Couples Therapy
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) is an evidence-based, attachment-focused approach that helps you and your partner understand the patterns you get stuck in and strengthen the emotional bond between you. We help you create new emotional experiences of reaching for and responding to each other, gradually restructuring the relationship towards greater safety, security and stability. These new patterns hold beyond the therapy room, not just during moments when things are going well. This depth of change is reflected in the research, with around 70–75% of couples moving from relationship distress into recovery and approximately 90% showing significant improvement.
All relationships are welcome here. Our work is LGBTQIA+ affirming and inclusive of partners across genders, sexualities and relationship structures.
Sometimes relationship distress is loud. You might have the same argument over and over. Conversations escalate quickly. One person pushes to talk and the other shuts down.
Other times, it is much quieter. You might feel more like roommates than partners. You live together, manage life together, but do not feel as close as you used to. You might barely talk beyond logistics, or find yourself choosing your words carefully because you do not want to start another argument.
You might love each other deeply and still feel far apart. Or maybe nothing feels terribly wrong. You just notice that something between you has changed.
Often, when couples are hurting, both people are trying to protect something important. It just comes out in ways that accidentally make it harder to reach each other.
Our closest relationships matter deeply. When connection with your partner feels uncertain, distant or unavailable, protective reactions can happen very quickly.
One person may move closer, ask more questions, become frustrated or push harder to be heard. The other may become overwhelmed, quiet, defensive or pull away. Neither person necessarily wants the distance that follows.
The harder one person reaches, the more the other retreats. The more the other retreats, the more urgently the first person reaches. EFCT describes this as a relational dance, where each response unintentionally influences the next.
The question shifts from “Who’s wrong?” to “What happens to us when we lose connection?”
Recognising the pattern matters, but recognition alone is not what creates lasting change. We can logically know what we should say, promise ourselves that next time we will pause, and understand exactly why the last argument went badly. Then the next difficult moment arrives and, before you know it, you are back in the same interaction.
EFCT is not only about understanding your relationship intellectually. It is experiential and works from the bottom up. We slow the moment down enough to notice what is happening inside you before the familiar protective response takes over.
Sometimes you want closeness but sound critical. Sometimes you want reassurance but come across angry. Sometimes you care deeply but shut down because you do not know what to say. EFCT helps us get underneath those reactions and closer to what you were actually trying to communicate.
Rather than only talking about connecting differently, therapy gives you opportunities to experience connecting differently. You reach in a new way. Your partner has a chance to respond in a new way. Gradually, those moments begin to reshape the relationship.
Our work together moves through three stages with the pace guided by your relationship, what you are coming in with, and what feels right for both of you.
We begin by getting to know the pattern you get caught in together, what tends to trigger it and how each of you responds when connection feels threatened. The aim is to help you see the cycle more clearly and begin moving from me versus you towards us versus the pattern.
Once the cycle feels safer to explore, we begin working with the deeper emotions and attachment needs underneath it. You are supported to share these experiences in new ways and become more able to reach for and respond to each other with greater openness and safety.
As these new ways of relating become more familiar, we consolidate them so they can become more stable and accessible outside therapy. Over time, you become more able to recognise disconnection, repair it and find your way back to each other yourselves.
We are committed to your relationship and bond.
EFCT is active and experiential. Your therapist is there to help slow things down, make sense of what is happening between you, and support the relationship rather than take sides.
We pay attention not only to what you are talking about, but to what is happening between you while you talk. Sometimes we may slow down a particular moment, explore what happened underneath an argument, or notice the pattern appearing right there in the room.
Sometimes you may be supported to turn towards your partner and say something that has been difficult to say. These moments can be hard to create on your own. Having someone who understands the pattern, can hold the room and knows when to slow things down helps create enough space for something different to happen.
The aim is not to force vulnerability. It is to help both of you feel safe enough to reach, be heard and respond to each other differently.
Couples come to EFCT for many different reasons, including…
Every couple misunderstands each other. Every couple has moments where one person reaches badly, the other misses the reach, or both fall back into familiar ways of protecting themselves. A secure relationship is one where you become more able to notice when you have lost each other, understand what happened, and find your way back. Over time, the hope is that therapy becomes less about your therapist helping you reconnect and more about you being able to do that for each other.
No. Some couples come because they are deeply distressed, while others come because they have noticed distance, recurring patterns or changes in connection and want to work on them before they become more entrenched.
You do not need to arrive with exactly the same level of confidence in therapy.
It is common for one person to feel more ready than the other. What matters is that both of you are willing to participate and become curious about what is happening between you.
You do not have to arrive knowing the answer. Therapy can offer a space to slow things down, understand what has happened between you and become clearer about what each of you wants from the relationship.
The therapist’s commitment is to the relationship rather than deciding who is right or wrong.
Both partners’ experiences matter, and part of the work is helping each person understand what happens to themselves and to the other when the cycle takes over.
That’s okay. You are not expected to arrive ready to share your deepest feelings straight away, only to be open to the process.
Part of our role is to notice when things are moving too quickly, help slow the moment down, and create enough safety for both of you to reach the harder places without feeling pushed or overwhelmed. We take the work gently and at a pace that feels manageable for both of you.
Sex and intimacy can be an important part of a relationship, so your therapist may ask about it where relevant. How much you choose to explore is entirely up to you, and we will check that both of you feel comfortable before going further.
Yes. Couples therapy begins with both consenting partners attending together. After the initial couple session, each partner will usually have an individual session with the therapist. This gives your therapist more space to understand each of you, your history, and your experience of the relationship in greater depth. You then come back together to continue the couples work.
You may naturally develop clearer ways of communicating, but EFCT goes deeper than learning phrases or rules for arguing better.
The focus is on changing the emotional pattern underneath, particularly the pattern that can make good communication so difficult to access when emotions are high.
That is completely okay. Individual therapy can work really well alongside couples therapy and may help support the work you are doing together.
Where helpful, it can also be beneficial for your individual therapist and couples therapist to connect, with your consent, so the work can stay aligned and each therapist can support you in a complementary way.
Every couple is different. EFCT is generally considered a relatively short-term approach and is commonly described as taking approximately 8–20 sessions, although some couples may need more or fewer depending on what brings them to therapy and the complexity of the relationship.
No. Medicare rebates do not cover couples therapy.
