Couples Therapy in Kensington

My Kensington practice is on Gloucester Road, in the heart of South Kensington. It’s a part of London with a strong international community and a long history of being home to people who have come to London from elsewhere. Many of the couples I see here are dual-career professionals living in SW7, SW3, or SW5, or in the surrounding squares and mews of South Kensington, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge. Some are international, drawn to Kensington’s long-standing French, American, and Middle Eastern communities. What tends to bring couples to this room are the questions that come up when a relationship has to hold a lot at once: money, work, family expectation, infidelity, and the decisions that come with marriage and the years either side of it.

The Kensington room is on the second floor of Kensington Counselling Rooms, a dedicated therapy space three minutes from Gloucester Road tube. The room is more enclosed than my other practice rooms, with skylights rather than windows, which many clients find lends a particular sense of privacy. For couples who value discretion, that often matters.

What tends to bring couples to the Kensington room

Every couple is different, but in this practice I see certain themes more often than others:

Conflict that has become entrenched. Arguments that recur in the same form, escalate quickly, and leave both partners feeling unheard. Often the surface topic is small but the heat is disproportionate, because the real disagreement is older than the current row.

Money. Financial disagreement is one of the most common reasons couples come to therapy, and one of the least discussed openly. It can be about spending styles, earning differentials, attitudes to risk, family money, prenuptial considerations, financial deception, or the gap between what one partner wants their life to look like and what the other can or will support.

Infidelity and breaches of trust. Affairs, emotional affairs, digital infidelity, secrets that have come to light, or the slow recognition that something has been hidden for a long time. The work after an affair is some of the hardest and most worthwhile work in couples therapy, and rarely something either partner can navigate without help.

Pre-marital and engagement-stage concerns. Couples thinking about getting married, recently engaged, or planning a wedding, who have started to notice that beneath the logistics there are unresolved questions about how they will actually live together. Couples therapy at this stage is some of the most useful work I do, because so much of what gets entrenched in long marriages is set in the first few years.

Difficult differences in life direction. Whether to have children, whether to move, how to balance two careers, how much family of origin should figure in the relationship, what to do about an unhappy career on one side.

Loss of closeness, sexual or emotional. Couples who still love each other but no longer feel close, or who have stopped having sex, or who are uncertain whether desire can return after years of routine and parenthood.

Most couples come carrying some combination of these. They rarely arrive in a clean diagnostic state. The work is not about labelling what’s wrong, it’s about understanding the specific pattern between the two of you and helping you do something different inside it.

How I work

I am an integrative psychotherapist. With couples, the influences I draw on most are Imago Relationship Therapy, emotionally focused therapy, attachment theory, and systemic thinking. What that means in practice is that I am interested in what each of you is actually feeling underneath what you are saying, in how your earlier experiences of love and family shaped what you each bring into this relationship, and in the pattern the two of you have built between you, often without realising it.

Sessions are 50 minutes. The first few sessions tend to be about getting a clear picture of what’s happening: hearing each of you, mapping the recurring dynamic, understanding the history. From there the work becomes more active. I will name what I see between you, slow down arguments as they happen in the room, and give each of you a chance to be heard in a way that has often stopped being possible at home.

I do not take sides, and I am not a referee. I will, when it helps, push back on both of you. Couples therapy works best when both partners feel the therapist is honest with them, including when that is uncomfortable. With professional couples in particular, where one or both partners may be used to being the most authoritative voice in the room at work, this matters. The work cannot happen if either of you can manage me out of saying something true.

I work with couples across the spectrum, including straight, gay, and queer couples, non-monogamous and polyamorous couples, and intercultural couples. I am particularly conscious of the ways that identity, culture, and orientation shape relational life, and I welcome couples for whom this matters.

What to expect from the first session

The first session is a 50-minute meeting where we get to know each other. You’ll each have time to say what brings you in, in your own words. I’ll ask questions to begin understanding the pattern. We are not trying to solve anything in the first session. The aim is to leave with a clearer sense of what you each want from therapy and whether working with me feels like the right fit.

After the first session, most couples book weekly or fortnightly. Some couples do a shorter, focused piece of work, perhaps around a specific decision or a recent rupture. Others stay longer for deeper relational repair, particularly after infidelity. There is no fixed length of treatment. We review as we go.

Discretion and privacy

Couples coming to this practice often place a particular value on privacy. The building is unmarked from the street, there is no shared waiting area where you might encounter someone you know, and sessions are scheduled to minimise overlap with other clients. Anything we discuss is held in strict confidence, within the standard limits required of BACP-accredited practitioners.

Fees

Couples therapy sessions in Kensington are £120 for 50 minutes.

About me

'I am a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist (MBACP Accred) and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist. I run Rise and Grow Therapy UK as a private practice, with rooms in Kensington, Pimlico, and Angel. My specialism is relationships, intimacy, and desire.

BACP Accreditation is the highest level of membership offered by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, awarded to therapists who have demonstrated substantial post-qualification clinical experience and competence.