Relationship Counselling
Your journey to trust, affection and unconditional love
Rediscover Understanding, Communication & Connection
Relationships are not simply about two people being together. They are shaped by how two separate inner worlds — each with their own history, emotions, and patterns — meet in communication.
In my work, I understand relationship difficulties as involving three interconnected elements:
Person A — their emotional world, history, attachment patterns, and ways of responding
Person B — their emotional world, history, attachment patterns, and ways of responding
The communication between you — the space where these inner worlds meet, connect, misfire, and repair
In relationship counselling, the focus is on this shared space of communication. We explore what happens between you — how you speak, listen, withdraw, pursue, misunderstand, or protect yourselves — while also noticing how each person’s inner world shapes these patterns.
This approach avoids blame or diagnosis. Instead, it supports understanding of how relational difficulties emerge and how communication can shift when it is held with care, clarity, and curiosity.
What Relationship Counselling Offers
Relationship counselling provides a structured, contained space to slow things down and explore what is happening between you.
Together, we may:
Notice recurring patterns of communication or conflict
Explore how emotional histories and attachment styles show up in the relationship
Attend to moments of disconnection as well as attempts to repair
Support clearer expression, listening, and emotional presence
Create space for reflection rather than escalation
This work is not about techniques or being told how to communicate “correctly”. It is about making sense of what is already happening, so that choices become more conscious and less reactive.
Relationship counselling can support couples who are experiencing:
repeated misunderstandings or conflict
emotional distance or loss of connection
difficulties with trust or intimacy
challenges following major life changes
uncertainty about how to move forward
At times, couples come to therapy following a significant rupture of trust, including infidelity. In these situations, the work is not about rushing toward decisions or assigning blame. Instead, relationship counselling offers a contained space to understand what has happened, how it has been experienced by each person, and what may be needed moving forward — whether together or separately. There is no expectation to know, at the outset, what the outcome should be.
Relationship Work and Individual Therapy
This doesn’t mean the relationship lacks value. Relationship counselling is often complete and sufficient in itself.
At times, relationship work can also help clarify whether individual therapy might be helpful at a later stage — once the relationship work has come to a natural pause or ending. This is not a parallel process, nor an expectation, but something that may emerge thoughtfully as understanding deepens.
In this way, relationship counselling remains a dedicated space for the relationship, while individual therapy — if it becomes relevant — has its own clear and appropriate container.
Who This Work Suits
Relationship counselling can be supportive for:
couples in long-term relationships
unmarried partners
couples considering separation
people in non-traditional relationship arrangements
partners who feel stuck in patterns of conflict, distance, or avoidance
Even if one partner is hesitant, it is possible to attend sessions individually to clarify personal experience and relational goals.
You don’t have to wait until things are “bad enough” — counselling can also help strengthen connection and mutual understanding before more entrenched difficulties develop
Session Format & Practicalities
Relationship counselling is offered in 60-minute sessions, held within an agreed therapeutic structure. Rather than working on an open-ended basis, sessions are offered in blocks, with dates and times agreed in advance.
This approach provides a steady container and supports continuity, reflection, and momentum over time. A review is built in at the end of each block, allowing space to reflect together and consider next steps.
Sessions take place online via Zoom and are available for clients both in the UK and abroad. Many people living outside the UK choose this form of work for its continuity, depth, and relational focus.
Further details about session structure, review meetings, booking, and fees can be found on the Session Structure, Booking & Fees page.
Why This Approach Helps
Relationships are often where private emotional worlds become visible. When two people share a life, their histories, hopes, fears, and protective strategies meet in everyday communication. By attending carefully to what happens between you, relationship counselling creates space for understanding rather than reactivity, and for movement that comes from awareness rather than force.
Testimonials
Brilliant experience. Ruta is highly recommended by us!. My partner was very reluctant to do therapy and Ruta made us both at ease straight away. We have really enjoyed our sessions and can't tell you how much she has helped us move forward. We will be grateful forever for the tools she has given us. An also the giggles. It has been a brilliant experience.
I cannot recommend Ruta highly enough. I was in a very dark place when she was suggested to me by a friend and she turned my life around. I was very stressed and struggling with the relationship in my life. She took the time, talked through the situations and gave me practical solutions to make changes and improve things. 3 months on and I could not be happier, have reassessed and prioritised what is important in my life. Knowing others that have also utilised Ruta's services, she cleverly structures the guidance and support to the individual. If you have any doubt about booking a trial session... don't, just book it. For me it has been superbly transformative and positive.
© Ruta Gabalis Integrative Psychology & Therapy
Online Therapy (UK & International) | Reflective Consultancy (Online & International) | In-person bodywork by arrangement (Integrative Therapy only).