Intimacy
Most of us yearn to be able to be fully intimate with a beloved partner – to know and be known without pretense and without shame or embarrassment. But the precious moments of true intimacy are often fleeting. So many things get in the way; children, work, health issues, all the pressures of just staying alive. Sometimes too other things come up, things like past traumas (especially around sexual issues), or previous relationships, or lack of experience, or just plain fear. The fear of intimacy can paralyse us just when we most want to be close.
It’s often our most intimate relationships which cause us the most difficulty because when we are vulnerable to another person we are also most vulnerable to our own pain. Counseling can help heal old wounds and enable us to find new ways of relating, new ways of being ourselves, new ways of loving. True intimacy keeps us growing; growing in a way which increases our connection not just with our partner but with all those around us.
Marriage
For many people, the experience of living together in a committed relationship with another person provides the best environment both for personal growth and for finding meaningful self-expression in community. But the ‘best’ environment is not necessarily an easy one; every marriage has times of difficulty as well as times of joy and gentleness. Some psychologists believe that more than 60% of issues in a marriage cannot be resolved; the skill comes in finding creative ways to live together despite the problems. Jill enjoys working with couples to help them enhance their relationships and find new depths and new heights together.
Sometimes irreconcilable differences lead to the possibility of divorce. It can be possible for two people who are both committed to healing to put an ailing marriage back together again. When that’s not the case Jill can help couples to part as amicably as possible and to start the grieving which is a necessary part of parting and starting anew.