What are the opening hours?

Monday 10am - 8pm Tuesday 10am - 8pm Wednesday 10am - 8pm Thursday 10am - 8pm Friday 9am - 4pm Saturday 11am - 4pm

Claire Ratcliffe: Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Couples Therapist

Home
United Kingdom
Manchester
Claire Ratcliffe: Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Couples Therapist

Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Couples Therapist. There are many reasons why people choose to come to therapy.

Podcast: Healing Relationships: With Ourselves, Others & The World

For more information please click on the link belo For some, it can be a sense of discomfort, an internal struggle, or perhaps an external trigger has pushed you towards seeking support. Therapy can be an empowering process, supporting you to reconnect with yourself, to notice and take care of your needs, bringing you self awareness, healing, and a deeper sense of security. I work to provide clients with a safe and attuned therapeutic experience. This gives you the space to look at old patterns of behaviour that are no longer serving you, supporting you to make healthier changes, moving you forward into a place of authenticity. My main training and theoretical background is Transactional Analysis & Relational Integrative Psychotherapy. I offer both short-term and long-term therapy for individuals, couples, and groups. Supervision

I completed my Supervision training at The Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy in January 2015. My work as a Supervisor is very much informed by Transactional Analysis & Relational Integrative theory. I supervise Counsellors & Psychotherapists from a wide range of theoretical approaches. I also provide Clinical & Reflective Supervision (Individual & Group) for various organisations. Relationship & Couples Counselling

I am a qualified relationship therapist, and have been working with couples, polyamorous & other relationship variations since 2013. I work with heteros*xual relationships & those who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Telephone & Online sessions available, both within the UK & Internationally. For further information, you can access this via the following link:

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/claire-ratcliffe

Twitter: CR_Psych
Instagram: cr_psychotherapy

08/12/2025

Money Pressures at Christmas 🎄

Here are some of the ways financial pressure can show up at this time of year:

💛 1. Feeling responsible for creating a magical Christmas for everyone else

Especially if you didn’t grow up with that yourself. The pressure to “make up for” something can become expensive and overwhelming.

💛 2. Comparing your Christmas to others

This is so easily done… Social media, friends, colleagues… it can feel like everyone else is doing more, buying more, giving more. Comparison often fuels shame and overspending.

💛 3. Guilt-based spending

Buying gifts or saying yes to events because you feel you “should,” even when it stretches you beyond what’s possible.

💛 4. Family expectations

Sometimes families place emotional weight on presents, hosting, or traditions. This can add layers of pressure that make it hard to say no.

💛 5. Using spending as a way to soothe

When the season feels lonely or triggering, it’s understandable that buying things can feel comforting .. but it often leave us feel more stressed at a later date once the comfort or dopamine hit has worn off.

So how can we support ourselves instead, without going into debt?

🎄 1. Set a realistic budget

Decide what you can truly afford. Boundaries around money are acts of self-care.

🎄 2. Choose presence over perfection

Connection, rest, and spending time doing what you enjoy and with people you love.

🎄 3. Communicate openly with partners or family

A shared understanding of your limits reduces pressure and helps prevent resentment or financial strain. They can also probably relate!

🎄 4. Create new traditions that cost very little (or nothing)

A winter walk, a movie night, a handwritten note, a favourite meal cooked together.

🎄 5. Challenge the “shoulds”

Ask yourself: “Is this something I want, or something I feel pressured to do?”
Your wellbeing matters more than meeting expectations.

🎄 6. Practise compassion

If money feels tight this year, don’t allow yourself to spiral into shame. Take care of yourself (and your younger parts).

There are so many lovely ways to enjoy Christmas without it costing a fortune

02/12/2025

Supporting Yourself & Each Other During the Festive Season 🎄

Christmas can be really lovely .. and also incredibly overwhelming.
In this episode I talk about the stress, pressure, people-pleasing and perfectionism that so many of us slip into at this time of year.

If you notice yourself trying to keep everyone happy, overcommitting, or chasing the “perfect” Christmas, you’re not alone in this … These patterns often come from old scripts, family expectations, and a deep desire to avoid disappointment.

In this episode, I talk about:

✨ The emotional load of the festive season
✨ Why people-pleasing and perfectionism show up
✨ How to choose what truly matters
✨ Self-soothing & grounding techniques you can use anywhere
✨ Gentle co-regulation tools you and your partner can use together
✨ Ways to protect your energy, time and emotional bandwidth

This season does not need to be perfect to be meaningful.

🎧 Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Healing Relationships: With Ourselves, Others & The World

25/11/2025

✨ New Podcast Episode: How to Get the Most From Couples Therapy ✨

Couples therapy isn’t just about what happens in the room, during your one hour session each week… it’s about how you use the insights, the space, and the time between sessions to create real, lasting change.

In this episode, I talk about:

💬 Making the most of each session:
How to arrive prepared, stay open, and use the space intentionally.

🧠 Willingness vs. motivation:
Why they’re not the same and how both can show up differently for each partner.

🌱 Self-reflection that actually moves you forward:
Exploring what you’d like to shift within yourself, and getting curious about any blocks or patterns that might be getting in the way.

🏡 Building the relationship you want:
How to clarify the kind of life you want to create together and how to take meaningful steps toward it.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Healing Relationships - With Ourselves, Others & The World

18/11/2025

The Power of Appreciations in Relationships

In this episode I cover:

💛 Why appreciation feels vulnerable (and why that’s okay)
💛 How childhood scripts shape what we feel able to express
💛 The weekly 15 minute ritual I teach couples
💛 How appreciations build safety, closeness, and connection

🎧 Healing Relationships
https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2537400.rss

16/11/2025

A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to London to a Couples Therapy Live Demonstrations Event at Regents University.

I have been a couples therapist since 2013 and love learning as much as I can about Couples, Relationships & S*x therapy. I have training in several Relationship Therapy Modalities and wanted to learn more about RLT (Relational Life Therapy) as I have also started my Level 1 training with them.

What became apparent for me is there are many ways in which we can train and many modalities and approaches we can learn from. But a huge part of who we are as therapists is also in our human nature, our personalities and who we are as people.

Even if we all have the same training, we are different people, different therapists and we will work with couples differently.

I loved the adventure and had a great time meeting new people and exploring London when I had the chance! 💛

15/11/2025

Inner Child Exercise

🎧 Podcast: Healing Relationships

14/11/2025

Are you a couples therapist who dreads seeing couples? … I was!
I began my couples therapy training in 2013… I had nine months of weekly training… I began working with couples and quickly realised I felt incredibly under-confident and to be honest I didn’t feel fully equipped… I wondered if I’d made a mistake advertising I work with couples… So I deleted that from my Therapy profile and stopped seeing couples altogether.

I felt sad because I was very sure that I wanted to work with couples and disappointed that it hadn’t worked out. What I now realise is… The training that I’d had.. although it was good, didn’t feel enough to work with the wide range of complexities that couples can bring.

In addition to this, the supervisor I had at the time didn’t work with couples and hadn’t had any couples therapy training.

It didn’t actually occur to me at the time to seek out specialist supervision with someone who works predominantly with couples and relationships.

Because I had a passion to work with couples, I continued to read, train and explore more therapeutic modalities… including s*x therapy.
And I also sought out additional supervision with specialist couples therapy supervisors.

Now, not only do I feel confident, competent and potent working with couples & relationships, but I really truly love it. I get so much enjoyment from working with couples in sessions and seeing their relationship transform.

So if you are a therapist who is considering deleting ‘couples therapy’ from your online therapy profile… Please pause and ask yourself… if you feel fully supported?
In your training? In your supervision? Do you have the resources required to support you to thrive in your couples therapy practice?

✨I am currently in the process of setting up a new supervision group specifically for couples and relationship therapists for 90 minutes each month. Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to join.

13/11/2025

In Transactional Analysis, awareness is at the heart of growth. Without it, we cannot change.
It’s what allows us and our clients to step out of automatic patterns and into conscious choice.

When we’re truly present in the here and now, we can see ourselves and others more clearly, rather than reacting from old scripts or unfinished stories.

In couples work, this awareness can be the moment everything changes .. when a partner finally sees the other without the filter of the past… but it takes work to get there. It takes noticing.. it means reconnecting with yourself… it takes having difficult conversations.. again and again and again… that leads to deep healing.

11/11/2025

✨ Online Group Supervision for Therapists Working with Couples & Relationships ✨

I’m putting together a new 90-minute online supervision group for counsellors and psychotherapists who work with couples and relationships.

The group will meet once a month, likely on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, and will offer a supportive, reflective space to explore your work, develop confidence, and deepen your understanding of relational dynamics.

If there’s enough interest, I’m happy to run two groups - one on a Tuesday and one on a Thursday, so there’s flexibility to find a time that works best for you.

🪷 Space for reflection, learning and connection

🪷 Deepen your therapeutic practice

🪷 Open to therapists of all modalities

🪷 Online and accessible wherever you are

🪷 £65 per month (membership-based group)

If you’d like to join, send me a message to express your interest and share which day suits you best. Once I know what works for most people, I’ll confirm the regular slots.

11/11/2025

A few weeks ago, I asked on here if anyone had any questions they’d like me to answer on the podcast .. and this episode is all about that.

The questions were mainly about relationships.. what to do when things feel really difficult, when you’re drawn to someone else, and when dating brings up more anxiety than connection.

🎧 Q&A: Your Relationship Questions Answered

Out now wherever you listen to podcasts.

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2537400.rss

Podcast: Healing Relationships

10/11/2025

All relationships move through cycles of connection, disconnection, and repair… the repair is incredibly important.

It’s not the absence of conflict that defines a healthy relationship, but the ability to return to one another after rupture. 💛

When we can stay grounded in our nervous system and approach repair with curiosity instead of blame, trust deepens and our relationships become stronger.

It’s in the coming back together that intimacy grows.

09/11/2025

When we find ourselves trying to control or fix those around us, it’s often because we’re in our sympathetic state in our nervous system .. activated, anxious, or on alert. Our body is saying, “something isn’t safe,” and we instinctively try to restore balance by changing the outside world rather than soothing our inner world.

Learning to regulate your own emotional temperature means noticing that activation, pausing before reacting, and finding ways to soothe yourself first.

Address

Manchester

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 8pm
Tuesday	10am - 8pm
Wednesday	10am - 8pm
Thursday	10am - 8pm
Friday	9am - 4pm
Saturday	11am - 4pm

Website

https://www.claireratcliffepsychotherapy.co.uk/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Claire Ratcliffe: Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Couples Therapist posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Manchester?

Claire Ratcliffe: Psychotherapist, Supervisor & Couples Therapist

08/12/2025

02/12/2025

25/11/2025

18/11/2025

16/11/2025

15/11/2025

14/11/2025

13/11/2025

11/11/2025

11/11/2025

10/11/2025

09/11/2025

Address

Opening Hours

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category