What Happens in Relationship Therapy and Couples Counselling — and Why It Works
- Christian Hughes
- Oct 17
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 18
If you’re considering relationship therapy, whether you’re in the West Midlands or looking for online couples counselling across the UK, you’re probably wondering what actually happens once you start. Many people imagine therapy as either endless talking or conflict mediation, but it’s more structured and collaborative than that. In relationship therapy, the goal isn’t to decide who’s right, it’s to understand what keeps the cycle of disconnection going and learn how to shift it together.
Why couples come to relationship therapy or couples counselling
Most couples don’t start therapy because of one big crisis, although that can happen. They come because something between them seems to have stopped working.
They may still love each other, or worry that feelings are fading, as the relationship feels stuck in recurring arguments, silence, or distance they struggle to explain or seemingly do much to change. They may try to communicate well about work, logistics, and plans, but often are struggling to reach each other emotionally. For some, they may even feel like everything they say is misinterpreted or misunderstood.
By the time people arrive in therapy, they’ve often spent years trying to fix things through communication skills, compromise, or sheer willpower. But for reasons they either can't explain, or manage to change, none of it lasts.
In many cases the reason is because, despite what they've heard repeated over and over again in the media, the culture, and even from therapists, relationship problems aren’t just about communication, as important as that it. They’re about patterns of interactions — automatic loops of thought, emotion, and behaviour that keep recreating the same pain. Relationship therapy is about understanding those patterns and actively intervening to change them in service of moving the relationship towards where you both want it to be.
How relationship problems develop
All relationships are unique, but there are common themes. For e.g., many couples become trapped in rigid cycles of interactions, often driven by fear and the desire to protect themselves from hurt in the short-term, that unfortunately cause bigger problems in the medium to long-term. Indeed many of the strategies they employ, consciously or not, prevent them from relating to one another in ways that promote openness, care, affection, understanding, curiosity and love, leading to disconnection, misunderstanding, resentment, or worse. Overtime, the effect is corrosive.
Here’s how it can unfold:
Schemas and stories. Each partner brings unspoken expectations about love, conflict, and safety — usually shaped by earlier experiences.“If I need too much, I’ll be rejected.”“If I’m not in control, I’ll get hurt.”
Selective attention. The human mind prizes coherence. In any interaction, never mind an entire relationship, there is simply too much information to attend to and process. Instead our minds tend to focus on the things the confirm what we already believe. If we believe our partner is one way, we will often find the actions that support this belief and dismiss those actions that disconfirm it.
Triggers. Small moments activate those beliefs — a sigh, silence, or glance becomes loaded with meaning. Meaning that may not be shared by the other partner, or interpreted entirely differently, leading to misunderstanding.
Automatic thoughts.“They don’t care.” “I’m failing again.” "I'm not good enough" "they're doing this to annoy me". Getting hooked by this thinking fuels emotional reactions.
Protective behaviour. One partner may demand, criticises, or pursue; the other may withdraw, defend, or shut down. Both are trying to manage pain, not cause it.
Reinforcement.The more one pushes, the more the other retreats — a demand–withdraw spiral that seems to confirm each partner's beliefs and fears.
Left unexamined, these cycles become the relationship.
What happens in therapy
Therapy slows this process down — enough to see it clearly, name it, and experiment with something new.
1. Mapping the pattern
In the first sessions, we explore what’s happening between you rather than argue who’s right. We track triggers, emotions, and meanings, looking for the loop that drive unwanted behaviours and creates problems like disconnection.
This stage often brings relief — partners realise the problem isn’t usually just one person’s fault but a pattern they both sustain and, importantly, one they can both act to resolve. This doesn't mean ignoring or dismissing situations in which one, or both, partners have acted in unhelpful, problematic, or even hurtful ways, but instead shifting the focus to the ways couples can move forward to create more workable, connected, and loving, relationships.
2. Making sense of emotion
We help identify the automatic thoughts and work on the capacity to stay present with discomfort long enough to choose workable actions that promote a healthy relationship instead of defaulting to habitual responses that keep couples stuck.
3. Challenging unhelpful beliefs
Once the pattern is visible, we work on the beliefs that keep it alive:
“If I show weakness, I’ll be dismissed.”“If I don’t fight, I’ll disappear.”
Therapy tests these assumptions in real time as we learn to connect with what is actually occurring rather than what our pre-existing beliefs tell us must be occurring. Outside of session, we practice paying attention to parts of our relationship, our partners behaviours, and ourselves, that we previously may not have noticed.
4. Practising new behaviour
Change doesn’t happen from insight alone. Understanding why something is happening is very different to doing something to change it. In many cases, this is where couples get stuck — endlessly talking about the ways in which their problems occur but not taking the next step of making an effort to commit to action to change their behaviour. To make changes, between sessions couples will try small, intentional actions that disrupt the unworkable loops they have become stuck within and move them forward. In-session, we might rehearse these interactions, noticing what emotions arise and how to stay regulated while taking action towards what matters.
5. Reconnecting through values
The goal isn’t perfect communication; it’s flexibility and alignment with what truly matters. Couples clarify shared values — care, respect, teamwork, intimacy — and use them as a compass for decisions and behaviour. Therapy becomes less about “winning” and more about living out what you both stand for.
What changes
Over time, couples start to:
Recognise the moment the old cycle begins.
Catch unhelpful thinking before it takes over.
Respond from willingness rather than fear.
Take action that aligns with their values and promotes healthier interactions.
Rebuild trust through small, consistent actions.
Shift from corrosive 'vicious cycles' of unworkable behaviours, to 'virtuous cycles' of interaction that build trust, connection, and feeling.
The circumstances might not change overnight, but the tone of the relationship can shift — from adversarial to collaborative, from defensive to open, from habitual to intentional, and from avoidance to willingness.
What relationship therapy isn’t
It isn’t a referee service or a set of tricks to make your partner agree with you. It’s a structured process that helps two people face their uncomfortable or unworkable dynamics together — with compassion and accountability.
The relationship doesn't need to be “broken” to need it. You just need to be willing to look honestly at the patterns of your relationship and an openness to practice something different.
If you’re considering therapy
Relationship therapy isn’t about blame. It’s about pattern recognition, emotional safety, and meaningful change towards healthier relationship dynamics. If you’re curious what it might look like in practice, you can learn more about relationship and couples therapy, and book a session, by clicking the button below.
Christian K Hughes Psychotherapy is based in the West Midlands, serving Stourbridge, Dudley, Birmingham, and the surrounding areas, with online sessions available UK-wide.
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