Meet the Team: Theresa – Relationship Counsellor and Supervisor

Meet Theresa, one of our specialist relationship counsellors and supervisors. At Relationship Works we see supervision as key to how we practise, giving our counsellors a trusted space to reflect, gain knowledge, and ensure every client gets the very best of our collective expertise.

Theresa's path from Chartered Accountant to relationship counsellor and supervisor has given her an insightful perspective on people, relationships, and change. Over to Theresa…

Can you tell us about your role at Relationship Works?

I’m a relationship counsellor for couples and individuals, working mainly out of the Bath office. I’m also part of the supervisory team and we collaborate on upholding our high-quality service and supporting the clinical direction for Relationship Works.

For our counsellors we provide individual monthly supervision and case supervision groups, which enable our counsellors to have the space and time to fully reflect on their work, explore themes they are finding more difficult, gain and share insights and alternative approaches.

How did you become a counsellor?

Counselling is my second main career. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, I took a role with Mars chocolate, staying with them for 25 years. I have very fond memories of my time there!

My last position at Mars was as their Financial Controller, where I managed a large team and I found that understanding people was the area I loved most. There was a period of change, with the organization looking for efficiencies and new ways of working and I valued supporting this work to enable the staff to feel heard and listened to, and help them through this period of uncertainty, which for some was very difficult. 

Alongside this, I started volunteering with the Samaritans, as I realized how important it is to support people at difficult points in their lives.

When my husband took a job in Vietnam, I needed to balance my time better between living in the UK and being able to spend time with him there so with sadness I left Mars. But I took my interest and increasing passion for supporting people and started to train as a counsellor at BCPC in Bath.

Their model is integrative, based on humanistic, person-centered counselling but with strong psychodynamic elements. Alongside relationship counselling my key interests are in trauma-based therapy; working with adults who have experienced childhood or young adult trauma, and I am a qualified EMDR therapist.

How did you become interested specifically in relationship counselling?

My academic background is in biochemistry, so I have a deep interest in animal biology and how humans have evolved as social animals and I am fascinated by the relationships we develop and need to survive."

When counselling individuals, they naturally talk a lot about their relationships with significant others, and from this interest I approached Relate and really valued the relationship course I undertook, designed for qualified counsellors.

Human beings are unique, and in a relationship, you have two individuals creating a third, unique entity. I find it fascinating how people bring their past, their childhoods, and their previous relationships into this shared space. 

What is the particular value you feel you bring to your clients?

The view that every person and every session are unique. I don’t just pull out a workbook or a worksheet. To me, it is about truly understanding what is happening now, what happened in the past, and helping them move forward in a way that is right for each of them. It’s not like a self-help book where you just follow chapters; it’s about recognizing and working with our uniqueness.

What makes the team at Relationship Works different?

At Relationship Works, our training and regular professional development are specifically and deeply immersed in relationships. Once qualified, a counsellor can technically claim to work across almost any specialism, but at Relationship Works, every CPD, every supervision session, and every piece of ongoing training is focused on the relationship aspect of being human. You aren't just getting a generalist with relationship counselling as one item on a long list. You're getting someone whose professional focus is relationships.

As a supervisor, how do you work with the different approaches of your counsellors?

I've been a supervisor for about three years, and that diversity of background and experience is the essence of what I love about our organization. It's something that sets us apart from solo practitioners as when you come to Relationship Works, you're benefiting from that collective thinking, not just one person's perspective.

I come with a more psychodynamic approach, but our counsellors have all arrived at this work via different routes and training, which is a real strength. In supervision, I'm always interested in where someone has come from and how that shapes their practice. From there I might offer a different perspective or suggest something they haven't encountered before. I hope my style is very collaborative. Most of the time there isn't a right or wrong answer, just different possibilities worth exploring together.

What do you find most rewarding about the role?

I still find human beings fascinating. It is a privilege when someone enters the room and shares things they might never tell anyone else. There is a profound level of trust there.

It makes me feel positive and hopeful when people share those difficult things and then experience movement. It’s not necessarily about whether they stay happily together, but rather that they have gained recognition and understanding, and are now on a path that feels more satisfying for each of them.

What advice would you give to people looking to have better relationships?

A relationship is co-created. Often people come in blaming each other. But they have both created the relationship together. The good news is that if you both co-created it, you can both change it. It isn’t set in stone. I often wave my arms around in the room to show “Individual A” and "Individual B," and then the "Relationship" in the middle. We look at that middle space and ask: "What do we want to keep, and what do we want to change?" There is always hope for movement.

Is there something you are still learning or curious about?

Always! To me, if you stop being curious, you're acting like you know it all and how could anyone possibly know it all? I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, exploring different ideas and approaches. But I'm also curious about the wider world, socially, economically, technologically. Whether it's social media algorithms or AI, these things shape how people feel about their lives, their roles, their children's futures. As a counsellor, you can't really separate the relationship in the room from the wider world.

How would you like relationship therapy to be more normalised?

I hope relationship counselling becomes like an MOT for your relationship rather than something you only do when the car has totally broken down.

What do you do in your spare time to recharge?

I do a lot of gardening with my Moroccan-themed back garden and a vegetable patch at the front. On the creative side of things, I paint and knit. I love walking, but I’ve never stepped foot in a gym in my life! I also have three grown-up children and we have wonderful political and philosophical conversations together.

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?

I hope this is not too morbid, but I would like to have dinner with my father who died in my late childhood. He was in the army, so whilst I was growing up we had periods when he was stationed away from us.  I was close to him, and I would love to be able to spend time with him, with an adult’s understanding of the world, as he had wisdom and depth that I would love to experience more fully.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

I don’t believe in golden eggs, that idea that there is one answer out there that will fix everything. I wish there was. But the best advice I think is to try to understand yourself - why have I reacted in that way and how would I have liked to have responded.  

But also to look after yourself and find the things in life that give you joy.

What good advice. Thanks so much to Theresa for sharing her story, the unique value of the counselling team at Relationship Works, and her insights into the relationship counselling process. You can get to know other members of our team by reading reading our interview with online counsellor, Jane.

If you are interested in finding out more about relationship counselling either as an individual or a couple, we’re here to help. Get in touch to find out more.