When couples come
Some couples arrive in crisis: an affair, a decision that cannot be postponed, a fight that frightened both of you. Others arrive worn down by something slower: the sense of living in parallel, arguments that go round the same loop, resentment that nobody says out loud, intimacy that faded and was never mentioned. Some come because a change is coming, a move, a child, a return home, and they want to face it together rather than on opposite sides.
Many of the couples in Barcelona's international community carry an extra layer. You may come from different countries and different cultures, with different ideas about family, money, closeness and conflict that only became visible once you lived together. One of you may be at home here and the other far from everything familiar. English may be the language you share without being the first language of either of you, so that your most important conversations are happening in a language that gives neither of you full access to your feelings. None of this means the relationship is wrong. It means it needs more room to be understood.
How I work with couples
The client, in couple therapy, is the relationship. I am not there to decide who is right, and I do not take sides. Each of you will be heard, and each of you will be asked to listen in a way that may be harder than it sounds.
My approach is humanistic and relational. We slow the conversation down enough to notice what actually happens between you: what one of you does when the other goes quiet, what the raised voice is protecting, what the withdrawal is asking for. Most couple conflict is two people trying to be safe in incompatible ways. When that becomes visible, the argument often stops being about the dishes.
We pay attention to the body and to the room. Who leans in, who looks away, where the tension sits. We look at the patterns each of you brought from your own history and from your culture, with curiosity rather than blame. And we look at needs: what each of you is asking for underneath what you are complaining about.
I work with adult couples of any configuration. I do not work with children or adolescents, and I do not offer family therapy.
What couple therapy can and cannot do
Therapy cannot decide for you whether to stay together. It can make the decision clearer, and it can make either outcome, staying or separating, less destructive. Some couples rediscover each other. Some learn to argue without wounding. Some end the relationship with more care than they began it. All of these are good uses of the time.
Getting started as a couple
Sessions are in person at Celobert – Teràpia i Meditació, in the centre of Barcelona, and take place in English, or in Catalan or Spanish if you prefer. When you get in touch, say that you are enquiring as a couple so that I can tell you how the first session works and check that I can offer what you need.
