Holiday Relationship Stress: The 5 Ps of staying connected
The holiday season can be a time of joy, togetherness, and celebration. It can also be chaotic, stressful and overwhelming, as many couples navigate myriad stressors that may impact the security of their relationship. Relationship insecurity often leads to conflict,...
5 Myths About Attachment: What the research really says
Attachment theory is having its moment! There’s so much information out in the public sphere now—books, podcasts, social media pages, workshops—that it is easy to become overwhelmed by it all and hard to discern what’s true and what’s not. Personally, I am excited...
Why Secure Functioning Matters More Than Secure Attachment in Couples
It’s commonly thought that having a secure attachment style in yourself or your partner is the holy grail of relationships. The belief goes that if you have a secure attachment style you won’t be troubled by the push-me-pull-you of insecure attachment and that...
Nervous System Regulation Explained: How to coping with life’s challenges
One of the main things I focus on as a foundational practice in my sessions with individuals and couples is arousal regulation. That is, learning how to be aware of and manage stress and stressors in real-time as it affects one’s nervous system. I actually think that...
The Relationship Power of Being Safely Vulnerable
Vulnerability is critical to deep and intimate relationships. Try as we might, there is no getting around this basic fact of relating. To reveal our deep, guarded inner selves and have that met and held with respect by another person is the very essence of intimacy,...
Relationship Integrity: Values & Priorities
What does the word integrity mean to you when you hear it? And how do you think integrity applies in your relationship? In the past I’ve always thought of integrity as meaning something akin to honour. A common definition is it’s the thing you do when no-one else is...
Managing Couple Stress and Conflict During Covid
For many Melbournians lockdown 4.0 probably comes with a feeling of déjà vu. We’ve done this before and we’ll do it again, but we wish we didn’t have to in the first place. We’re nearly a week in and with the extension returns the sense of uncertainty, limitation, and...
Reasons to do couples therapy before things get worse
There’s a saying in Traditional Chinese Medicine along the lines of if you get sick, fire your doctor. A doctor’s role is to keep you healthy, to prevent sickness from occurring in the first place. I wish people would take the same approach with...