Ruta Gabalis
Relationship Counsellor, Psychologist & Mediator
Relationships can hold some of the deepest experiences of connection in our lives — and some of the most difficult.
When a relationship becomes strained, it is easy for two people to become caught in patterns that neither intended. Conversations become arguments, one person withdraws while the other pursues, old hurts enter new disagreements, or affection becomes harder to reach beneath disappointment and defensiveness.
My role is not to decide who is right or wrong. I offer a space in which we can slow down what is happening between you, understand each person more fully, and begin to see the relationship itself with greater clarity.
I work relationally and integratively, drawing on psychological understanding alongside many years of experience working with conflict, communication and complex human relationships.
My approach to relationship counselling
I am interested not only in what you disagree about, but in what happens between you when something becomes difficult.
Often the visible argument is only one layer of the relationship. Beneath it may be fear of rejection, feeling unheard or unimportant, a need for reassurance, accumulated resentment, differences in how each person manages closeness or conflict, or experiences carried from earlier relationships and family life.
In counselling, we make space for these different layers without losing sight of the two people sitting in the room.
I do not take sides, and relationship counselling is not a process of identifying which partner is the problem. Instead, we become curious about the pattern that has developed between you: what each person brings to it, how each responds to the other, and what may become possible when that pattern is understood differently.
Sometimes the work is about finding a way back towards one another. Sometimes it is about deciding what the relationship can realistically become. And sometimes counselling helps two people recognise that their way forward may be separate.
The purpose is not to preserve a relationship at any cost. It is to create enough safety, honesty and understanding for meaningful choices to become possible.
A background in psychology, counselling and mediation
My professional background brings together psychology, therapeutic practice, mediation and restorative work.
I hold an MSc in Mental Health Psychology from the University of Liverpool and a Diploma in Integrative Therapy from the Inter-Psyche Training Institute. I am currently completing an MSc in Mental Health & Wellbeing at the University of Wolverhampton.
Before becoming a counsellor, I also trained and worked in mediation and restorative practice. I am an accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator and a certified Restorative Justice and Mediation practitioner, and I have worked as a Restorative Justice Facilitator and Community Mediator.
That part of my professional life continues to inform the way I sit with relationship conflict.
Mediation and counselling are different processes, and I do not conduct relationship counselling as mediation. But mediation taught me something that remains deeply relevant to therapeutic work: two people can inhabit the same relationship and experience it very differently.
Repair rarely comes from proving whose version is correct. It becomes more possible when each person can speak from their own experience, begin to hear the experience of the other, and recognise what happens between them when those two realities meet.
My therapeutic training adds another layer to this. It allows us to work not only with the conflict itself, but with the emotions, vulnerabilities, protective responses and relational histories that may sit beneath it.
Qualifications & Professional Training
My principal qualifications and training relevant to relationship work include:
- MSc Mental Health Psychology — University of Liverpool
- Diploma in Integrative Therapy — Inter-Psyche Training Institute
- MSc Mental Health & Wellbeing — University of Wolverhampton (currently completing)
- Accreditation in Civil and Commercial Mediation — The Society of Mediators
- Restorative Justice and Mediation Practitioner Certification
My continuing professional development includes further study in areas such as attachment, trauma, family and systemic dynamics, emotional regulation and relational patterns.
I am a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and work within professional ethical frameworks, with ongoing clinical supervision.
Beginning Relationship Counselling
You do not need to know exactly what has gone wrong before coming to counselling.
You may know that you want to stay together but cannot find your way out of a recurring pattern. You may feel distant from one another and want to understand whether closeness can return. Or you may be uncertain about the future of the relationship itself.
We can begin with where you are.
I offer relationship counselling in person in Brentwood and Chelmsford, Essex, and online in the UK and internationally.
Finding your way back to trust, connection and affection can begin with understanding what is happening between you.
Book an initial conversation ->