Relationship difficulties are among the most common reasons people seek therapy — though rarely in those words. Sometimes the struggle is specific: jealousy you cannot quite account for, the aftermath of an affair or betrayal, loneliness within relationships, fear of intimacy, or patterns of codependency and people-pleasing, a recurring conflict with a partner, a dynamic that neither of you can quite shift, a growing distance you do not know how to close. Sometimes it is more pervasive — the same pattern appearing across different relationships, different people, and yet the same outcome. Breakups and the end of significant relationships can also bring someone to this kind of work.
Both are worth understanding. And both can be worked with in individual therapy.
These patterns are rarely random. They often reflect earlier experiences of attachment, loss, care or boundary — or emotional abuse in past or present relationships. Some people want to understand patterns that developed in the context of domestic abuse: how they learned to accommodate, anticipate danger, or withdraw. Ways of relating that once made sense may now limit rather than protect you. That is work for reflection and understanding over time — not crisis intervention. If you are at immediate risk, please contact the police or the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
Individual therapy for relationship problems
I work with individuals, not couples. This is focused psychotherapy for one person who wants to understand their part in relational difficulties — how they respond under stress, what they expect from others, what they find difficult and why.
Psychoanalytic and relational approaches pay close attention to what happens between therapist and client as well as what you describe outside the room. Patterns that appear in your wider life often emerge in the therapeutic relationship too — and working with that directly can be uniquely useful.
Online therapy for relationship problems — who it's for
I work with adults across the UK in weekly 50-minute online sessions at £75. If you are looking for couples therapy, I am not the right fit — but I am happy to discuss individual work on relationship patterns if that is what you need.
Read more: Why do I keep repeating the same patterns in relationships? →