Your own triggers
Recognising the moment your body has decided this is a threat, which is several seconds before you say the thing you regret.
Physiology
Communication & Conflict Resolution Counseling
You are not arguing about the dishes. You never were.
- Couple, family or individual
- Format
- 60 minutes
- Session length
- 6 to 8 sessions
- Typical course
Overview
Conflict is not the problem in a relationship; it is unavoidable wherever two people share a life. What causes the damage is how the conflict is conducted — contempt, stonewalling, a criticism aimed at the person rather than the act, or an escalation so fast that neither party can remember what started it by the time it ends.
This is skills work, and it is deliberately practical. We identify what each of you does when you feel threatened, teach the specific moves that de-escalate rather than inflame, and then rehearse them on your real disagreements in the room, where there is someone to stop the cycle before it completes. It suits couples, but also parents and adult children, siblings, and anyone who has to keep negotiating with the same person indefinitely.
Consider this if
- Arguments that escalate faster than either of you intended
- Shutting down or walking out because staying feels impossible
- Sarcasm, eye-rolling and contempt that have become the normal register
- Raising a concern and having it become a fight about a different concern
- Not raising things at all, and carrying them instead
What it does
Communication & Conflict Resolution Counseling
A complaint that lands
The difference between describing a behaviour and indicting a character — the single most useful distinction in the set.
Repair attempts
How to offer one and, harder, how to accept one. Couples who repair well argue just as much and suffer far less.
Structured pauses
How to stop an argument mid-flight without it reading as abandonment, and how to actually come back to it.
Inside a session
Observe
A recent disagreement re-run in the room, so the pattern is visible rather than described.
Identify
Each person's escalation signature, and the point at which the conversation stopped being one.
Teach
The specific alternatives — soft start, speaker-listener turns, repair attempts, the timed pause.
Rehearse
The same disagreement, run again with the new structure, corrected as it happens.
Common questions
We are not shouting people. Is this still for us?
Yes, and often more so. Silence, withdrawal and scrupulous politeness are conflict styles too, and the damage they do is slower and harder to notice.
Can I come without the other person?
Yes. These are skills, and they work when one person uses them. The dynamic shifts when one side stops supplying the second half of the pattern.
Does this work for family conflict, not just couples?
It does. Parents and adult children, siblings dividing care of an elderly parent, in-law tension — the mechanics of escalation are the same wherever the relationship cannot simply be exited.
How soon do things improve?
Most people notice a difference in how arguments end within the first few weeks. Changing how they start takes longer, because that part is habit rather than technique.
This page is general information, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. What is right for you is decided at assessment. If your symptoms are severe, worsening quickly, or follow an injury, seek medical care first.
Also in this discipline
Not sure this is the right one?
That is what the first consultation is for. Ninety minutes of assessment before anything is recommended — including recommending nothing.