Couples Therapy

You can now watch two separate series of the documentary “Couples Therapy” on BBC iPlayer.  What better viewing for Family Mediation Week that this compelling programme, which offers a fly on the wall insight into the varied and complex dynamics that play out in couple relationships?  Multiple layers of individual personality, history and past relationships together with issues of miscommunication, sex and power are explored with the help of a couples’ therapist in an emotionally raw and honest narrative. The New York therapist, Orna Guralnik, explains that “people don’t always know what motivates them and what’s at play” in the “system they created together along with their own individual and family patterns”. The programme follows eight couples in all as they seek help with the difficulties in their relationships. Those featured are as different as the problems they bring but they share similarities which emerge over time as we follow them and their stories. It is an inspiring message too of couples working hard, with the help of a warm and insightful therapist, towards greater understanding and to change and improve their ways of relating.

The work of mediation is not the same as the work of couples therapy, but The Mediation Space considers that some exploration and understanding of these same dynamics, conflicts  and patterns is just as important in identifying what may hinder or at worst put paid to a successful outcome in Family Law mediation. Our unique model aims to provide a space for talking and thinking about the more emotional aspects of relationship breakdown as a way of supporting couples in the context of their mediation process and in order to maximise their chances of a sustainable outcome.

“Couples Therapy” is warmly recommended for anyone interested in family relationships and for anyone who is curious about what goes on behind the usually closed doors of the therapy room.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0b8kmvl