Paula has more than 25 years experience offering couples and individual therapy, counselling and workshops. Paula is an “energetic and dedicated” professional with expertise in human growth and development, with a focus on well being and the development of positive relationships.
Her ethos has always been about working to bring about positive change in people’s lives. Her sessions are designed to identify behavioural and emotional levels and to effect positive change.
Developing healthier minds creates more productive relationships and positive personal environment.
Couples usually make appointments only when the chill in their relationship has reached zero degrees. What once had been a loving relationship is now characterized by irreconcilable differences in their beliefs about financial decisions, physical intimacy, contact with relatives, and even how to load the dishwasher. They are used to hearing daily comments from each other such as:
“I can’t put up with your sporting obsession, and you’re always ignoring me!”
“I can never do anything right”
“I’m here at home all day with the kids, how would you possibly understand what that is like?”
“You are always blaming me!”
Because they have practiced their side of the argument for so long and they are so good at knowing how to attack each other’s weaknesses, persistent patterns have developed.
Change takes time and relapses will occur!
Couples often arrive believing that the therapist’s job is to “fix” their partner. Many couples are sceptical about whether therapy will work.
Each needs to understand that they are both good people; however, their patterns of communication have created a daily fencing duel. The therapy process will hopefully return you to your prior loving relationship only after you each become aware of how each contributes to this daily duel and begin to make changes. Awareness about the part that you each play in this relationship drama is essential.
Couples often arrive at the session believing that each partner will be laying out his or her “position” and the therapist will act as a referee to decide who is right. It is not a matter of one person being right or wrong, since both partners make sense from their perspective.
Paula points out to couples that the process will work if they both “are willing to try on some new ideas and own their part in it.”
By pointing out the importance of the “we” and not the “me” in their relationship, they begin to understand that both are expected to participate by making changes. This means that counselling is a joint venture to better understand the relationship rather than an adversarial one.