Understanding your relationships
- Adults
- English
- Modules
- Voiceover
- Course Modules
1.1 Relationships
1.2 How do you currently feel about your relationship?
1.3 Understanding our feelings
1.4 How we know we're happy
1.5 How we know we're sad
1.6 How we know we're tired
1.7 How we know we're anxious
1.8 Feelings
2.1 You and your partner's feelings
2.2 Understanding when the other person feels happy
2.3 Understanding when the other person feels sad
2.4 Understanding when your partner feels tired
2.5 Understanding when your partner feels anxious
2.6 Your partner's feelings
3.1 Reading behaviours
3.2 More examples
3.3 How our behaviour affects our partner
3.4 Your feelings make a difference
3.5 The challenge of reading behaviours
4.1 What's coming up
4.2 Feeling worse
4.3 Feeling better
4.4 Containment: the basics
4.5 Containment: learning more
4.6 And more
4.7 What can happen when we have our own worries
4.8 Making space in your mind
5.1 How feelings are communicated
5.2 The underlying emotions
5.3 Doing things differently
5.4 Another example of how feelings are communicated
5.5 Underlying emotions again
5.6 Trying to do things differently
5.7 Thinking about how we say things
5.8 Saying things differently
5.9 Developing a containing relationship
5.10 What you've learnt
6.1 Reflections and what's coming up
6.2 The Dance of Reciprocity: The basics
6.3 Communication between adults
6.4 More about communication between adults
6.5 Understanding the Dance of Reciprocity
6.6 The 7 steps of the Dance
6.7 The Dance: Some observations
6.8 Self-regulation and the Dance
6.9 What you’ve learnt
6.10 Time to have a go!
7.1 Feeding back on Time to have a go!
7.2 Key points from Time to have a go!
7.3 What's coming up
7.4 What makes you feel angry?
7.5 What makes your partner angry?
7.6 Seeing anger in a different way
7.7 Why do you feel angry?
7.8 When can anger be helpful?
7.9 When is anger unhelpful?
7.10 What you've learnt this Module
7.11 Time to have a go!
8.1 Rupture and repair
8.2 How we learn to manage our anger
8.3 Parent child interaction examples
8.4 Alternative approaches
8.5 How can you work with your partner?
8.6 Time to have a go!
8.7 What you've learnt in this Module
9.1 What's coming up
9.2 How did your parents deal with anger?
9.3 What do you think you learned from your parents?
9.4 Time to have a go!
9.5 What you've learned in this Module
10.1 Reflecting on the last Module
10.2 Feeding back on Time to have a go!
10.3 What's coming up
10.4 How to recover when things go wrong: rupture and repair
10.5 Example of a rupture
10.6 Where did things go wrong?
10.7 How the situation could be improved: a repair
10.8 Repairing the situation
10.9 Repairing relationships
10.10 What happens after a disagreement
10.11 The importance of apologising
10.12 More about apologising
10.13 Some other observations
10.14 Time to have a go!
11.1 Reflecting on the last Module
11.2 Feeding back on Time to have a go!
11.3 Some other people's observations
11.4 Have you changed anything?
11.5 Doing things differently
11.6 Post-course questionnaire
11.7 Solihull Approach acknowledgements
11.8 The end of this course: continuing your journey
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
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.