ABSTRACT
You saw Mrs B last week and invited her to make a double appointment with her husband. Just imagine that today she has mistakenly booked in for a 10-minute appointment. What can you possibly achieve in such a short time and what sort of map can you use to guide you? The consultation has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the first part you need to take a bit of a history, in the middle to explore the issues, and at the end come to some sort of resolution with possibly an agreed action plan. Relationship pain is like any other pain in the body. It has a history, it has exacerbating and relieving factors and it affects other parts of the body (in this case the family, friends and work). Couples use ‘substances’ like work, children, alcohol, hobbies amongst other things to forget about the pain. So, history taking should not be too much of a problem; narrowing down the consultation probably will be.
