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LGBT Relationship Counselling

LGBT Relationship Counselling (Est. 2010)

Are you in a same-sex relationship? One where you're failing to understand each other? Finding yourselves unable to resolve conflicts?Celebrating his 26th year, trust LGBT Couples, Throuples & Group Counselling from the Experienced, Independent Gay Relationship Counsellor: Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg). We'll develop (re-)solutions helping your distinct partnership.Dean is a skilled, non-pathologising, British Therapist, working with gay relationships across the UK over Secure Video. He established this service in 2010 to offer Relationship Therapy focussed exclusively on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Asexual, Queer Intimate Connections. Expertise that's reassuring for cisgender, transgender & gender-agnostic.…so much more than just another ally.
Relationship Counselling Services for LGBTQ+Book a Counselling Appointment
Counselling for Gay & Lesbian Relationships

quotationMy mother used to say: “it’s impossible to hate anyone whose story you know…quotation

~ Jennifer (“Jenny”) Finney Boylan.

This is the Assistance you’ve been Seeking…

Pro LGBTQ+ Relationships ❤️‍🩹

Relationship therapy can help LGBTQ+ partners untangle complicated, unhappy relationship behaviours. Counselling can be short-term (with a specific goal) or a longer journey of relationship work and self-exploration combined. At first, it might not be clear what your counselling experience will be like, but as the therapy progresses, we develop a path together that helps you and your partner(s).

Instead of marriage guidance (a very old term!), Counsellor Dean offers a more effective relationship solution for LGBTQ+ partners in conflict (so there’s no prescribing: “here’s how to do things ‘right’!”). It’s an effective therapeutic approach that you will learn to apply too.

Counselling for LGBT Relationships in Crisis

Established in 2010 to offer counselling support to LGBTQ+ partners in long-distance relationships, Dean expanded these services during the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2020, couples, throuples and groups discovered how beneficial video counselling could be for their most precious of relationship(s).

A bespoke therapy that is especially suited to partners who don’t want to (or are unable to) travel to a counsellor’s office every week.

 What you get for your Money

LGBTQ+ Relationship Counselling Services…

Trustworthy Services

This is an exceptional online counselling service, providing private and effective support for our LGBT+ Community. When our relationships are in trouble, we’ll develop (re-)solutions that help gay, lesbian, and queer partners comprehend themselves, their behaviours, and their significant other(s) better than before.

You may think: “we’ve tried everything, but nothing works!”. You may feel shame or embarrassment; maybe not wanting others to know that you’re working with a counsellor. Yet a wide range of LGBTQ+ partners found Dean’s approach to relationship counselling surprisingly effective… and as they developed their own ways of tackling conflicts, then they felt relief!

You too could make use of this mature, accessible therapy service to help you enhance the most precious of all of your relationships.

Getting Started

You may be hesitant to see a relationship therapist, but you and your partner won’t be the first to think about relationship therapy. Things go wrong in all kinds of relationships, whether they are romantic, friendship-based, group relationships, or casual ones.

So, all close relationships have times when there is tension, disagreement, or distress. Sometimes there’s no sexual arousal. Sometimes there is mean or abusive behaviour. When our partners betray our trust, some of us may feel insecure or threatened. We don’t like feeling vulnerable, and by avoiding confrontations (or turning a blind eye), we sooth ourselves by managing insecure feelings. But things don’t change.

Whatever your problems are, an important thing to notice is that you are facing this hurt… together, and we can work through this… together.

Counselling Choices 🏳️‍🌈

LGBT Relationship Counselling Services over Secure Video Conferencing
Service Logo Service Description
Gay Couple Counselling

Couples Counselling

We’ll tailor a therapeutic approach that works for your couple needs, This encourages your active participation with space for your ideas, concerns, and hypotheses.

Learn about couple counselling
Counselling for Trio Relationships

Throuples Counselling

We’ll help you define your trio’s specific needs, develop ways to resolve conflicts, embracing your ideas and hypotheses, gaining new insight.

Learn about  throuple counselling
Polyamorous Group Counselling

Group Counselling

Polyamorous groups (up to 8 people) work in an alliance, addressing relationship needs together and developing ideas that can resolve conflicts.

Learn about group counselling
Effective online therapy for gay, lesbian, bisexual, aromantic, asexual & transgender relationships using secure video conferencing (that you have on your laptop, phone etc). Sessions held from anywhere in the world! No need to travel to a counsellor’s office each week.

Relationship Therapy Services

Issues Addressed

LGBT Relationship Issues Worked Through in Counselling
Relationship Issue Logo Relationship Issue Description
Counselling for Breaking Up Relationships

Relationship Breakups

Whether planned or a surprise, relationship endings can be tough. Counselling helps you deconstruct the relationship and say farewell.

Learn about breakups
LGBT Sexual Dysfunction Counselling

Sexual Dysfunction

Secondary sexual dysfunction is an emotional or cognitive impediment to a satisfying sex life. Counselling can help.

Learn about sexual engagement
Open Relationship and Non-monogamy counselling

Open Relationships

Open relationships fail when mistakes prevail. Contracting can be an effective approach. We’ll discuss your needs and help define your rules and guides.

Learn about open relationships
LGBTQ+ Relationship Counselling helps you address issues that you cannot (currently) tackle alone. Whether it’s a failure to communicate, misunderstandings, hurt, abuse, whatever, we can talk it though.

Common Relationship Issues

Media & Fees

Media and Fees for LGBT Relationship Counselling Services
Logo Description
video counselling for LGBT relationships

Video Counselling

Dean reaches Queer Partners across all of the UK. Secure and reliable video apps that you already have on your phone, tablet, PC and Mac.

Learn about video

relationship counselling from home

Counselling from Home

…from your office, your car, your weekend break. Counselling sessions are available from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

Learn about counselling from home

Counselling Costs

Fees per Session

Appropriate fees for the appropriate service you select. Plus, when spaces are available, there is a sliding scale for those who struggle with costs.

Learn about session fees

During the 2020 “Lockdowns”, webcam and remote-video counselling matured into dependable delivery methods. Costs of therapy sessions are divided up by service – you only pay for what you need.

10 Questions you should Ask

LGBTCoupleCounselling.co.uk is a good choice when bad things keep happening. Especially when we come to the realisation that our efforts to fix things on our own haven’t been working too well lately.

Five Easy Steps to Begin Counselling

Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg)

OnlineCounsellors.co.uk Course Completed

Online Counsellors Course Completed

Our job is to deepen [a couple's] understanding of their dilemma… and nothing more

Virginia Goldner, PhD (Clinical Advisor to Orna Guralnik, PsyD - 'Couples Therapy' S1E1)

Click for another fact…

Don’t go into a relationship and expect things. You’ve got to go in and do things. You have to show your love and show your commitment. That’s what will get into someone’s heart and make the relationship.

Eric Marcus – “The Male Couple’s Guide” (3rd ed. © 1999)

An important resource for gay and lesbian relationships is couple counselling, whether it comes at a time of stress […] or is used as a preventive measure to build stability.

Betty Berzon – “The Intimacy Dance – A Guide to Long-term Success in Gay and Lesbian Relationships”

Most gay […] couples will be able to appraise the level of a therapist’s knowledge about homosexuality and gay/lesbian life-styles in a very short time.

J. C. Gonsiorek – “Guide to Psychotherapy with Gay and Lesbian Clients” – Chapter: Psychotherapy for Gay Male Couples.

If the purpose of therapy is to help gay [couples] form a more secure attachment to one another, they must first form a secure enough attachment to the therapist.

Gil Tunnell – “An Affirmation Approach to Treating Gay Male Couples” (ISSN: 0362-4021).

The modern gay man is his own best friend, has healed his inner child, has memorised the Kama Sutra, and owns a little black book that would make Casanova jealous. Why, then, do so few of them have the house, dog, Range Rover, and husband that so many yearn for?

Patrick Price – “Husband Hunting Made Easy and Other Miracles for the Modern Gay Man”

Counsellor Dean Richardson for LGBT/QIA+ Couple and Group Relationships
Counsellor Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accredited Registrant)
Counselling Fees held at 2019 Levels...

Meet your Counsellor…

Experienced Counsellor

You’re seeking to work with an experienced counsellor for LGBTQ+ relationships—someone who can facilitate growth in awareness, empathy, self-repair, mindfulness, and difficult discussions. Someone who shares helpful knowledge about the behaviour and psychology of LGBT/QIA+ (plus mixed-sexuality) relationships, lifestyles, and partnership-struggles that may help you with yours.

This is knowledge that may assist you in applying to your own relationships; you may learn how to spot what’s going wrong earlier, and then apply your own creatively constructed resolutions. So, if you’re wondering why you’d choose Counsellor Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg), well, as a British LGBTQ+ relationship specialist therapist, now entering his 26th year of experienced practice, these are just a handful of reasons why you’d begin to think “yes!”.

Why Trust Dean?

You may be asking: “Does Dean’s approach seem trustworthy to us?” and I might have an answer…

Hi… I’m Dean… and I’m an actual gay relationship counsellor! 👋🏻 (tada… *polite applause*).

I work as a fully qualified, British, private counsellor offering an essential, effective, supportive, non-judgemental, and non-pathologising online relationship counselling service. It’s a therapy service dedicated to our fabulously gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, aromantic, queer, and straight couple, throuple and polyamorous / ethically non-monogamous families 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️.

LGBTQ+ Counsellor Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg)

LGBT/QIA+ Relationship Counsellor:
Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg)

Is LGBT-Focussed Counselling a Priority

While most professional counselling membership organisations now frown upon members who have declined to work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, they also allow their members to decide for themselves their own rationale for declining to work with us and our relationships (sometimes citing religious beliefs, personal moral reservations, etc).

“Frown upon”? Indeed… 🤔.

Even in 2024, and with the Memorandum of Understanding #2, I believe that the attitudes that have excluded LGBT/QIA+ partners from accessing relationship therapy remain unfathomably uninformed and considerably last-century.

Non-Judgementally Queer

You may have seen on search engines and social media advertisements that include phrases like: “biblical traditional marriages!”. We wonder to ourselves if “biblical” is code for: “We welcome heterosexuals!” 🤷‍♀️. Looking at the websites, we can confidently conclude that this is exactly what is meant.

The therapy approach available here focuses on the needs of our LGBTQIA+ community.

I don’t take a judgmental position about “what a normal queer partnership would do here is…”. Instead, I use a systemic approach that is effective, allows me to be used by the partners in a neutral manner (e.g. I don’t take sides), and invites the relationship to begin discovering how powerful the partners become in developing their own effective ways of dealing with their own relationship problems.

You haven’t found this attitude elsewhere? I know, right?! 😉

You gotta werk it, bish…

Trusting Counselling

You may already have a good idea of what you want to work at in relationship counselling. You now need to trust Dean as your counsellor (along with trusting your partner(s), and the counselling process).

You’ll want to learn how relationship counselling can help you deal with and stay safe from (sometimes) very serious, honest, and upsetting topics. You’ll want to discover how you might make use of counselling (not necessarily how others use it; your needs will be distinct from theirs). You will want the therapy process to evolve into one that is tailored to your own relationship’s needs. You’ll want to know that you can use this process at home, too.

It doesn’t matter how much experience Dean has in assisting other lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, fluid, and asexual struggling partners; it’s about the trust that grows from your work with Dean.

How Gay Couples make counselling work.

How Our Work Develops

I will not try to explain how a counselling process develops that’s unique to each LGBTQ+ partnership, but I can tell you that you and your partner(s) will work with Dean in a therapeutic alliance—one where we all have a say, have ideas, and figure things out together.

This is not a prescriptive process (you describe your problems, and the counsellor tells you what to do). Honestly, Dean doesn’t have such a right! Instead, therapy becomes a safe place where we look at what’s not working and consider substitutions that could work better.

This is the kind of process you’ll want to experience firsthand, to see and feel that it’s maturing sufficiently to handle the work we have ahead of us.

This is how we will proceed: in a clear, trusting alliance that takes the best of what you have and rebuilds the worst of it into the kind of healthy relationship that you want… together.

Service 5 Star Rating on Google Reviews for Couple Counselling

Why video counselling is the service to choose…

Video Advantages 

Instinctually, you might prefer a face-to-face counsellor. Yet, by opting for a counselling service that centres around video conferencing, you gain a huge advantage in terms of therapist choice; especially when one of your choices has over 17 years of expertise with video counselling, as does Counsellor Dean Richardson .

Video Conferencing Therapy: the ideal solution you’d forgotten all about!

Even in terms of geographic locations, he may be many miles away from your hometown, but he can be right there on your computer, laptop, or smartphone every week.

Why Video Counselling Works.

Why didn’t you consider video counselling? I’ll bet that because it’s been a few years since we were all required to use video technology (in order to stay in our homes). You hadn’t considered that the medium remains the preferred option in a number of significant circumstances. Let’s take a look why…

17 years of video counselling experience

Top 3 Reasons Partners choose Video Counselling

  1. Convenience and Accessibility: Offers partners the flexibility to receive counselling from the safety and/or comfort of their home. There’s no requirement to travel to a therapist’s office. This is particularly helpful when one or both of you are away from your partner during the week for work or travel. You can call in remotely (from your office, hotel room, or even a quiet park bench) to meet with your partner and counsellor.
  1. Cost-Effectiveness: Regularly more affordable than in-person therapy (even before costs of commuting, parking, and childcare). If you’re living in a major city (Brighton, Edinburgh, London, Liverpool, Manchester), then remote video counselling won’t attract a high pricing structure, regional weighting, or income supplement as counsellors working from your home town.
  1. Increased Privacy: Video provides a more private and comfortable setting (e.g. calling from home) for partners to discuss sensitive issues. They can choose a private and quiet space in their location that is free from distractions. This can give them more confidence to express their worries without concern about interruptions or strangers overhearing them.

Did You Know:Location’ has very little to do with a counsellor’s practice quality, training, or experience?
You’re in just as safe and effective hands working with a remote, video counsellor as with a local one!

So, these are just three advantages of video counselling for LGBTQ+ couples, throuples and groups. They make a compelling argument for meeting with your professional relationship counsellor over Zoom, Skype, Meetup, and other secure video conferencing apps.

Can you now think of a reason not to engage in video counselling?

It may not be obvious how many therapy services are not…

A British Online Counselling Service

Unlike USA-based services targeting Britons through Social Media advertising – such as BetterHelp, Best Online Therapy Services and Pride Counseling (sic) (hint: we Brits spell “counselling” with TWO Ls 😉)LGBT Couple Counselling .co.uk is British owned, hosted and operated!

Plus, Dean Richardson MNCPS (Accred/Reg) is registered within the UK (see: Professional Standards Authority #NCS15-02454), unlike therapists that operate from, and are licensed from, abroad (unregulated in the UK).

Couple Counselling for LGBT British Expatriates

British Expatriate Support

As an online relationship counsellor, Dean reaches British expatriate LGBT partners living abroad as easily as you driving to your local therapy centre.

Your county may not provide LGBT+ focussed therapists. This service works using the secure and reliable video conferencing that you have easy access to, and may already use.

Learn about expatriate counselling…
Being aware of foreign counselling services online

Spotting Overseas Services

When you know what to look for, therapy services operating from abroad are easy to identify. Especially the ones not being very transparent about it.

Learn how to easily judge if the therapy service being advertised on your social media timeline is accurate, true, and really the one that you and your partner is seeking.

Learn to spot overseas services…