Couples Counseling - Home & Family - Te Whare Manaaki Tangata - Child, Youth and Parenting Support Services

Relationship Therapy in Christchurch

Experienced, confidential counseling to help you improve communication, rebuild trust, and move forward together.

  • No waitlist! Start this week
  • Sessions only $139
  • Experienced, qualified counsellors
  • Safe, confidential, non-judgmental

We Help With

Every relationship faces challenges at times. We support couples to work through:

  • Ongoing conflict or constant arguments
  • Communication breakdown
  • Rebuilding trust after hurt
  • Feeling disconnected or stuck
  • Navigating stress, change, or uncertainty

Book A Session

Are you happy to be contacted by phone call?(Required)

Our Process

How Couples Counselling Works

A simple, structured approach to help you move forward together

We keep the process clear and supportive, so you know what to expect from the very first session.

  1. First session: We take time to understand your relationship, what’s happening, and what you’d like to change.
  2. Working together: We help you identify patterns, improve communication, and better understand each other.
  3. Ongoing sessions (typically 3–10): You’ll build practical tools to rebuild trust and create healthier ways of relating.
  4. Moving forward: You leave with strategies and insights to support your relationship long-term.
Pricing

Supporting our Communitity Together

$139 per session

Each session is 60 minutes with an experienced, qualified counsellor, focused on helping you move forward together. Payment is required upfront to secure your booking.

Start with one session

There’s no long-term commitment, you can begin with a single session and take it from there.

No waitlist

You don’t have to wait. You can book your first session and speak to someone this week.

Supporting something bigger

All proceeds from our counseling sessions go directly to helping fund vital services for families in the local community, so your investment supports more than just your own relationship.

Learn More About Our Vision

Couples Counselling
Framework –
‘Our House’

Our House is a bespoke framework that helps couples understand and reshape the emotional patterns that sit beneath conflict, disconnection, and distress. Rooted in Family Systems theory, Culturally Competent Practice, trauma and attachment, Our House supports partners to identify the needs driving their reactions, communicate more openly, and build stronger, more secure emotional bonds.

At Home & Family, we draw on skills from a wide range of knowledge, reflecting our long-standing commitment to fostering resilience, connection, and healthy relationships. Through our process, couples are guided to slow down reactive cycles, explore underlying emotions, and create safer ways of engaging with each other. This allows partners to move from patterns of conflict or withdrawal toward deeper understanding, empathy, and trust.

Our couples intervention typically unfolds across three key stages, with a mix of couple’s sessions and individual sessions. We promote couples counselling as a brief intervention, working over a course of 6 – 10 weeks to support the following stages:

  1. De-escalation – identifying negative patterns that keep the couple stuck and helping both partners understand the emotions and unmet needs driving these cycles.
  2. Restructuring interactions – supporting partners to express vulnerability, tune into each other’s emotional signals, and respond in ways that build connection and safety.
  3. Consolidation – strengthening new patterns of communication and reinforcing the couple’s ability to navigate future challenges together.

While Our House underpins our couples work, Home & Family recognises that every relationship is unique. When helpful, our therapists integrate additional psychological frameworks such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), draw on EFT skills (Emotionally Focused Therapy) or other skills-based interventions to ensure the support offered is responsive to the couple’s wider context and individual needs. This blended approach supports couples where they are at, and allows for flexibility and attention to specific needs within a relationship.

A space for every relationship

We welcome and support couples of all identities, orientations, and backgrounds.
Our approach is inclusive, respectful, and non-judgmental — creating a space where both partners can feel heard, understood, and supported.

Meet our practitioners

Matt

Psychologist

I work in a collaborative, strengths-focused, and compassionate way, aiming to create a space where people feel supported and understood. I have completed training in emotionally focussed therapy and draw on these techniques in my practice.

My work is grounded in partnership, compassion, and a focus on people’s existing strengths. I approach sessions by tuning into what is unfolding in the moment, using experiential and emotion‑centred methods to support reflection and connection, as well as identifying cycles that may be present.

Vanashree

1. About Me
I’m a registered Dapaanz Counsellor with specialised training in Emotionally Focused Therapy. Colleagues describe me as warm, steady, and grounded. I value authenticity and compassion, and I bring a calm presence into the room so couples feel supported rather than judged.

2. My Approach With Couples
I work gently but clearly, helping partners slow down, hear each other, and make sense of the emotional patterns they’re stuck in. My style is warm, collaborative, and curious. I help each person feel safe enough to express what really matters beneath the conflict.

3. What Draws Me to Couples Work
I care deeply about relationships because they shape so much of our wellbeing. Being able to help couples reconnect and understand each other more deeply feels meaningful and hopeful to me.

4. What Couples Can Expect With Me
Clients often say they feel respected and understood. Sessions with me tend to feel calm, reflective, and emotionally spacious—like a place where difficult conversations finally feel possible.

Annabel

Registered Psychologist BA, MA, PG Dip Ed Psych

Annabel draws on over 15 years of experience across the psychology and education sectors. Her background includes therapeutic work with children, adults, and families, professional supervision and educational psychology. Annabel has experience supporting people who have experienced trauma, including traumatic brain injuries and physical injuries.Annabel’s approach is collaborative, strengths-based, and empathic.

Annabel uses experiential and emotion-focused techniques, working with “here-and-now” interactions to deepen insight and connection. Her work involves assessment, increasing self-awareness, and developing practical skills that foster meaningful relationships. With a warm, non-judgmental presence, she supports clients to move beyond reactive cycles toward greater understanding and empowered change.

Book a Session

Book Now