For relationships that need more than another hour of talking.

Private, focused couples therapy for relationships in high conflict, recovering from betrayal, struggling with disconnection or approaching separation.

Three-hour, one-day and two-day intensive programmes from my private practice in Moycullen, Co. Galway.

When something in your relationship has to change

Most couples don’t arrive here because things have been difficult for a few weeks. Often, you’ve been struggling for months or years.

Perhaps you keep having different versions of the same argument. There may have been an affair or betrayal. You may have become more like co-parents or housemates than partners. Or one of you may be considering leaving. Sometimes both of you are exhausted and neither of you really knows what you want anymore.

You may already have tried couples therapy. You may understand quite a lot about what is wrong with your relationship and still find yourselves unable to change what happens between you.

Knowing what the problem is and being able to change it are not always the same thing.

This is where more concentrated couples therapy can be useful.

Couples therapy with enough time to get underneath the problem

I no longer work with couples in conventional weekly therapy sessions. My practice is built around extended and intensive couples therapy, with three-hour, one-day and two-day formats depending on the needs and complexity of the relationship.

My principal programme is the Two-Day Intensive Couples Therapy programme — approximately 12 hours of private specialist couples therapy, supported by comprehensive assessment and preparation beforehand.

The purpose isn’t simply to fit several therapy sessions into a shorter period. It’s to give us enough uninterrupted time to slow things down, understand what is actually happening between you and begin working with the relationship while we are together.

I specialise in relationships that have become difficult to shift

Couples therapy is the focus of my practice. I work particularly with couples experiencing:

• High or escalating conflict
• Affairs, infidelity and betrayal
• Relationships on the brink of separation
• Emotional or sexual disconnection
• Autism or ADHD within the relationship
• Trauma and longstanding relationship injuries
• Repeated patterns that haven’t shifted through previous therapy

Frequently, these difficulties don’t exist separately. An affair may sit alongside years of disconnection. ADHD or autism may interact with very different emotional and communication needs. Trauma may enter arguments that appear to be about something relatively small.

Complex relationships rarely need a generic solution.

When you’re not sure whether to stay together

Couples on the brink of separation are a particular area of my work. Sometimes one person is fighting desperately for the relationship while the other has begun to leave emotionally. Sometimes separation has already been discussed. And sometimes neither person knows what they want anymore.

You don’t need to arrive united around the goal of saving the relationship. My role isn’t to persuade you to stay together, nor is it to assume that because things have become very difficult, separation is inevitable.

Instead, we try to understand what has happened between you, what remains, what would genuinely need to change and whether both of you are willing and able to participate in that change.

Sometimes the work is about repair. Sometimes it is about discovering whether repair remains possible.

Clarity can be important too.

Specialist couples therapy, carefully prepared

The work begins before you arrive. Before intensive work begins, both partners complete a detailed relationship assessment, including the Gottman Relationship Checkup, which I review before we meet. This gives me an understanding of the strengths of your relationship, the areas of distress and some of the patterns that may be keeping you stuck.

I have trained directly with Dr John Gottman, and Gottman Method Couples Therapy provides an important research-based foundation for my work. My approach is also informed by training with Terry Real and Stan Tatkin, alongside my background in trauma-informed psychotherapy, EMDR and body-centred approaches.

No single therapeutic model can account for everything that happens inside a complex relationship. Sometimes couples need practical tools. Sometimes we need to understand what lies underneath an argument or give attention to an old injury. And sometimes one or both partners need to take greater responsibility for what they are bringing into the relationship.

By the time we meet, I already know a great deal about your relationship. We don’t begin from zero.

Affairs, betrayal and rebuilding trust

An affair or significant betrayal can destabilise almost everything a couple believed about their relationship.

Recovery involves more than agreeing to put what happened behind you. It requires safety, honesty, accountability and an understanding of what would genuinely be required for trust to become possible again.

I work extensively with couples recovering from affairs, infidelity and significant relationship betrayals, including couples who are uncertain whether their relationship can recover.

Private Couples Therapy in Galway

My practice is based in Moycullen, County Galway, just outside Galway City. Couples come here for private, focused work away from the demands and distractions of everyday life.

The setting is comfortable, quiet and discreet, giving us the space to work intensively with your relationship over an extended period of time. For couples travelling from elsewhere in Ireland or internationally, Galway also provides an opportunity to step away from ordinary routines and give your relationship dedicated time and attention.

Couples travel to Galway to work intensively on their relationship

Couples travel to work with me from across Ireland and from the UK, Europe, United States and the Middle East.

For couples travelling from elsewhere — and for busy professionals and parents — concentrated therapy can make considerably more practical sense than coordinating months of appointments. Accommodation is separate from the therapy programme, leaving you free to choose where you stay and whether you want to build additional time in Galway or the west of Ireland around your intensive.

You don’t need to know what happens next

You don’t need to contact me with a perfectly articulated explanation of what has gone wrong. You don’t need to know which intensive format you need. And if your relationship is in serious difficulty, you don’t necessarily need to know whether you want to stay together.

We can begin with the relationship as it actually is.

The first step is to establish what has been happening between you and whether intensive couples therapy is an appropriate way of working together.