Couples Therapy

WHAT IS COUPLES THERAPY?

Couples therapy aims to strengthen the skills of couples to understand each other, heal from past wounds, build a deeper emotional or intimate connection and have solid strategies to resolve issues that arise into the future through conversation not conflict.

Couples come into the clinic for therapy at different stages of their relationship.

Is this going to work? Pre-marriage Stage. Fine tune their emotional connection, develop healthy conflict resolution skills, work through pre-marriage anxieties and work through cross-cultural or cross-familial expectations, addressing early warning signs of Orange and Red flags.
Is this it? The Early Years (First 12 months -5 years); Deepen intimacy and emotional connection, Address emerging unhealthy patterns of communication/conflict, Learn emotion regulation strategies to manage frustration, disappointment and anger, Managing anxiety around rejection or fear of vulnerability, Resolve early wounds, Develop healthier boundaries with each other, in-laws and form a supportive and solid team, Plan for a family, Welcome home a baby, Feel more confident talking about money, Unpack triggers and trauma from childhood or previous relationships, Manage ambivalence or fears around sex and intimacy.
In the thick of it. The Middle Years (5-20years) Negotiating roles, boundaries, and shared goals, Exploring expectations about commitment, family, and lifestyle, Addressing unresolved personal or family-of-origin issues impacting the relationship, Fostering mutual respect and interdependence without enmeshment, Managing external stressors (career, family pressures, etc.), Conflict resolution and communication skills training, Managing defensiveness, criticism, and blame, Understanding triggers and unmet emotional needs, Supporting partners in tolerating difference and compromise, Working through resentment and rebuilding trust, Identifying unhealthy patterns (e.g., Walker–Follower dynamics).
I hope it works this time. Re partnering Stage. Clarify and Align Expectations, Navigate Step-Family Dynamics and Establish healthy boundaries with children, ex-partners, and extended family, Protect children, Heal Past Relationship Wounds, Strengthen Communication and Conflict Resolution, Address Financial and Practical Transitions, Develop transparent financial communication and cooperative household management, Create a Shared Vision and Partnership, Define roles, routines, and rituals that support a cohesive, resilient blended family.
Still together. The Mature Stage. Managing life transitions (e.g., de-parenting, Empty Nest, career shifts), Nurturing emotional and physical intimacy and shared meaning, Addressing complacency or emotional distancing. Supporting adaptation to aging, health changes, or loss. Managing grief, care-giving roles and chronic health issues, Sustaining purpose and joy within long-term partnership, Exploring legacy, meaning, and mutual support in later years.

The success of counselling relies on the commitment of both partners to actively participate and engage in the process both in and out of the counselling room.

Regardless of the ‘problem(s)’ that couples present with, we want to ensure couples leave our therapy sessions with new perspectives on:

1. Deepening your connection through communication

Learn how to listen actively and fully understand your partner.
Express your feelings in a way that can be heard without blame or criticism.
Build skills to share needs, thoughts, and emotions clearly and respectfully.

2. Having conflict that doesn’t end in more hurt

Understand that conflict is natural— learn about the anatomy of anger and emotion and how to not let your physiological reaction dictate what happens and what gets said in during your conflict.
Slow down. Suspend your assumptions, interpretations and mind reading what your partner means. Listen to what is being said. Learn how to hear each other and have each other time to feel, time to think, time to express themselves and as a listening, time to suspend your own agenda and deeply understand where your partner is coming from.
Allow the relationship to come out the winner of a conflict, because the relationship is way more important than an argument. It’s not how often you argue, but how you argue and the effectiveness of the repair (e.g. how you reconnect) after the disagreement that matters.
Avoid 4 harmful conflict dynamics that harms your relationship (e.g. criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling/silent treatment).
Learn strategies to navigate disagreements constructively.

3. Rebuilding Trust

Address past breaches of trust, including infidelity or other betrayals.
Create a safe space to share pain, forgive, and heal.
Learn to let go of emotions that keep partners stuck in unhealthy patterns.
Work toward rebuilding trust and restoring emotional safety in the relationship.

4. Enhancing Intimacy and Connection

Ask for your needs to be met (emotional and physical) .
Learn ways to strengthen the bond that initially brought you together.
Cultivate rituals, shared experiences, and emotional closeness that deepen intimacy.

5. Developing Healthy Relationship Patterns

Identify unhealthy patterns such as avoidance, criticism, or control.
Replace them with positive ways of relating to each other.
Build routines and habits that support a balanced, respectful, and fulfilling relationship.

Message from Monique

“First, WELL DONE YOU! for thinking that couples counselling might be a beneficial thing to do for your relationship. In my experience, one or both of you are pretty nervous about engaging in this process and wondering whether it will help your relationship.
I’ve written this message to alleviate some of your worries and also temper your expectations/ concerns for our sessions together. I'm not judge and juror. My role is not to decide who's right and who's wrong.
I deeply respect all my clients, whether individuals or as couples who choose to make an intentional effort to improve the quality of their relationships and not just accept things the way they are or have turned out. I can honestly say I’m excited to get to know you, hear your story, your strengths and work out what type of skills or experience you need to grow through your issues.

I have the back of you, the couple. My role is to support you to have safe conversations where you both feel heard and understood. Drawing on my background as a Psychologist and Couples Therapist, research and 30 years of clinical experience I’ll tailor specific evidence-based interventions to address the issues you’re facing together.
I will facilitate sessions that will have you both usually laughing, while you practice effective communication skills that leads you to a place of mutual respect, understanding, connection/reconnection, healing, trust and commitment, love and compassion.

My role is to help you both get clear on what it means to commit to your relationship, help you express what you need from the relationship and to work through serious breaches to your couple boundary line or heal from past wounds.
My role is also to help you have those conversations without the interference of any unhelpful or damaging dynamics that commonly get in the way of couples being able to resolve problems, such as criticism, defensiveness, silence/stonewalling, emotion dysregulation and contempt.

My approach to working with couples is psychoeducational, strength and strategy focused. I provide strong guidance and coaching to both of you to stay emotionally regulated throughout the conversations. If you fear things might get out of hand in the session, I won’t let that happen.

Time wise, sessions go very fast, particularly first sessions where I'm collecting lots of information about you and your story as a couple. I like to get to the point in a first session where I can give you some feedback on your conversation / conflict style and some strategies to take away to practice. The first few sessions are an assessment phase, where I’ll use a few different questionnaires to help understand what is really happening and then we forge together a reasonable plan to help you achieve your couple goals.
Couples often bring in a list of issues to discuss, but in a therapeutic context, we use these as reference points to notice helpful and unhelpful patterns of relating between you, rather than doing a deep dive on content (who said what when)”.
It’s a waste of time and money to sit watching you ‘fight’ over the same issues that brought you into counselling. I don’t let couples dwell on what is or has gone wrong. Behind every complaint is an unmet need or desire and that’s a much more useful conversation to have.
Whilst I need to know the what, in terms of what’s brought you into counselling, I will redirect you as quickly as possible to engaging with new ways of speaking with each other about serious issues and understanding the types of patterns of relating that couples should ideally do more or less of.
Genuinely looking forward to working with you both. :)

HOW MONIQUE WORKS WITH COUPLES
In the first session session Monique will meet with the couple together to explore current pain points, strengths and challenges.

Monique will send both partners a set of questionnaires to complete prior to the second session that will provide Monique with a comprehensive picture of strengths and struggles in the relationship.

During the second & third sessions Monique will have an individual session with each partner to explore each partner’s perspective and experience of the relationship.

In the fourth session any assessment conducted is reviewed and we plan what you as a couple need to focus on.

At times other individual sessions might be necessary to support the couples growth and recovery.

Please Note: Due to ethical guidelines Monique cannot provide individual counselling and couple counselling at the same time.

Please think carefully whether you would like Monique as your individual counsellor or your couple counsellor before the time of booking.

Any individual sessions conducted in the context of couple counselling are specifically to support the treatment goals related to the couple.

KEY BENEFITS OF ATTENDING COUPLE COUNSELLING

Monique focuses on supporting the couple with evidence-based information, tools and techniques to help the couple listen and understand each other’s perspective.

She ensures couples are upskilled and calm to have the much needed conversations that couples may be avoiding or conversations that have ended up in high levels of conflict and emotional disconnection.

Monique provides a safe and judgement free space where each person in the couple are encouraged to voice their thoughts, beliefs, feelings, vulnerabilities and their strengths.

Sometimes couple counselling is used to decide whether a relationship should come to an end. Monique will sensitively guide couples through a process to healthily detach and end a relationship if that’s where they find themselves.

During the process of couples counselling, conversations can become filled with emotion, and at times heated, however any demonstration of abusive behaviour in sessions directed toward each other will not be tolerated. But if this is your concern for your couple, Monique is highly skilled at ensuring couples keep calm and emotionally regulated to benefit from the session.

If you are concerned about intimate partner violence or family violence, please send us a confidential email or phone us outlining your concern and circumstance and this information will help to determine whether we are the right service for you.

Couples therapy is offered In-person from Monique’s clinic in Essendon North, or via Zoom. It is recommended that each party is in the same room if sessions are held via Zoom, except where parties are in long distance relationships.

FEES

Couple Counselling

Initial Session $465 / 90mins

$310 per /60 min session

Focused Couple Counselling

$620/ 120 mins session

Marathon Couple Counselling

3-day In-house Intensive $6000

Masterclass Sessions for Groups - Inquiries Welcome.

Medicare does not provide a rebate for couples counselling. Some health insurance companies do provide a rebate for couples counselling. You may be eligible for medicare rebates for individual counselling sessions only.

Couples Counselling

Couples Therapy

WHAT IS COUPLES THERAPY?

Couples therapy aims to strengthen the skills of couples to understand each other, heal from past wounds, build a deeper emotional or intimate connection and have solid strategies to resolve issues that arise into the future through conversation not conflict.

Couples come into the clinic for therapy at different stages of their relationship.

Is this going to work? Pre-marriage Stage. Fine tune their emotional connection, develop healthy conflict resolution skills, work through pre-marriage anxieties and work through cross-cultural or cross-familial expectations, addressing early warning signs of Orange and Red flags.

The success of counselling relies on the commitment of both partners to actively participate and engage in the process both in and out of the counselling room.

Regardless of the ‘problem(s)’ that couples present with, we want to ensure couples leave our therapy sessions with new perspectives on:

1. Deepening your connection through communication

Learn how to listen actively and fully understand your partner.

Express your feelings in a way that can be heard without blame or criticism.

Build skills to share needs, thoughts, and emotions clearly and respectfully.

2. Having conflict that doesn’t end in more hurt

Understand that conflict is natural— learn about the anatomy of anger and emotion and how to not let your physiological reaction dictate what happens and what gets said in during your conflict.

Allow the relationship to come out the winner of a conflict, because the relationship is way more important than an argument. It’s not how often you argue, but how you argue and the effectiveness of the repair (e.g. how you reconnect) after the disagreement that matters.

Avoid 4 harmful conflict dynamics that harms your relationship (e.g. criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling/silent treatment).

Learn strategies to navigate disagreements constructively.

3. Rebuilding Trust

Address past breaches of trust, including infidelity or other betrayals.

Create a safe space to share pain, forgive, and heal.

Learn to let go of emotions that keep partners stuck in unhealthy patterns.

Work toward rebuilding trust and restoring emotional safety in the relationship.

4. Enhancing Intimacy and Connection

Ask for your needs to be met (emotional and physical) .

Learn ways to strengthen the bond that initially brought you together.

Cultivate rituals, shared experiences, and emotional closeness that deepen intimacy.

5. Developing Healthy Relationship Patterns

Identify unhealthy patterns such as avoidance, criticism, or control.

Replace them with positive ways of relating to each other.

Build routines and habits that support a balanced, respectful, and fulfilling relationship.

Message from Monique

“First, WELL DONE YOU! for thinking that couples counselling might be a beneficial thing to do for your relationship. In my experience, one or both of you are pretty nervous about engaging in this process and wondering whether it will help your relationship.

I’ve written this message to alleviate some of your worries and also temper your expectations/ concerns for our sessions together. I'm not judge and juror. My role is not to decide who's right and who's wrong.

Couples often bring in a list of issues to discuss, but in a therapeutic context, we use these as reference points to notice helpful and unhelpful patterns of relating between you, rather than doing a deep dive on content (who said what when)”.

It’s a waste of time and money to sit watching you ‘fight’ over the same issues that brought you into counselling. I don’t let couples dwell on what is or has gone wrong. Behind every complaint is an unmet need or desire and that’s a much more useful conversation to have.

Genuinely looking forward to working with you both. :)

HOW MONIQUE WORKS WITH COUPLES In the first session session Monique will meet with the couple together to explore current pain points, strengths and challenges.

Monique will send both partners a set of questionnaires to complete prior to the second session that will provide Monique with a comprehensive picture of strengths and struggles in the relationship.

During the second & third sessions Monique will have an individual session with each partner to explore each partner’s perspective and experience of the relationship.

In the fourth session any assessment conducted is reviewed and we plan what you as a couple need to focus on.

At times other individual sessions might be necessary to support the couples growth and recovery.

Please Note: Due to ethical guidelines Monique cannot provide individual counselling and couple counselling at the same time.

Please think carefully whether you would like Monique as your individual counsellor or your couple counsellor before the time of booking.

Any individual sessions conducted in the context of couple counselling are specifically to support the treatment goals related to the couple.

KEY BENEFITS OF ATTENDING COUPLE COUNSELLING

Monique focuses on supporting the couple with evidence-based information, tools and techniques to help the couple listen and understand each other’s perspective.

She ensures couples are upskilled and calm to have the much needed conversations that couples may be avoiding or conversations that have ended up in high levels of conflict and emotional disconnection.

Monique provides a safe and judgement free space where each person in the couple are encouraged to voice their thoughts, beliefs, feelings, vulnerabilities and their strengths.

Sometimes couple counselling is used to decide whether a relationship should come to an end. Monique will sensitively guide couples through a process to healthily detach and end a relationship if that’s where they find themselves.

If you are concerned about intimate partner violence or family violence, please send us a confidential email or phone us outlining your concern and circumstance and this information will help to determine whether we are the right service for you.

Couples therapy is offered In-person from Monique’s clinic in Essendon North, or via Zoom. It is recommended that each party is in the same room if sessions are held via Zoom, except where parties are in long distance relationships.

FEES

Couple Counselling

Initial Session $465 / 90mins

$310 per /60 min session

Focused Couple Counselling

$620/ 120 mins session

Marathon Couple Counselling

3-day In-house Intensive $6000

Masterclass Sessions for Groups - Inquiries Welcome.

Medicare does not provide a rebate for couples counselling. Some health insurance companies do provide a rebate for couples counselling. You may be eligible for medicare rebates for individual counselling sessions only.

HOW MONIQUE WORKS WITH COUPLES
In the first session session Monique will meet with the couple together to explore current pain points, strengths and challenges.