“Why do I keep ending up in the same relationship?”
That is a common reason people come to see me.
We can often see what is happening cognitively long before we understand what keeps recreating it.
I’m not interested in blaming you for repeating something.
I want to understand what makes that response, relationship or position make sense within your system, what may once have protected you and what continues to keep it in place.
When we work with what is organising the experience underneath the surface, you may begin to notice that it simply doesn’t have the same hold.
Sometimes you don’t have to force yourself to make a different choice.
The choice itself begins to feel different.
You may be thinking things such as:
“Why do I keep having versions of the same relationship?”
“Why do I keep encountering the same kind of boss, partner or situation?”
“I don’t know why I keep ending up here.”
Why do I keep recreating similar situations with different people?
The difficulty comes when we take an operating system built for one environment and unconsciously apply it everywhere else.
Into relationships.
Into work.
Into friendships.
Into parenting.
Into leadership.
Part of the work is making these invisible systems visible.
Not so that we can blame our families.
Not so that we can make another list of things that need fixing.
But because what remains unconscious can continue organising us without our knowing it.
Once something becomes visible, choice becomes possible.
What kind of therapist works with recurring relationship dynamics?
A significant part of my work involves helping people understand the deeper organising dynamics of their lives and gradually change their relationship to those dynamics so that they have more choice, less automatic repetition and a stronger sense of self.
I don’t promise that therapy will simply “break patterns.”
A more accurate description is that the work can help people recognise and loosen old adaptations, relational dynamics and ways of organising themselves that may once have been protective but have become costly.
The change may become visible in ordinary life: responding differently, taking less inappropriate responsibility, setting boundaries differently, no longer automatically rescuing, becoming less governed by guilt or fear, relating differently to partners or family members, or recognising an old theme without being pulled into it in exactly the same way.
Sometimes we explore these dynamics through conversation or parts work.
Sometimes we work more experientially or use Family Constellations to make roles, loyalties and relationships within the system more visible.
The same theme can return without you being back at the beginning
I am also interested in the experience of recurrence.
Someone may encounter an old wound or theme again, but from a different place.
What initially looks like “I’m back here again” may actually involve greater awareness, choice, differentiation and capacity than the previous encounter.
The questions become:
What is different about the way I am meeting this now?
So returning to a familiar theme is not always evidence that you have failed or gone backwards.
Testimonials
I found Renee after a Google search on the internet. It was a time I was feeling at my lowest. My husband had told me I was "ruining our marriage" by making "unreasonable" demands, and I went to Renee to get help with making more "reasonable" demands so that I could "save the marriage". I knew I needed a therapist who specialised in addiction and family members of addicts, as although my husband no longer drank, the dynamic in our relationship was the same. Renee is no soft touch. She cares deeply, but she is not just a warm bosom, who will nod and say "shame" and take your side. She challenges. She probes. She is not afraid to guide you when you are going off the path. She knows her stuff. She knows addicts; and she knows the people who live with them. Through a mixture of challenges and probing, Renee pushed me to a point where I could confront what was really happening in my life: my husband had another ugly addiction that he had hidden from me and our children for years. By the time I walked away from Renee's rooms several months and buckets full of tears later, I had a totally different view of myself, my husband, my marriage, and in short.. the world. Renee had helped me to see what I had not been able to before: that I had a voice, that I had needs, and that I deserved to voice my feelings and needs, and be heard. And that none of that was unreasonable. And that I had choices. She helped me set firm boundaries with my husband and enforce them. She helped me not to accept the unacceptable. She helped me find the help to heal my family. She showed me how to take care of me and to grow. I would not be where I am today without Renee: in touch with myself, my feelings, my desires, connected. If you're an addict looking to really change (and not just playing at recovery) or someone living with an addict, I really really recommend Renee. I am not in therapy now, but I really miss her...