Sarah Yandell
Sarah Yandell
Couples Therapist in Barcelona and online
Couples Therapist in Barcelona and online
In couples therapy with me you won't be blamed and you won't be asked to decide who is right. Instead we'll become curious together about what happens between you.
I work systemically, which means that I am interested in the relationship between you as well as in each of you individually.
Rather than asking simply, "What's wrong with you?", we will ask: "What's happening between you?"
We will look at the cycles you get caught in, the ways you each respond when you feel hurt or threatened, and how one person's response can trigger the other's, often creating a pattern that neither of you actually wants.
We will also consider the histories, relationships and experiences that each of you brings into the room. My approach draws on systemic psychotherapy alongside attachment-informed, relational and couples approaches.
The aim isn't to decide who is right or to assign blame. It is to help you see the pattern more clearly, understand your own contribution to it and create new possibilities for how you relate to one another.
But underneath the right/wrong positions humans can often take in conflict or disagreement, there is often a more complicated relational pattern:
The person asking for more connection may be responding to feeling chronically alone.
The person withdrawing may be overwhelmed by feeling that nothing they do is good enough.
The couple arguing about sex may actually be struggling with rejection, vulnerability, resentment, or disconnection.
The couple arguing about parenting may be carrying very different ideas about what it means to be a good parent.
Therapy gives us space to slow these patterns down and look at what is really happening. Not to find someone to blame, but to find a way forward.
Working Across Cultures
Relationships don't exist outside their cultural contexts.
As a British woman who married into a Mediterranean family at a young age and having worked with international families for almost two decades, I have a particular interest in the ways culture shapes relationships.
Couples can love each other deeply and still have very different ideas about what a relationship should look like:
How close should you be to your family?
How independent should you be from one another?
What does being a good parent mean?
How should money be managed?
How much time should you spend together?
What does loyalty mean?
How should affection, sex and conflict be expressed?
Sometimes these differences are obvious. Often they aren't, they simply become part of the background of repeated arguments and misunderstandings.
For couples living between cultures, these questions can become even more complicated. My own bicultural experience, together with my work with international families, means that I have a particular sensitivity to these dynamics.