Our relationships can be a source of connection, belonging and meaning, but they can also be where some of our most difficult patterns emerge.

Group therapy offers a different therapeutic experience from individual therapy. While individual therapy allows us to talk about our relationships and experiences, a therapeutic group also provides an opportunity to notice what happens in relationship with others: how we connect, withdraw, accommodate, protect ourselves, respond to difference or experience being seen and understood.

I facilitate small therapeutic groups for adults, with a particular focus on relationships, parenting, grief and family estrangement.

Parenting and Family Relationships

Parenting can bring significant psychological and relational challenges, both within the immediate family and across generations.

Groups for parents may explore the experience of raising young children and adolescents, different approaches to parenting, maintaining a relationship with a partner while parenting, boundaries and changing family roles.

The work may also include the complexities of relationships with grandparents, in-laws and extended family, as well as understanding how our own experiences of being parented can influence the way we respond to our children, our partners and other family members.

Grief and Loss

Grief can follow the death of someone important, but it can also arise through other significant losses and life changes.

Grief groups provide a place to explore the emotional and psychological experience of loss alongside others who are also grieving. There is no expectation that grief follows a particular sequence or timeframe.

The work involves understanding the significance of what has been lost and finding a way to carry and integrate that loss into life, rather than simply trying to move beyond it.

Family Estrangement

Family estrangement is a complex relational experience and the reasons relationships rupture are rarely simple. Estrangement may already have occurred, or a relationship may be becoming increasingly distant, conflicted or at risk of rupture.

Estrangement can involve grief, anger, guilt, ambiguity and uncertainty, alongside questions about what happened, what might have been different and whether some form of relationship may be possible in the future.

I offer separate therapeutic groups for parents estranged from adult children and adult children estranged from parents, allowing each group to explore the experience from its particular position.

Parents Estranged From Adult Children

For parents experiencing reduced contact or estrangement from an adult child.

Estrangement can leave parents searching for answers and wanting to know what they can do to repair the relationship. The group provides space to tell the whole story while also being willing to look carefully at the relationship, including patterns that may be difficult or painful to recognise.

The work involves reflecting on your own contribution without reducing the estrangement to blame, considering how attempts to repair may be experienced by your adult child and learning to communicate care without pressure or an expectation of a particular response.

Adult Children Estranged From Parents

For adults who have reduced or ended contact with a parent or parents.

Estrangement rarely occurs in isolation from the history of a relationship. The group provides space to explore what led to the rupture, including repeated experiences of not feeling heard or understood, intergenerational patterns and the emotional impact of the parent-child relationship over time.

The work may involve making sense of your decision, understanding the role of boundaries, working with grief, guilt or conflicting feelings about connection and considering what kind of relationship, if any, feels possible without losing sight of your own experience.

Reconciliation and Repair is approached without the assumption that reconciliation should or should not occur. Where repair is possible, therapy can help participants consider what meaningful change and a different relationship might require. Where it is not possible, the work may instead involve grieving what has been lost, tolerating uncertainty and finding a way forward with greater clarity.

Therapeutic Process Groups

Some groups are organised around a shared experience. Others are therapeutic process groups, where the relationships developing between group members become part of the therapeutic work.

Rather than only talking about relationships outside the room, participants have an opportunity to notice their own relational patterns as they emerge in real time.

How do I respond when someone disagrees with me? What happens when I feel misunderstood or excluded? Do I withdraw, accommodate, become defensive or find it difficult to express what I need? What happens when someone gets close to me or sees something vulnerable?

Exploring these experiences within a carefully facilitated group can provide a different kind of understanding from talking about them retrospectively.

Navigating Relationships is a therapeutic process group for adults wanting to understand themselves more deeply in relationship with others. It explores patterns of connection, communication, boundaries, vulnerability and emotional responses, using what develops within the group as an opportunity for greater self-understanding and different ways of relating.

Joining a Group

Group composition is an important part of group therapy. Participation begins with an individual screening consultation to discuss what you are hoping to work on and whether the group is likely to be therapeutically appropriate for you.

Expressions of interest are welcome. Please get in touch to enquire about current or upcoming groups.