The Counselling Academy

A couple in their early forties is arguing in front of you about who spent forty pounds on something at the weekend. The argument has been running, in various forms, for the last 2 months they've been in counselling. Both of them know it isn't really about the forty pounds. Neither can quite say what it actually is about. Underneath the surface argument sits a different conversation about earning, contribution, fairness, control, the family of origin templates each of them brought into the marriage without realising, and the slow accumulation of small decisions that have shaped who has power in the relationship and who doesn't.

Money runs underneath an enormous proportion of couples work, often without ever being named. Sex gets covered in training. Communication gets covered. Conflict styles get covered. Money gets a passing reference, if that. This course brings the underground material into the room across fifteen modules. Why money conflict is almost never about money. The family of origin templates each partner brought in. How to take a proper money history. The common money conflicts, the spender and the saver, hidden spending and financial infidelity, debt and the shame around it, the loaded question of joint accounts. The harder territory most counsellors avoid, the female breadwinner dynamic almost no one talks about openly, stay-at-home partners and the hidden economy of unpaid care work, inheritance and the power family money brings into a marriage, financial coercion and economic abuse, recognised in UK law since the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and still routinely missed in counselling rooms. The long view across the lifespan, the cost of children, the gender pension gap, retirement transitions, the harsh reality of UK long-term care funding, the conversations couples avoid about wills and estate planning particularly in blended families, what happens financially when one partner dies before the other. Four couples thread through the modules, covering different configurations and life stages between them. The course is UK-specific throughout, with the state pension and national insurance system, the auto-enrolment landscape, childcare costs and parental leave structures, and the specific organisations every counsellor working with couples needs to know by name, including Surviving Economic Abuse, Refuge, Women's Aid, the Men's Advice Line, Citizens Advice, StepChange, GamCare, and MoneyHelper.

You're not being taught to be a financial adviser. You're being taught to recognise what couples are actually carrying about money, hold the conversations they've been avoiding, signpost to specialist support when it's needed, and refuse to be charmed when articulate abusers present themselves in your room.

This is the eighth and final course in the Couples Counsellor's Guide series. Money is in your couples work whether you've been taught to see it or not. This course teaches you to see it. 35 CPD hours.