When taking on your joint counselling journey, every couple is unique in terms of the areas you might both might like to work on, and the time you can and want to dedicate to the journey.

Some couples like to plan in advance for a 'fixed term' programme (i.e. deciding on a set number of sessions in advance to work on their issues), whereas others like to embark on the journey and see as they progress how many sessions they want/need.

Whichever approach you prefer, MANN uP will accommodate that and work with you in the way you wish to (either for a fixed period or on an open ended basis).

A key aspect of ‘success' in any joint counselling journey is finding someone you connect with, trust and feel you can collaborate with. For this reason, you are strongly encouraged to start your joint counselling journey by booking in for a no-obligation Introductory Session that lets you come along and find out if MANN uP's approach and services are right for you.

It is important to note that no couple is under an obligation to MANN uP to attend a certain number of sessions, you are free to come for as many, or as few sessions as you want and need (see the Fees & Booking section for more information).

It will always be about designing and delivering a tailored programme that suits your relationship’s needs. 

Joint Advancement Programmes are designed to help empower clients to articulate relationship issues/themes/concerns/challenges to each other, and to jointly decide what to do about them.

The MANN uP Representative will be there to act as a neutral advocate on behalf of the relationship, and will endeavour to not side with one partner or another.

This neutral position means the MANN uP Representative will not evaluate/adjudicate on clients’ actions, and/or whether or not the relationship should continue.

Both clients are asked to attend sessions willingly, with a spirit of openness, honesty, respect and consideration.

Intensive Joint Advancement Programme

Duration: 6 Sessions*

Aim: To fast track your ability to unlock both you and your partner’s potential to enjoy your relationship, and thrive together and be the couple you can be.

There can also be times in every couple's relationship when you can feel or begin to recognise that your relationship may not be living up to your joint potential.

You may feel that you have not unlocked your optimum functioning potential yet in your relationship in terms of your communications, your shared domestic life, your shared experiencing and fun in the relationship or your levels of intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Or it may be that you do not have a mutual understanding and consensus on the future direction of your relationship.

This programme aims to support you to robustly and thoroughly examine how your relationship is functioning at the moment, and identify how you would prefer it to be. It then supports you to devise and enact a tangible plan of action that will advance your relationship functioning forward in ways that are meaningful and impactful for  both of you.

If offers all the merits of the fuller joint advancement programme, with the added benefit of being time and cost focused, with a clear emphasis on walking away with defined measures to enact to help bring about sustained positive change.

Content: The programme sessions are structed to take you on a focused journey from current state of relationship wellbeing to the preferred state, then exploring what might be obstacles to unlocking your joint potential, finishing up with identifying and prioritising habits, practices and actions that you can incorporate into your relationship to help advance towards your preferred state. The sessions are structured as follows:

  • Sessions 1 and 2: Auditing your current relationship functioning and wellbeing, and your joint aspirations for its future.
  • Sessions 3 and 4: Identifying how each of your relational backgrounds and relationship preferences can and will influence your relationship functioning and wellbeing.
  • Sessions 5 and 6: Brainstorming steps you could take to advance your relationship, and then funnelling options down into a definitive joint advancement action plan.
  • Due to the intensive nature of this programme, couples will be expected to be proactive participants, and will be required to do work themselves between sessions.

Format: Your Intensive Joint Advancement Programme would be delivered in a face-to-face format at Source Wellbeing, 330 Beersbridge Road, Belfast, BT5 5DY.

*The 6 session model does not including a required Introductory Session and an optional post-programme check in session).

Joint Advancement Programme

Duration: Your Choice

Aim: One of both of you might be aware that your relationship is not quite how you would like it to be, but you are not clear on exactly what you should or would want to work on to advance your overall sense joint relationship contentment. This programme affords you the time and space to develop greater levels of self-insight on how your relationship is functioning at the moment, and how you would prefer it to be.

With the aim that this will guide you towards setting some jointly defined and agreed advancement goals for your relationship, and then being fully supported to take action to move your relationship to be more as you would both like it to be.

The programme also provides opportunity for you to identify and add 'tools' to your relationship 'toolkit' that help you to continue to better understand and interact with each other on an ongoing basis.

Content: The programme will begin with giving you the time and space to jointly develop your insight, and understanding of each other, by initially auditing and exploring aspects of how the communications, home life, shared experiencing, fun, romance and intimacy is in your relationship at the moment, and how you may like those dimensions of relationship functioning to be.

You will also be encouraged to reflect and develop insight on how you currently view and treat yourselves, and each other, and how the relationship has and can value to both your lives.

This naturally tends to lead to the identification and prioritisation of certain aspects of relationship wellbeing and/or functioning that you may both want to focus on as your joint advancement goals.

Examples of joint advancement goals could include:

  • Advancing your ability to communicate and actively listen as a couple.
  • Advancing the allocation and sharing of domestic and family duties and responsibilities.
  • Advancing your joint approach to parenting.
  • Advancing your commitment to engaging in activities that enrich the relationship.
  • Advancing the presence of affection and attendance in your relationship.
  • Advancing to a mutually understood and consensual approach to satisfying sexual intimacy in the relationship.
  • Advancing a shared sense of understanding of how you both see and want the relationship to progress.

Consideration is given to recognising and dealing with how each of your childhoods, family backgrounds and previous romantic relationship histories may be subtly or obviously influencing the direction and success of your current partnership.

Priority is also given to helping you as a couple proactively develop and practice techniques that advance your communications with each other, and which  will continue to deepen your understanding of each other. You are in complete control of both the pace and overall duration of your Joint Advancement Programme.

Format: Your Joint Advancement programme would be delivered in a face-to-face format at Source Wellbeing, 330 Beersbridge Road, Belfast, BT5 5DY.

Relationship Landmark Programme

Duration: Your Choice

Aim: It might be that you are both struggling to come to terms with and gain peace with a past trauma/challenge to your relationship, or maybe you are grappling with one that is currently unfolding, or one that is on the horizon.

The aim of the Relationship Landmark Programme is to offer you both a nurturing environment of care and  support that can help you work together to gain insight and wisdom relating to the relationship landmark. that will help advance your sense of being resolved and/or able to cope with it, and to know what to jointly do about it.

Examples of past/present/future relationship landmarks to work on could include:

  • Becoming parents or parenting issues.
  • Preparing to live together or get married.
  • Responding to infidelity in the relationship.
  • Coping with the presence of addiction and/or compulsive behaviours in the relationship.
  • Dealing with grief associated to bereavement as a couple.
  • Working through ending the relationship in a respectful way.
  • Jointly working through a major financial or health issue.

Content: The structure of this programme is intentionally non-directive to provide the time and space to gently and progressively explore your chosen relationship landmark theme.

Past issues can often be complex and at times painful to revisit as you work together to develop insight and wisdom on their impact on the relationship and both of you, and consider how you want to act going forward as you integrate those experiences into your relationship and individual narratives going forward.

With current or upcoming relationship landmarks, often the insight and wisdom, and the decision on how to respond as a couple, only unfolds as the event or experience does. You are in complete control of both the pace and overall duration of your Relationship Landmark Programme.

Format: Your Relationship Landmark Programme would be delivered in a face-to-face format at Source Wellbeing, 330 Beersbridge Road, Belfast, BT5 5DY.

If you would like any more details on any of the programmes listed above or would like to discuss the possibility of an individually-tailored programme to suit your relationship's needs, please get in touch. (see the Contact section on this website for ways to connect).