Therapy for stranded or dysfunctional relationships
Sometimes your relationship gets stuck, because both of you have changed, because you doubt whether you still love your partner, because you get on each other’s nerves, because your partner doesn’t like the way it is, because you both long for another form of intimacy, because …, because …, because.
I counsel couples in the process of finding a new balance in their relationship. My main focus is on how the partners wish to relate to each other and how they themselves can give form to that desired relationship.
This work includes themes such as relational emotions, attachment and bonding, communicating, negotiating, and dealing with power, irritation, conflict, intimacy and sexuality.
We also examine how the two of you manage to get in each other’s way, the causes of such obstructive behaviour, and how you try to deal with it.
As a result of the therapy, the satisfaction and pleasure in each other grows, and both of you gain insight into how you can keep the relationship alive and deepen it.
Other aspects
Relationship therapy is all about how the partners relate to each other in the here-and-now, even if the causes of the relationship problems lie in the (distant) past. For this reason, I work practically and pragmatically. I counsel and coach, and regularly make excursions into actual therapy.
In the first session we get to know each other, take stock of the problematic aspects of the relationship and briefly map out the direction in which we want the therapy to go. In subsequent sessions we work that out in greater detail and make further agreements for the rest of the therapy course.
The typical therapy course consists of five to ten sessions, which may be combined, if necessary, with one-on-one sessions for each partner individually. In this setting, both partners work on the relationship and on themselves in a practical way.
My methods are derived from those of Alfons Vansteenwegen and Jürg Willi, two major relationship therapists. I also make use of homework assignments. Each sessions lasts 75 minutes. In consultation, we may also decide to conduct the relationship therapy with two therapists. (My co-therapist is my wife, Conny Heuvelman).
My relationship
I have had a few major, beautiful relationships in my life. The present one, with Conny Heuvelman, is deeply satisfying. In order to achieve that, both of us have had to struggle for many long years. Without that effort, we most probably wouldn’t be together anymore.