Professional, Positive Counselling for Couples
Do you yearn for more intimacy and emotional connection in your relationship? Do you miss the feeling of togetherness that you and your partner felt when you first met?
Our Focus is to provide you with caring, professional, positive, effective counselling to help you get the love you want and keep the love you experience.
Loving Relationships – the Key to Happiness
We were formed in relationship and also wounded in relationship. It is only in relationship that we grow, are nurtured and healed.
Life is all about relationships and the success and quality of our life is directly linked to the success and quality of our relationships.
Nobody plans to separate or divorce when they get married. Falling in love, making a life together and perhaps having children, is a big commitment with an enormous investment of heart, dreams, time and finances.
For couples and relationship counselling enquiries and bookings, telephone Patricia or Donatus on (08)9383 9799 or email us at enquiries@lifefocus.com.au.
When Relationships aren’t Working…
When the honeymoon period fades and the initial excitement and promise disappears, the aftermath can be disappointing and the price, substantial to say the least.When Relationships aren’t Working…
When things are not going well for you with your partner, it’s easy to feel down and to lose perspective.
Or you find yourself alone, perhaps between relationships or just longing to have a relationship and wondering how you can find and sustain the love you have dreamed of but which keeps eluding you.
Despite all the positive things going for you, something is not right. You ache for more. Things have to change and you want something different but where do you start?
Whether you are single and want to find and keep that someone special or whether you are in a relationship, have stopped communicating, been hurt by an affair or a break up, feel unloved or simply long to feel close again and work together to achieve the dreams that you shared when you first fell in love.
Whatever your situation in your relationship…. We can help you.
For couples and relationship counselling enquiries and bookings, telephone Patricia or Donatus on (08)9383 9799 or email us at enquiries@lifefocus.com.au.
What Happens in a Relationship Counselling Session?
- We make it emotionally safe for both of you to have your say and to experience your partner listening to you. You know that your message has got through.
- When you both feel emotionally safe, it makes such a difference to the quality and effectiveness of your communication.
- You share how you feel. We’ll show you how to have your say in a way that makes it easier for your partner to hear. So that you get a sense of cooperation-that you’re both on the same page, working together.
- We ask both of you to see if you can identify the things that each of you thinks annoys their partner about them. And then we’ll help you clarify all of that so we have a clear picture of the core issues, so they you can work together and resolve them.
- You also get the chance to re-experience what you love and value most about each other, and list the things that fulfil the needs that are so important to you and that you long for most.
- You get to know what you can do that makes your partner want to meet your needs, and then enjoy experiencing your partner wanting to do the same and then getting better at doing it.
Relationship Counselling can Teach You how to…
- Make the unconscious aspects of your relationship conscious.
- Address conflict at its roots.
- Create emotional safety for each other.
- Better meet each other’s needs.
- Transform conflict into opportunities for deeper intimacy and connection.
- Learn how to become a source of pleasure not pain for your partner.
- Address and heal the wounds and maximise the strengths of your relationship.
- Enjoy watching your children blossom as your family becomes a nicer place for everyone to live in.
- Make your lifelong dreams an everyday reality.
Moving from Fear to Love
We now teach you simple, elegant and effective skills sets, within an extensively researched framework that has been shown to be effective with thousands of relationships worldwide.
You are encouraged to begin using these strategies in your day to day relating.
In counselling sessions that follow, we help you address any issues that may emerge, and continue to nurture each other in the progress you are enjoying, so that you can consolidate the gains you have made.
As you work together with good will, moving through and beyond the obstacles to a mutual understanding and a feeling with and for each, new pathways appear.
You begin to see fulfilling results that spill over into your relationship with children, family, colleagues and friends, leaving you with a new hope and a sense of fulfilment.
The beauty of all this is that you now have skills and a process of creating positive nurturing relationships that is YOURS. You can apply it to create new responses to old situations and adequate responses to new situations as you continue your relationship journey.
Does any of this Sound Familiar in Your Relationship?
- You are not getting the love you want and want to learn how.
- You are weary of the constant bickering between you and your partner that goes round and round in circles and you wonder what effect this is having on the children.
- You’re sick and tired of being alone and single, repeating, old pattern in past relationships.
- You are tired of walking on eggshells for fear of the eruptions that have threatened to tear your relationship apart.
- You ache to share quality time together and want to be shown appreciation, and wonder why your partner does not acknowledge all the things you do and is so resentful.
- You hope that there is someone out there who is right for you, but don’t know how to make that happen. And even if it does happen, how to keep that someone special.
- You argue without resolution about parenting, money, sex, communication and feeling unappreciated.
- You wonder what happened to the love and passion that you once felt for each other and want it to come back.
- You can’t bear the pain of knowing your partner has had an affair and you want to leave.
- The energy that properly belonged between both of you and gets dissipated into other people or activities, instead of nourishing your relationship.
- You are struggling to cope with a mental disorder that is taking its toll on both of you.
- The blended family that you have tried so hard to achieve is under attack from former spouses and is coming unstuck.
- You are sick and tired of living like strangers, instead of lovers and best friends.
- Constant criticism leaves you both feeling battered, hurt and resentful.
- You hate seeing the look on your children’s faces when you quarrel.
- You’ve just met the love of your life, after a bitter divorce, and want it to work this time.
- You want to feel closer after sorting out issues, instead of feeling frustrated and angry.
- You want to enjoy love making that leaves you both feeling nourished and wanted, instead of jaded and used.
- You love your partner and the children dearly and want everyone in your family to be the best they can be.
If you can relate to the scenarios above, or want help for any of this, call us on (08) 9383 9799 for an appointment, or email enquiries@lifefocus.com.au. We promise we will get back to you promptly.
Counsellor’s Background at Life Focus
Patricia Michalka
Patricia Michalka is a skilled, experienced and qualified relationship counsellor, public seminar presenter, corporate consultant and group therapist, with over 35 years of experience in five countries.
With Dr Margaret Smith, she is also the author of the widely acclaimed “is it me or my hormones”, which is a holistic guide to women in midlife.
As a certified Imago Relationship Therapist and a certified Director of Psychodrama she is a Member of the Association of Imago Relationship Therapy, as well as a Member of the Psychodrama Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Patricia has done extensive training in relationship, family and general counselling as well as group therapy with international leaders in their field, including Dr Harville Hendrix, Dr Pat Love, Dr Max Clayton, Lynette Clayton and Virginia Satir.
See About Patricia for more detailed information.
Donatus Michalka
Donatus Michalka BA(Hons) MAPsS; FTCL is an experienced Perth psychologist, marriage and relationship counsellor, life coach and individual counsellor.
He is a Member of the Australian Psychological Society as a registered psychologist, with degrees in psychology from Murdoch University and the University of South Africa.
Donatus also trained and certified as an Imago Relationship Therapist with the US based Association of Imago Relationship Therapy and as a Director of Psychodrama with the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association, and trained with Dr Max Clayton and Clinical Psychologist Lynette Clayton.
His Thesis for Fellow of Trinity College London was: ‘The Process of Human Communication’.
See About Donatus for more detailed information.