Emma Whelan

I work face-to-face, online and on the phone. I aim to be as flexible as possible to allow for peoples' busy lives and changing working patterns.

I offer daytime and evening sessions, including weekends.

Please contact me directly for details of my availability.

Fees
Individual counselling: £60.00 / session
Couple counselling: £75.00 / session

Please see my other listing for more information about my counselling services for individuals. 

I offer face to face and online counselling for couples and individuals. I have been practicing as a fully-qualified counsellor for over 15 years and have experience of working with a broad range of people, from all walks of life. Please see my other listing for more information about my counselling services for individuals. 

Relationship Counselling
Couples counselling offers a safe, non-judgemental environment in which to explore your relationship. It takes you out of your normal, everyday environment and into a specially therapeutic one where conversations can be guided and supported. It helps you understand unhelpful patterns of behaviour that may have been created between you, and how to change them.

Relationships, particularly long-term ones, can be challenging at times. Dealing with family difficulties, work worries, health concerns and the ups and downs of day-to-day life can create conflict in a relationship. Communication can break down. Resentment, confusion and frustration can take hold of the relationship – making it feel hard to break out of a vicious circle of discontent and worry. Couples can create destructive behavioural patterns that get further reinforced and can make it seem very difficult to see a way through to a solution.

What kind of problems can couples counselling help with?
There are many different reasons that bring people to relationship counselling. Sometimes the issue is very specific, and sometimes there is a more general sense of things not being quite right. Some common problems include:

• A loss of trust
• An affair
• Stress – possibly related to work, health or wider family issues
• Difference in desire to have children
• Different sexual needs or problems with physical intimacy
• Financial issues
• Differences in approach to parenting
• Life changes – moving to a new area, retirement or starting a new career

I work with couples and throuples from all sorts of diverse backgrounds in monogamous and non-monogamous relationships (including polyamory and open).

As part of the therapeutic process I see couples and throuples together and, within the context of the relationship, individually. I find this helps the process of awareness, understanding and communication.

You don’t have to be at crisis point to benefit from relationship counselling

You don’t have to wait until things feel at crisis point to reach out for support with your relationship. The earlier you are able to actively face the problems and work together on solutions, the more quickly you can move beyond feeling unhappy in your relationship. If you are worried about your relationship and feel you’re unlikely to reach a solution alone, which is totally understandable, then couple counselling could be of help to you both.

The focus of relationship counselling is to:

• Create a more cooperative environment where you both feel heard
• Understand how external factors may be affecting your relationship
• Get clarity and shared agreement on what the problem(s) are
• Unlock what feel like impasses in thinking and action
• Enable open, honest and constructive communication with each other
• Rediscover the resources within the relationship and feel more able to tackle the problem(s) togetherYou don’t have to do this alone

During the first session I aim to get an overview of the challenges you experience in the relationship, and give you a chance to get a sense of how I work and ask any questions about the process. 

My role, throughout the process is one of facilitation, observation, reflection and, when appropriate, challenge. My goal is to help you find the answers together – to guide you to a solution you all participate in creating. There is no fixed agenda of what a ‘good’ outcome looks like – this is different for every couple. I am there for you both equally – with no judgement or preconceived ideas.

I work from from my therapy room in Shoreham-by-Sea (near Brighton), online and on the phone.

I aim to be as flexible as possible to allow for peoples' busy lives and changing working patterns. 

I offer daytime and evening sessions, including weekends.

Please contact me directly for details of my availability.

I offer face to face, online and phone counselling for individuals and couples. I have been practicing as a fully-qualified counsellor for over 15 years and have experience of working with a broad range of people, from all walks of life.

Life can sometimes feel overwhelming. We can lose our way, feel stressed by the pressures of work and family life, be troubled by our past and yearn for more meaning in our lives.

I have the privilege of working with people who have reached a point in their life when they are no longer willing to live with the heaviness they feel inside - they want help to navigate a path to greater understanding and contentment.

We work together to understand what is troubling you. We start with what’s feeling bad right now and, over time, we begin to get a deeper understanding of where this ‘dis-ease’ may originate from. Understanding brings clarity and self-compassion. And from compassion you can begin to heal and grow.

Whatever the medium I work in (in-person or online), I aim to create a safe, non-judgemental therapeutic space where clients can explore all aspects of themselves, from working through specific issues such as anxiety, depression, relationships and long-term health conditions to working with the complexity of trauma, issues with identity and a deep-seated lack of self-belief.

Sometimes you may not feel there is anything specifically ‘wrong’ but you don’t feel satisfied in life: perhaps you feel a bit lost and unsure about what path to take. Counselling can help you better connect with your sense of self, a sense of meaning, and give you greater energy for life.

The first session alone can be a significant relief for clients - often they have been storing up difficult feelings and worries for a long time. Taking positive action by finding a counsellor and beginning to share difficult thoughts and feelings can immediately take some of the strength of these negative feelings away. 

I work in an integrated way in order to offer clients a space that works best for them. My core therapeutic approach is person-centred. My training and ongoing life learning helps me draw on other approaches where it feels helpful - such as goal-orientated coaching, symptom support for anxiety, panic and depression (whilst we work on the underlying causes), and mind-body work.

I work from my therapy room in Shoreham-by-Sea, online (using safe platforms that clients feel most comfortable with such as Skype, Zoom and FaceTime) and on the phone. 

The first session is an opportunity to meet me, get a sense of how I work and begin to explore what brings you to counselling. You can ask any questions you may have as we develop an understanding of what is going on for you.

I’m happy to have a phone conversation before the first session to answer any questions you may have and to help you decide whether you would like to have an initial session.