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

Some people have very few memories of their childhood – this may be because they just have a bad memory but I have a theory that memory is something that needs exercise. By that I mean that if we tend reflect on the past, we will retain memories more readily. If, on the other hand, we tend to draw a line under past events and move on, then memories will fade much quicker.

I am not saying that either of these approaches is right or wrong, both have their advantages and disadvantages, and as with so many things, it is a matter of finding the right balance for you personally.

Sometimes clients feel that they want more of an understanding of why they behave as they do – perhaps why certain things make them angry or frightened – perhaps why they hold certain beliefs and ideas. In trying to develop more understanding, it is important to assess the impact of past events and our present behaviour. It’s rather like a jigsaw puzzle – individual pieces don’t make a lot of sense, but put together in the right way, they give us a complete picture.

For those people with few childhood memories, the jigsaw can be difficult to complete, but memories are not lost completely, they are in there somewhere, and counselling can help to stimulate the memories. There’s nothing mystical or sinister about this, it’s just a matter of exercising one’s memory, of kicking it back into life.

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

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.

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

Do you understand how your partner feels? And does your partner understand how you feel? Many people will answer “yes” to the first and “no” to the second – and be surprised or offended when their partner does the same.

Sometimes, in counselling I suggest to a couple that they swap roles, that the “play” at being their partner for a while. Then we have a conversation – about who they are, what is important to them, what they think of their partner (i.e. themselves!), and so on. We might do this for perhaps 15-20 minutes before finishing the “swap” and then reviewing it.

It can be an enlightening experience to put yourself in your partner’s shoes, and to hear your partner pretending to be you. It can help to think about yourself, your partner and your relationship in a different, more constructive, way.

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.