Relationships

Arguing less, talking better

The same arguments coming back, words that go further than you meant, one partner pressing while the other shuts down. This guide explains what research has observed in couples who do well, how to spot your own cycle, start a conversation differently, take a useful break, repair, and live with the disagreements that will never be resolved.

40 min readMembers only

Heartbreak: getting over a break-up

A break-up can hurt as much as a bereavement: you stop sleeping, you reread the messages, you keep checking the other person's social media, you wonder endlessly what you got wrong. This guide explains why it hurts so much, what prolongs the pain and what eases it, and offers a concrete path, from the first days to the months that follow, to find out who you are again.

Stay or leave: moving past indecision

Months, sometimes years, of wondering whether to leave your partner, changing your mind from one day to the next, talking about it to everyone without getting anywhere. This guide explains why people get stuck, how to tell a relationship problem from something else, how to take stock without ruminating, and how to reach a decision that is truly yours.

When jealousy takes over the relationship

Suspicions going round in a loop, your partner's phone you can't stop looking at, repeated questions that never reassure for long. This guide explains where jealousy comes from, why checking keeps it going, how to bring it back to its proper place, and what the partner can do. It also says when jealousy becomes control, or the sign of a disorder that needs assessing.

Coercive control: recognising it and getting free

You are monitored, isolated, put down, decided for, and you end up doubting your own judgement. This guide explains what coercive control is, even without hitting, why it is so hard to leave, which signs indicate high danger, how to protect yourself and prepare to leave safely, and how to help someone close to you.

45 min readMembers only

After infidelity: rebuilding or separating

Discovering infidelity feels like an earthquake, for the betrayed partner and for the one who cheated. This guide explains what each person goes through, how to get through the first weeks without making the damage worse, how to understand what happened, and how to decide, then rebuild or separate.

40 min readMembers only

Divorce: getting through the separation for yourself

A divorce is a bereavement, a house move, a legal process, a new arrangement for the children and a budget to rebuild, all at once. This guide looks after you, not just the paperwork: what separation puts you through, how to get through the first weeks, how to keep anger from turning into war, how to hold daily life together, and how to rebuild a life that feels like yours.

Leaving someone: deciding, telling them, holding firm

A lot is said about people who are left, almost nothing about people who leave. Yet leaving someone you have loved, or still love, is one of the hardest things to do. This guide helps you check that the decision is made, prepare to tell them, find the words, face their reaction, hold firm in the weeks that follow, and get through your own guilt.

For professionals

These manuals are written for psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners. Anyone can read a preview; the full text is reserved for practitioners who have submitted proof of their professional status and who hold a professional plan.

Intimate partner violence: supporting victims — a therapist's manual

A fourteen-session protocol, in two phases, for supporting an adult who is experiencing or has experienced violence from their partner: physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence, or coercive control. First, getting protected and regaining a footing, by assessing the danger at every session, writing a protection plan, breaking the isolation and deciding at one's own pace, including deciding to stay; then, once the danger has passed, working on guilt, shame, the memory and future relationships. Professional confidentiality, reporting and child protection are described in general terms, with a pointer to the law of each country, and the worksheets are designed not to put the person in danger if they are found.

105 min readPro plan

Morbid jealousy: a therapist's manual

A protocol of twelve individual sessions, with one meeting with the partner alone and one optional joint session, for adults whose jealousy, without being delusional, takes over their life and their relationship: suspicions that go round and round, checking of the phone and social media, interrogations, endless requests for reassurance. Jealousy is not a diagnosis: the manual distinguishes an ordinary jealousy, an excessive jealousy which is its indication, and situations that belong to other manuals — delusional jealousy, relationship-centred OCD, personality disorder, alcohol, neurological illness. It puts safety first, because jealousy is a major risk factor for intimate partner violence and coercive control. For lack of sufficient trials, it assembles components proven elsewhere — response prevention for checking, work on rumination, restructuring, emotion regulation, couple communication — and says so.

135 min readPro plan

Couple therapy: a therapist's manual

An eighteen-session protocol, session by session, for couple distress, based on the behavioural couple therapies — traditional and integrative — and enriched by what emotionally focused therapy has contributed. First the detection of violence and coercive control, in individual interviews, because no joint work begins until that has been done. Then the shared formulation, the cycle of arguments, change and acceptance, communication, problem solving, wounds and infidelity, the decision to stay or to separate, respectful separation and co-parenting, and relapse prevention. Its place alongside the individual treatment of depression and of alcohol, couples of every orientation, cultural differences, worksheets to hand over and full references.

125 min readPro plan