GOTTMAN COUPLES WORKSHOP · SHEFFIELD
Bringing Baby Home
A two-day workshop for couples on the threshold of parenthood. You'll leave with a deeper understanding of each other and a shared foundation for what's ahead.
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Dr Helen Lewis · DClinPsy · Clinical Psychologist
Bringing Baby Home is designed for couples who are expecting their first or second baby, and for couples with a baby in their first year. You might be feeling the strain already, or you might simply want to support your relationship during this transition.
Before you become three
WHO THIS IS FOR
Expecting couples
Perhaps you know that things are likely to change once baby arrives, and you'd like to understand what that actually involves. Perhaps you want to build something together before the sleepless nights begin. This workshop gives you a shared language and a set of tools to carry in with you.
Couples in the first year
Maybe you're already in it and something feels harder than you expected. Perhaps the closeness you had requires more effort than it used to. This workshop is for that too. Couples in the first year often find that having the time and space to understand what's shifted between them and work on it together, is exactly what's been missing.
Sometimes love isn’t enough.
WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS
Research has consistently found that the transition to parenthood is one of the most demanding periods a relationship faces. Virtually nothing about the modern world prepares couples for how much changes: who you are to each other, how you communicate when you're depleted, what intimacy looks like in survival mode, how quickly resentment can accumulate when the weight feels unevenly shared.
Thirty years of couples research shows that relationship quality after a baby isn't fixed by circumstance. It's shaped by things that can be learned: how well partners understand each other's inner world, how they navigate conflict without eroding trust, how deliberately they tend to the friendship at the centre of everything. This is what Bringing Baby Home is designed to give you.
67% of couples experience
a significant decline in
relationship satisfaction
within three years
of having a baby.*
* Gottman Institute research, following couples across the transition to parenthood.
Dr Helen Lewis, Clinical Psychologist
ABOUT YOUR PSYCHOLOGIST
I specialise in the psychological and relational experience of building a family — from fertility and pregnancy through birth and the early years of parenthood and beyond.
I use Gottman Method Couples Therapy as the foundation of this work. It's one of the most extensively researched approaches to couples therapy in the world. My background as a Schema Therapist shapes the way I understand each of you as individuals: the histories and patterns you both bring into the relationship, often from long before it began.
My aim is never to keep couples in therapy indefinitely. The goal is to help you work through what's preventing you from having the relationship you want — and then to make myself redundant.
A clear path back to each other
HOW IT WORKS
Before the weekly work begins, we spend time understanding your relationship properly. Then sessions are structured around the goals you've identified together with space to work on what's live for you right now.
01
The Assessment
Four dedicated sessions designed to give us a thorough understanding of your relationship before the weekly sessions begin.
A 90-minute joint session exploring what's brought you to therapy and the history of your relationship
Gottman Connect: an online assessment each of you completes separately, mapping your relationship across a range of dimensions
A 60-minute individual session with each partner, giving you both space to speak privately about your own perspective
A final 60-minute feedback and planning session where we develop a clear picture of what's happening, and a plan to address it
Weekly Sessions
02
Sessions are 60 minutes and structured around the goals you've identified together. We work with what's live for you right now, as well as what the assessment has identified as the best place to start.
This helps make sure the foundation of your relationship is strong enough to support the harder work and that the changes you make together last.
SESSION FEES
£155
/ assessment session
£130
/ follow-up session
Initial consultation call is free
Three steps to starting therapy.
GETTING STARTED
FREE · 20 MINUTES
Initial consultation
A short, no-pressure conversation to talk through what's been happening and think together about whether this feels the right step for you. No commitment required.
SESSIONS 1-3
Assessment & Feedback
Four dedicated sessions that give us a thorough understanding of your relationship and a clear plan for the work ahead. By the end, you know exactly what you're working on and why.
ONGOING
Weekly couples therapy
Weekly 60-minute sessions, held at my Sheffield consulting room or online. We work your goals and your relationship needs to meet what's most alive for you. Couples typically work for 4–12 months.
WHERE THIS WORK MIGHT TAKE YOU
A different kind of normal
The Gottman Method is built on over four decades of research into what makes relationships last. Through therapy, conversations that used to spiral can start to have different endings. The tension that used to sit between you begins to shift. There's more room to actually hear each other, even when you see things completely differently.
Therapy can help you listen without defensiveness, express what you need without fear, and begin to reconnect.
You’ll start to recognise the familiar patterns before they start to escalate so you can interrupt it without either of you feeling abandoned or attacked.
Breaking the negative cycles
Gottman’s research shows that couples who have a rich mutual understanding of each other’s inner world manage stress and change much better. You’ll rebuild emotional intimacy.
Being known again
We’ll work to help you both understand what you’re bringing with your from your own history so you can make sure it doesn’t repeat.
Understanding your own part
A free, no-pressure conversation is all it takes to begin.
READY TO START?
20 minutes · no commitment required
COMMON QUESTIONS
Frequently asked
If something here doesn't answer what you're wondering about, the free consultation call is always the best place to think it through together.
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The assessment is designed to give us a thorough understanding of your relationship before the weekly work begins. It starts with a 90-minute joint session where we explore what's brought you to therapy and talk about the history of your relationship. Each of you then completes Gottman Connect, an online assessment that maps your relationship across a range of dimensions. After that, each partner has a 60-minute individual session. The four sessions finish with a joint feedback and planning session, where I share what I've found and we agree together on what to focus on.
Taking this time at the start means the work that follows is properly tailored to your relationship, rather than based on assumptions and ensures that by the time weekly sessions begin, neither of you is going in blind.
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This is very common, and it doesn't mean therapy won't work. It's often the case that one partner feels more ready than the other, or has mixed feelings about what it might involve. Sometimes people worry about what will be said, whether they'll feel blamed, or whether it will make things worse rather than better.
If your partner is hesitant, it can help to start with the free consultation call. That conversation is low-pressure and doesn't commit either of you to anything. Many people find that the reluctance reduces once there's been a chance to ask questions and get a sense of what the process actually involves.
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Couples therapy tends to be a good fit when the difficulties feel relational and when it's the dynamic between you, rather than something one person is carrying alone, that feels most stuck.
Individual therapy might feel more relevant if one of you is dealing with something significant of your own that feels separate from the relationship, though the two often overlap more than people expect.
If you're still unsure, the free consultation call is a good place to think this through. There's no obligation to commit to anything, and it's often easier to make that decision after a conversation than before one.
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The four assessment sessions are £155 each. Follow-up sessions are £130 each. The initial consultation call is free and carries no obligation.
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Not at all. Some couples come because something significant has happened such as a betrayal, a period of real difficulty, or a rupture that hasn't healed. But many seek support simply because something feels off and they want to address it before it becomes more entrenched. Coming earlier, while there's still goodwill and motivation on both sides, can actually make the work more straightforward.
Therapy doesn't have to be a last resort. It can also be a choice to take the relationship seriously and invest in it, whatever stage you're at.