Couples Therapy Maleny

When we lose our way with one another

There is an old Celtic story about the selkie, a creature who moves between two worlds, the sea and the land.

In the stories, the selkie sometimes becomes separated from the sea and from the part of herself that knows where she belongs. She may find herself living according to the expectations of another world, while something deeper within her quietly longs to return.

I often think about this when I think about relationships.

We can become a little lost in one another.

At the beginning of a relationship, there can be a sense of discovery and curiosity about another person, of turning towards them, listening, noticing, touching, laughing, and learning who they are. There is often a sense of us emerging between two people.

And then life happens.

Work. Children. Family. Stress. Illness. Grief. Change. Old wounds. Unspoken disappointments. The things we meant to talk about but never quite found the time for.

Sometimes we begin to move further away from one another.

Sometimes we move closer, but lose ourselves in the process.

We might find ourselves arguing about the same things again and again. One person pursues while the other withdraws. One becomes louder while the other becomes quieter. We defend, criticise, shut down, explain, avoid or try harder to be understood.

And sometimes there isn't much conflict at all.

Things simply become quiet.

The conversations become practical. The warmth becomes harder to find. There may still be love, but less contact. Two people can share a home, a family and a life, while quietly experiencing a growing sense of loneliness within the relationship.

From a Gestalt perspective, I am interested not only in what is happening between two people, but in how it is happening.

How do you reach for one another?

How do you protect yourself when you feel hurt?

What happens in your body when your partner moves towards you — or away from you?

What happens just before the argument begins?

What happens in the silence?

What do you long to say but find difficult to put into words?

And what happens to you when you feel unseen, unheard, criticised, rejected or misunderstood?

Coming home to yourself, and finding one another again

The Selkie story speaks to me because therapy is, in many ways, about coming home.

Not becoming someone different.
Not fixing what is broken.
Not learning how to have the perfect relationship.

But returning to a deeper awareness of who you are, what you experience, what you need and how you make contact with the world around you.

This can be particularly important within intimate relationships.

When we become disconnected from ourselves, it can become difficult to remain genuinely present with another person. We can become caught in old ways of protecting ourselves, withdrawing, pleasing, controlling, pursuing, criticising or becoming silent, often without realising that these responses are attempts to protect something vulnerable underneath.

Gestalt therapy invites us to slow this process down.

Rather than looking for someone to blame, we become curious about what is happening between you.

We notice the moments of contact and the moments when contact breaks down.

We notice what each person is experiencing.

We pay attention to the body, to emotion, to language, to silence and to the subtle ways each person moves towards or away from the other.

And we become curious about what might be possible if there were a little more awareness in those moments.

Sometimes, simply becoming aware of a pattern begins to create a small space around it.

In that space, there can be choice.

A different way of speaking.

A pause before withdrawing.

The courage to say “That hurt me” rather than turning away.

The possibility of hearing something that previously felt impossible to hear.

The possibility of meeting one another not only through the stories you have about each other, but through what is actually happening between you now.

Relationship as something we create together

Gestalt therapy understands relationship as something that happens at the boundary between people.

There is you.

There is me.

And there is the space we create between us.

That space is constantly changing.

Sometimes there is closeness and warmth. Sometimes there is distance. Sometimes there is uncertainty, tension, desire, frustration or grief.

None of this necessarily means that something has gone wrong.

Relationships are living things. They change as we change.

The work is not necessarily to return to how things were before.

Sometimes the invitation is to discover what your relationship might become now.

Couples therapy can offer a place to pause within that process.

A place where both people can be present.

A place to become curious about the patterns that have developed between you.

A place where difficult things can be spoken, felt and explored with support.

And a place where each person can begin to find their way back to themselves, because sometimes, it is through finding ourselves again that we become more available to truly meet another.

What we might explore together

Our work may include exploring:

• the patterns you find yourselves repeating

• communication and the moments when communication breaks down

• conflict, resentment and recurring arguments

• withdrawal, avoidance or emotional distance

• intimacy and trust

• experiences of loneliness within the relationship

• parenting and the changes it can bring to a partnership

• grief, loss, illness or other significant life experiences

• changes in identity and relationship as life unfolds

• the ways each person protects themselves when they feel vulnerable

• what remains unsaid between you

• how you each experience closeness, distance and connection

• and what it might mean to meet one another differently

There is no expectation that either person needs to arrive knowing exactly what needs to change.

We can begin with what is here.

Perhaps there is anger.

Perhaps there is sadness.

Perhaps there is confusion.

Perhaps there is still a great deal of love, but you no longer know how to find your way towards one another.

Perhaps one of you wants to be here more than the other.

All of these experiences can be part of the conversation.

My role is not to take sides or decide who is right. It is to support a space where each person's experience can be encountered with curiosity, honesty and care, while also bringing attention to what is happening between you.

Through a relational Gestalt approach, we can slow things down enough to notice what is often missed in the rush of everyday life.

Sometimes, in that slowing down, something new becomes possible.

A little more understanding.

A little more choice.

A moment of genuine contact.

A different conversation.

A return to something that had been lost.

And sometimes, a new way of being together begins not with changing the other person, but with becoming more deeply aware of ourselves.

Perhaps this is what it means to return home, not to a place where everything is perfect, but to a place where we can meet ourselves, and one another, with greater presence.

Selkie Counselling & Psychotherapy offers relational couples counselling and psychotherapy in Maleny and the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, grounded in Gestalt principles of awareness, presence, embodiment and authentic contact.