9. Understanding your relationships

About this course

Relationships are the threads that bind us together, shaping who we are and how we experience the world. They are fundamental to our mental and emotional health.

Everyone, at some stage, will find themselves in a relationship with others, whether you are a husband, wife, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, or friend. Relationships can be difficult, complicated, fun, satisfying, exciting, annoying, and can bring out the best or worst in us.

Human connections can be challenging and even bewildering. This course is here for you, designed by experienced psychologists and practitioners to empower you to understand your emotions, needs and communication styles, transforming your relationships for the better.

Understanding your relationships will focus on:

• Emotional intelligence and self-exploration: understanding your own needs and communication style while recognising others to build meaningful connections
• Communication and containment: understanding how to get what you need while also fostering active listening skills
• Conflict resolution: developing strategies to manage conflict and control anger or frustration
• Parenting and relationships: exploring parenting and childhood to understand how early experiences shape emotional health and resilience
• Practical support: ideas and approaches to help you get the best out of yourself and others

Understanding your relationships is for you if you are:

• Feeling like you are constantly arguing and not being heard
• Hoping to enhance your parenting and family relationships
• Seeking a change in your personal or professional relationships
• Interested in emotional wellbeing and deepening your understanding of yourself and others

Understanding your relationships has been developed by a team of Clinical Psychologists And specialist practitioners. The course follows 11 Modules, each taking around 20 minutes and broken up into manageable chunks called Units.

This online platform allows you the flexibility to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own private space. You’ll find a range of practical tools as well as emotional support and guidance, including information on how to manage emotions such as anger in a non-violent way.

The first few modules look at how to express feelings, before digging deeper into theories of containment and the Dance of Reciprocity, so this means it needs to be followed in order, one Module at a time. You don’t need to do it all in one go, and our advice is to take breaks and spread out your learning.

Understanding your relationships is designed for everyone in any kind of relationship, but you might find perhaps you begin to feel you would benefit from more personalised or specialist support, and so there are some additional resources signposted throughout to guide you.

We know that there are many different families, with different backgrounds, shapes and sizes. We have tried to consider some of the different needs of families in this course, but it hasn't been possible to account for all backgrounds. If your personal situation isn’t reflected, we still hope that you find something helpful in the main ideas about developing close, connected relationships and welcome your feedback to improve its relevance.