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Therapy101 / Relationships
Sources
Sources are listed by section. Each states what it supports and when it was checked.
There are 27 source records across 9 sections, 27 checked and 0 awaiting a source.
Couple work
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Couples: how counselling can help.
Supports: Topics brought to couples counselling and discussion of confidentiality when individual meetings take place.
Supports: Overview of contemporary couple therapy approaches and differences in their emphasis; this review is not a guarantee of outcome for an individual couple.
Supports: Abstract describes within-system and split alliances across 48 studies (1,545 couples and 2,568 families) and reports that more unbalanced or split alliances are associated with poorer outcomes.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. Should I Go To Couples Therapy With My Abusive Partner?
Supports: The organisation advises against couple counselling with an abusive partner and describes the risk of retaliation.
Family and systemic work
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. What is systemic therapy?
Supports: The focus on relationships and interactions and the inclusion of couples, families and other groups.
Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy. (2025). Code of Ethics and Practice.
Supports: The UK professional body describes systemic work with individuals, couples, families and other relationship networks; its code gives a UK professional context.
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust. Family Therapy: information leaflet.
Supports: One NHS service describes variable participation, individual and couple appointments, and not pressuring people to attend; arrangements can differ elsewhere.
Parents, carers and children
Supports: School-based counselling consent and confidentiality in England and Wales; the guide distinguishes the legal position in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Supports: US HIPAA guidance on parents as personal representatives and exceptions, including where a minor consents under applicable law. State law and the service involved affect the position.
NHS. Children and young people’s mental health services.
Supports: Examples of children’s mental health services and confidentiality with a safety-related exception in an NHS setting.
Attachment in relationships
International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. What is EFT?
Supports: Describes how emotionally focused therapy draws on adult attachment theory across individual, couple and family formats. Its description is not an independent assessment of effectiveness.
Supports: Review of contemporary couple therapy approaches, including attachment-based and emotionally focused models alongside cognitive-behavioural and integrative traditions.
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. What is psychodynamic therapy?
Supports: Introductory UK professional body description of how early relationships and attachment patterns are explored in relation to present relationships.
Communication and patterns
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. What is systemic therapy?
Supports: Describes how systemic therapy explores patterns of communication and interaction within couples, families and wider networks.
Supports: Overview of how contemporary couple therapies address dyadic interaction patterns, emotional acceptance and relational processes.
Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy. (2025). Code of Ethics and Practice.
Supports: Describes systemic practice with individuals, couples and families in a UK professional context.
Confidentiality
Supports: UK guide to couples counselling. Says to look for a therapist with couples experience and training, and to agree in advance what happens if the therapist meets either partner individually, including whether anything shared individually stays confidential.
Supports: Sections 1.2(b) and 3.1(d) address agreeing clear working terms and explaining foreseeable limits to confidentiality.
Supports: Standard 10.02 (Therapy Involving Couples or Families) and Standard 4.02 (Discussing the Limits of Confidentiality) address clarifying at the outset who the clients are, the practitioner's role with each person, and how information is shared.
Safety and abuse
National Domestic Violence Hotline (US), Should I go to couples therapy with my abusive partner?
Supports: US guidance only. States that the Hotline does not encourage anyone in an abusive relationship to seek counselling with their partner, that counselling cannot fix the unequal power structure of an abusive relationship, and that an abuser may use what is said in therapy against their partner. It does not describe UK or other national arrangements.
Somerset Council (England), Domestic abuse
Supports: Local authority guidance in Somerset, England: couples counselling in the context of domestic abuse is not recommended and could be dangerous; the page points to specialist local support.
NICE. Domestic violence and abuse: multi-agency working (PH50).
Supports: Public health guidance for England and Wales on identifying, responding to and referring people experiencing domestic violence and abuse in a private, safe setting.
When goals differ
Supports: Abstract only was checked. It describes discernment counselling for couples where one partner is leaning towards divorce and the other wants to work on the relationship, gives its goal as clarity and confidence about next steps, and reports an analysis of 100 consecutive cases. A case analysis of this kind does not show that the counselling caused the choices made.
Supports: Abstract defines within-system alliances (agreement among family members or partners on problems and shared goals) and split alliances, and reports meta-analytic associations with outcome across 48 studies.
Questions to ask
Supports: UK guide to couples counselling. Says to look for a therapist with couples experience and training, and to agree in advance what happens if the therapist meets either partner individually, including whether anything shared individually stays confidential.
Professional Standards Authority. Our work with Accredited Registers.
Supports: Explains the role of Accredited Registers for health and care occupations not regulated by statute in the UK.
Supports: Standard 10.02 (Therapy Involving Couples or Families) on clarifying at the outset who the clients are and the relationship the practitioner will have with each person.
Educational draft · Subject review pending