on with people who do more talking, and vice versa. And so naturally, in social situations, and in private, one of the couple will often do more of the talking than the other.

There is no problem with this, except that often, with time, our natural roles become exaggerated – the listener talks less and less, the talker listens less and less. And then there can be a problem – suddenly the listener is feeling “I can never get a word in edgeways” and the talker is feeling “I’m doing all the work here”. It can even be that this natural pattern becomes a way for the couple to avoid difficult subjects of conversation.

Counselling can help, first by identifying the pattern, and then by changing it. A counsellor can observe what is happening and help the couple to change by asking the talker to be quiet for a while, and encouraging the listener to speak up.

One of the most frequent issues couples bring to relationship counselling is that they have difficulty communicating.  Sometimes arguments can flare up very quickly, often over silly things.  Sometimes couples feel that they have nothing to say to each other.  Sometimes communication is dominated by one of the couple to the exclusion of the other. 

Counselling can help to improve communication.  Just the fact that you are in a neutral environment, talking in front of a third person, can improve things considerably.  Sometimes I find I need to direct the conversations, especially in the early stages of counselling, to make sure that both of the couple get enough air-time, and understand each other.  But gradually, couples find it much easier to listen to their partner’s point of view, to respect their right to speak, and hence to understand why they might hold a different opinion.

This is the first step; generally, as counselling progresses, I find myself needing to intervene in the conversations less and less, and couples are able to talk to each other directly in the counselling room without my help.  This new way of communicating is then something that the couple can use outside the counselling room.  And with this respectful two-way communication, working on problems in the relationship can suddenly become much easier to do.