Couples therapy in English

What we do in the room

Not refereeing. We are not going to decide who is right, and if we did it would not help.

What we do is slow the argument down until you can both see its shape — who moves first, what the other does then, and what each of you is protecting. Underneath almost every recurring fight there are two people trying not to feel something: usually rejection on one side and inadequacy on the other.

Sessions are 90 minutes, because an hour is not enough to get anywhere and then find your way back out again.

What people come with

• The same fight, on repeat, with different content each time
• Distance — polite, functional, and lonely
• Infidelity, recent or old and never properly dealt with
• Sex: mismatched desire, or none at all
• Becoming parents, and losing each other in it
• Deciding whether to stay

That last one is legitimate work. Some couples use therapy to separate carefully rather than badly — especially where there are children. We will not push you toward either answer.

When you are not from the same place

We see a lot of couples where one partner is Danish and one is not, or where neither is. That brings its own specific strain, and it is rarely what the arguments are ostensibly about:

• One of you gave up a country, a career and a social circle. The other did not, and cannot quite see the size of it.
• One of you has family nearby. The other's parents are a flight away and ageing.
• You argue in a language that is native to one of you. That is not a level playing field, and it shows up as one of you seeming cold and the other seeming to always win.
• You disagree about children, money or obligation in ways that are actually about two different cultures, not two different people.

Shirin Azour works transculturally — that means treating across language, culture and migration history as part of the clinical work, not as background colour. Sessions can be held in English, Danish or Persian.

If your partner will not come

Come alone. It is not second best. A relationship is a system, and one person changing their part of it changes the whole thing. Quite often the reluctant partner joins later, once it is clear the room is not a tribunal.