Couples & relational therapy
Rebuilding Connection Beyond the Loop of Frustration & Distance
Evidence-based couples counselling utilising the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy. Designed for high-stress partnerships, infidelity recovery, and the postpartum transition — led by Dr. Maya Patel, Level 3 Gottman trained and ICEEFT certified.
Gottman diagnostic
The Four Horsemen — and their clinical antidotes
Forty years of observational research found four communication patterns that predict relationship breakdown with unnerving accuracy. Each has a trainable antidote.
The pattern
Attacking your partner's character rather than naming a specific behaviour and its effect on you.
The antidote · Gentle Startup
Lead with 'I feel…' about a situation, then make a positive need explicit. No 'you always', no character verdicts.
Practice scenario
“You never think about anyone but yourself.”
Notice what this invites: defence, distance, or shutdown.
Emotionally Focused Therapy
De-escalation: from protest to the need underneath
EFT treats conflict as a cycle both partners are caught in, not a fault line between good and bad behaviour. We work downward through the layers until the vulnerable need is speakable — that is where the cycle loses its power.
Surface behaviour
The pursuer
Pressing, questioning, raising the volume
The withdrawer
Going quiet, leaving the room, managing the peace
Secondary emotion
The pursuer
Anger, frustration, indignation
The withdrawer
Numbness, irritation, overwhelm
Primary emotion
The pursuer
Fear of not mattering to you
The withdrawer
Shame at never being enough for you
Attachment need
The pursuer
Tell me I'm still someone you reach for.
The withdrawer
Tell me I'm not failing you.
Clinical teaching illustrations
Anonymous relational formulations
One partner came home with a nervous system still braced from the day and needed contact to land; the other needed forty silent minutes before they could be found. Each read the other's coping as rejection, and the loop tightened across three years.
Formulation: an anxious-protest / avoidant-withdrawal cycle maintained by mismatched recovery rhythms rather than by diminished care. Intervention sequenced as cycle mapping, then structured re-entry rituals, then enactments in which the withdrawing partner voiced shame directly.
By session nine the couple could name the cycle aloud within ninety seconds of it starting — the marker we use for de-escalation.
Ethical disclosure. All case studies on this page are anonymised composite clinical teaching illustrations. They do not describe identifiable clients and are published in accordance with AHPRA National Law s 133 and the APS Code of Ethics.
Investment
Extended relational sessions
$380
Standard 80-minute couples session
Relational work needs longer than fifty minutes — the cycle has to surface, be worked with, and be settled before you walk back onto Flinders Lane. The initial assessment includes individual time with each partner.
Couples counselling is not eligible for a Medicare rebate, as Medicare items fund individual treatment. Many private health extras policies include psychology cover — we process claims on-site through HICAPS, and can provide a coded invoice for policies that require manual submission.
A practical guide
Inviting an anxious or reluctant partner
- 1Name what you want more of, not what they get wrong. 'I miss us' opens a door that 'you need help' closes.
- 2Ask for a trial, not a commitment. Two sessions with the option to stop is a far smaller ask than therapy.
- 3Let them choose something — the clinician, the day, in-person or telehealth. Agency lowers resistance.
- 4Say out loud that this is not a tribunal. Many reluctant partners expect to be prosecuted in the first session.
- 5If they still say no, come alone. Individual work on your side of the cycle changes the cycle.