Couples Therapy with
Liesel Greyling
Integrative Psychotherapist
My Couple’s Therapy Philosophy
As an Integrative Psychotherapist, my work with couples focuses on the relationship system, integrating Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), Cognitive Behavioural Couples Therapy (CBCT), Psychosexual Therapy, and Relational Self-Awareness to restructure repetitive conflict loops and communication blocks. This relational work is further grounded in comprehensive training across the four foundational pillars of psychotherapeutic practice—Systemic, Psychodynamic, Humanistic, and Cognitive-Behavioural. Drawing on all of these various lenses allows me to tailor my approach to each couple, valuing the uniqueness of the dynamic created by the merging of two entirely unique individuals, rather than having a ‘one-hat-fits-all’ approach.
I do, however, hold a number of core relational assumptions are consistently present in my approach:
A Relationship is a System, Not Just Two Individuals
A partnership behaves like an ecosystem. When one part moves, the other shifts in response. Couples thus commonly find themselves trapped in rigid, repetitive loops where both people feel stuck. Often the first step in couples therapy is to step back, see the cycle clearly, and change the choreography of relational interactions.
Taking the ‘Both / And’ Position
In relationship distress, it is completely natural to fall into a "Either/Or" and ‘Win / Loose’ mindset. This rigid way of thinking leaves very little room for repair. I hold the "Both/And" perspective – holding space for the reality that two completely conflicting experiences can exist at the exact same time, and both can be valid.
Conflict is Often a Protest Against Disconnection
Relational distress, arguments, and silence are rarely just about chores, finances, or schedules. Underneath the surface, conflict is almost always a survival-driven protest against a loss of emotional safety or connection. I view relational challenges not as a failure, but as a map showing where the link between partners has become strained.
We Bring Our Historic Blueprints into the Shared Space
Partners both show up within a relationship with pre-existing blueprints for safety, trust, and intimacy, formed by early childhood caregivers and past relationships. When arguments escalate, it is often these old wounds reacting to one another. Therapy provides a structured space to untangle what belongs to the past and what belongs to current relational dynamics.
Co-Regulation is the Core of Relational Security
Human beings are biologically wired to seek emotional regulation through their primary humans. When a relationship is fractured, the shared space becomes a source of nervous system threat rather than safety. Often work focuses on (re)building predictable patterns of communication so that relationships can return to being a safe haven for both partners.
A Secure Relationship Balances Connection with Autonomy
A healthy partnership requires the capacity to move between close emotional intimacy and independent selfhood. Many couples get stuck in either emotional distance or overwhelming enmeshment. Establishing clear, respectful boundaries that allow both partners to be deeply connected without losing their individual identity is integral to healthy intimate relationships.
Commitment to the Process Requires Courage
Stepping out of defensive patterns and choosing to look at our own part in a destructive cycle within a relational dynamic takes immense vulnerability. Acknowledging that the current dynamic is no longer working is the first step toward (re)building a conscious, intentional partnership.
In couple’s therapy, the relationship is the client, and as such, work in any of these areas will focus on how presenting challenges disrupt the space and communication loops between the couple, rather than treating either partner as ‘the problem.’
De-escalating Rigid Conflict Loops
The Pursuit-Withdrawal Cycle:
Interrupting the pattern where one partner pushes for connection or answers, causing the other to retreat into silence or emotional shutdown.
Repetitive Escalation:
Navigating recurring arguments where small topics spiral into intense conflict, defensive communication, or a total inability to compromise.
Chronic Disconnection:
Supporting partners who feel they have drifted into becoming "roommates," experiencing a loss of emotional intimacy, warmth, or shared joy.
Healing Attachment Injuries & Trust Ruptures
Navigating Infidelity & Adultery:
Providing a structured, neutral space to process the aftermath of emotional or physical affairs, working to understand the rupture and explore if repair is possible.
Untangling Past Blueprints:
Exploring how individual attachment histories (anxious, avoidant, or insecure patterns from childhood) are being triggered by your partner in the present day.
Intimacy & Boundary Re-alignment:
Addressing mismatches in sexual desire, difficulties expressing vulnerability, or an unfair distribution of emotional and domestic labour.
Facing External Stressors & Life Transitions
Systemic & Environmental Pressures:
Managing how outside forces—such as financial stress, accommodation changes, career burnout, or family conflict/estrangement—erode your capacity to co-regulate.
Navigating Loss and Transition:
Supporting couples through profound life changes, including bereavement, fertility challenges, miscarriage, perinatal loss, or major career changes.
Discernment & Conscious Separation:
Helping couples who are uncertain about their future to safely look at their patterns, helping them decide whether to recommit to restructuring the dynamic or transition into a respectful, collaborative separation.
Bridging Communication in Neurodiverse Partnerships
ADHD, Autism, and AuDHD Dynamics:
Helping couples navigate differences in executive functioning, sensory needs, and communication styles, replacing chronic frustration or "parent-child" dynamics with mutual understanding.
Specific Relational Paradigms and Approaches I Draw on:
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT):
A deeply collaborative approach that maps out your recurring conflict loops. This approach looks underneath the immediate anger or withdrawal to identify the vulnerable, unmet attachment needs driving the distress, shifting the ‘interactive dance’ from defensive reaction to secure emotional connection.
Cognitive Behavioural Couples Therapy (CBCT):
A structured, action-oriented approach that helps to examine the unspoken rules, assumptions, and core behavioural triggers in partnerships. It focuses on actively changing unhelpful shared thought patterns and communication habits to reduce daily friction.
Relational Self-Awareness (RSA) - Dr. Alexandra Solomon's Framework:
An advanced methodology focusing on the intersection of the individual and the system. It empowers both partners to develop a deep, curious understanding of their own historic emotional blueprints, triggers, and family-of-origin conditioning. By cultivating internal self-knowledge, couples learn to take accountability for their own reactions rather than reflexively blaming their partner.
Psychosexual Therapy:
A specialized clinical paradigm addressing the intricate intersection of emotional connection and physical intimacy. This framework provides a safe space to explore sexual misalignment, performance anxieties, shifts in desire, or physical barriers without judgment or shame.
Systemic Theory:
Examining your relationship as a living ecosystem. We look at the unspoken rules, roles, and cultural scripts that influence how you interact, rather than viewing either person in isolation.
Attachment Theory:
Examining how your early childhood caregiver experiences formed your psychological blueprints for love and safety, and how those blueprints clash or connect during relational distress.
Specific Branches of Psychology Informing My Work:
Developmental Psychology:
This is the science of how humans grow, change, and adapt across a lifespan.
Social Psychology:
This is the study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the presence and expectations of others.
Abnormal Psychology:
This is the scientific study of unusual patterns of behaviours, emotion, and thought, forming the basis for understanding clinical conditions.
Trauma Psychology:
This is the scientific study of how the mind and nervous system respond to overwhelming, threatening, or deeply distressing events.
Personality Psychology:
This is the study of individual differences, personality structures, and the unique psychological blueprints that make you who you are.
Victimology:
This is the psychological and sociological study of the experience of victimization, including the emotional, social, and relational aftermath of crime, abuse, or systemic injustice.
Multicultural Psychology:
This is the study of how culture, race, ethnicity, and societal identity shape human psychology and mental health.
Qualifications:
- MSc Integrative Psychotherapy, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
- MSc Applied Forensic Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
- BA (Hons) – Psychology, University of South Africa Pretoria, ZA
- BA – Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, ZA
Specialist Training:
- Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT)
- Cognitive Behavioural Couples Therapy (CBCT)
- Relational Self-Awareness (RSA)
- Certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist (ASDCS)
- Narcissistic Relationships, Emotional Abuse & Gaslighting
- ADHD Certification (Advanced Strategies)
- Certified Somatic Therapy for Complex Trauma
- Neurodiversity In Women
- Core Supervision Course
- Therapeutic Supervision Course
- Personality Dimensions Level 1 Training (Train the Trainer)
- NLP for Team leaders and Managers
- Mental Toughness Development
- Mental Toughness License User Training
- Critical Incident Stress Debriefing
- Grief Counselling Course
- HIV/ AIDS Pre & Post- Test Counselling
- Trauma Debriefing Course
The Relationship as the Primary Client:
In couples therapy, the individual partners are not considered the primary client. The primary client is the relationship itself. My professional role is to serve as an objective, neutral facilitator to support your relationship's health, communication, and growth. I do not act as an advocate, judge, or ally for either individual partner.
The ‘No Secrets’ Policy:
To provide both of you with a safe space that is entirely transparent, and that serves the relationship, I adopt a 'No Secrets' Policy. This means that any information shared with me outside of joint couples sessions—whether via individual emails, text messages, phone calls, or individual breakout sessions—cannot be kept confidential from your partner if it directly impacts the relational work.
In line with this approach, if you share information with me that your partner does not know and that impedes our couples work, my role would be to support and encourage you to bring this information into our joint sessions. If you refuse to share a critical piece of information that actively undermines the therapy (such as an ongoing, unrevealed affair), I reserve the right to suspend or terminate the couples therapy immediately.
Both of You Need to be Present:
As I provide a safe and neutral clinical space, for couples sessions to go ahead, both of you need to be present, unless we have an agreed individual session booked. Individual sessions – referred to here as ‘break-out sessions’ are planned sessions with each of you individually, to either a) obtain your personal journey right at the beginning of our therapy together or intermittently scheduled to check – in with each of you, as the need arises. Importantly, these are equal for each of you in terms of frequency and duration.
Format & Platform:
All sessions are conducted online via a secure, GDPR-compliant Zoom platform. You will receive a unique access link prior to each scheduled appointment.
Session Duration:
The standard couple’s therapy session is 75 minutes long.
Session Frequency:
For new clients, weekly sessions are advised for at least 6 consecutive weeks (where possible), to ensure that there is sufficient time between sessions for processing but not too big of a gap to interrupt the therapeutic process. If you are thinking of having less sessions than this, please use the contact us form before we get started to discuss this and see if it could foreseeably be viable.
Ensuring a Safe Therapeutic Environment:
It is important for us to access the session from a private, quiet space. To maintain confidentiality, you are requested not attend sessions from public spaces, or in spaces where children or relatives can overhear the session. Neither partner may record any portion of our therapeutic sessions via software, audio devices, or video capture tools.
Technical Disruptions:
In the unlikely event that our connection drops, we will first attempt to reconnect via the platform. Should the platform fail completely, I will call your mobile number to mutually decide if and how to complete the session or to reschedule.
Session Fees:
There are variances in the couples therapy fees, depending on type of session, and the session frequency and duration:
Recommended for Start-up Couple’s therapy
Minimum requirement for Start-up Couple’s therapy / Stabilised Couples
Once a month or less for Couples nearing the end of Couple’s Therapy
Used for Initial Individual Background Information / As needed in between Couples Therapy
Additional time of up to 15 minutes either because the topic in session requires more time or the additional time is requested and pre-booked by the couple
Payment Terms:
We will send through an invoice at the time of the booking. To secure your booking, payments should be made via bank transfer at the time of the booking or at least 48 hours before the scheduled session time. Sessions will not be considered to be confirmed until the payment is received, and without a payment reflecting 48 hours before the scheduled session, the slot may be given to another couple at this time.
Cancellation Policy:
BSpoke Therapy Practice operates a strict 24-hour cancellation policy. If you cancel or request to reschedule an appointment with less than 24 hours' notice, or if you miss a session entirely, the full session fee remains payable, as this slot cannot be made available to other clients.
Confidentiality & Legal Limits (UK Based Psychotherapy)
BSpoke Therapy Practice is registered in the UK. As such, you will be accessing UK based Psychotherapy, meaning that the ethical and professional framework that informs my work is the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and is governed by UK law. You can access and review the BACP ethical and professional framework by following this link here: BACP Ethical Framework. From within these frameworks, your privacy is fundamental. All information shared within our sessions is strictly confidential. However, limitations to confidentiality do exist in terms of the following exceptional circumstances:
Risk of Harm:
I have a duty of care to yourself and others. Therefore, if I assess that there is a severe, imminent risk of serious harm to yourself or to another identifiable person, I will need to breech confidentiality.
Legal Mandates:
If I am legally compelled to disclose information, such as by a court order or under UK legislation concerning terrorism, drug trafficking, or money laundering. Confidentiality will need to be breeched.
Safeguarding:
If a disclosure is made regarding the ongoing abuse or neglect of a child or a vulnerable adult, I am unable to keep this in confidence.
Professional Supervision:
In line with my BACP professional and ethical standards, I regularly discuss my client work anonymously with a qualified Clinical Supervisor. Should your case be discussed, your identity is never revealed during Supervision sessions.
Data Protection & GDPR Compliance
Data Controller:
I operate as the Data Controller for your personal information. Therefore, I am personally registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
Record Keeping:
I keep brief, anonymised client notes in accordance with UK law and ethical frameworks. These are stored securely and kept for 3 years after therapy ends, after which they are permanently destroyed.
Communication & Crisis Support
Between Session Contact:
Clients can contact me for administrative purposes (e.g., booking or altering appointments). Please note that I am not able to provide therapeutic support or crisis management via messaging channels. Phone details are reserved for us communicating in the event of a technical issue or a short-notice unavailability at the time of a session.
Crisis Management:
Unfortunately, I am not able to provide an emergency crisis service. If you experience an acute mental health crisis or require immediate medical attention between sessions, please contact:
- Your local NHS GP surgery.
- The NHS 111 service (or 999 in a life-threatening emergency).
- The Samaritans by calling 116 123.
Professional Standards, Ending Therapy & Consent
Ethical Adherence:
I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (bacp.co.uk) and abide by their Ethical Framework for Good Practice.
Complaints:
If you have any concerns regarding our work together, please discuss them with me first. If the matter cannot be resolved, you can file a formal complaint directly with my professional body.
Planned Ending:
You have the right to end therapy at any time. To ensure a safe and psychologically grounded ending, I strongly recommend giving at least one week's notice so we can hold a dedicated closing session.
Legal Proceedings, Court Attendance, and Release of Records
Joint Record Protection:
Clinical notes taken during couples sessions represent a joint record under UK Data Protection law (UK GDPR). Because the file belongs to the relationship, notes will never be released to any third party, solicitor, or insurance provider unless BOTH partners provide independent, signed written consent. Neither partner can unilaterally authorize the release of joint couples files.
Production of Notes and Records:
In accordance with UK data protection laws, therapy notes will not be disclosed to any third party without your explicit written consent, unless I am legally compelled to do so by a formal Court Order or Production Order issued by a judge.
Witness Summons and Court Appearance:
It is important that both partners understand that couples therapy is intended solely for relational healing, not for legal or adversarial leverage. Therefore, I am not amenable to myself or my records being involved in any court proceedings, including civil litigation, divorce disputes, asset distribution, or child custody evaluations.
If I am legally served with a Witness Summons requiring me to attend court or a tribunal regarding our therapeutic work, my role will strictly be restricted to that of a "witness of fact" (confirming dates of attendance and factual session occurrences). I am not an expert witness and will not provide clinical opinions to a court.
Legal Fees and Costs:
Because legal proceedings compromise the therapeutic dynamic and require extensive administration, you agree to jointly reimburse all professional time associated with any legal requests originating from your case. This includes record reviews, preparation, consultation, and court attendance. This time is billed outside standard therapy rates at £150 per hour.
Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding Policies
Couples therapy requires an environment of basic safety and mutual equity. If during our initial assessment or ongoing therapy it becomes apparent that active domestic abuse, physical violence, severe intimidation, or coercive control is present, couples therapy will be safely suspended. Couples work is clinically contraindicated and unsafe in these environments. In such cases, I will work with you to safely pivot to individual signposting or specialized support services.
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