Millie Hobbins

Relationships are at the heart of my practice.

I’m Millie Hobbins, a relationship specialist and integrative counsellor working with couples and individuals in Romsey, Southampton and online.

People rarely come to relationship therapy because they have simply stopped caring. More often, they come because they do care, but something between them has become difficult to reach.

You may still love each other but keep having versions of the same argument. One of you may pursue while the other withdraws. Communication may have become defensive or painfully quiet. Intimacy may have changed. Perhaps trust has been damaged by an affair or betrayal, or over time you have gradually become more like housemates than partners.

Sometimes couples come because they are unsure whether they want help repairing their relationship or understanding whether it should continue.

You do not need to know the answer before coming to therapy.

How I work with couples
I am not interested in deciding who is right, who is wrong, or who is “the problem”.

Two people can experience the same relationship very differently, and both experiences matter.

Instead, I become curious about what happens between you.

What happens just before an argument escalates? What might sit underneath anger, defensiveness or withdrawal? What is difficult to say directly? What happens when one person reaches for connection and the other protects themselves by pulling away?

Behaviours that look uncaring from the outside can sometimes make more sense when we understand what they are protecting.

Together, we can slow these interactions down enough to recognise the recurring patterns that have developed in your relationship and explore the needs, fears, expectations and experiences underneath them.

My role is not to tell you what your relationship should look like. It is to create a balanced therapeutic space where both people can be heard and where we can become curious about the relationship you have created together.

I work with couples experiencing:

recurring arguments and communication difficulties
emotional distance or feeling more like housemates
affairs, betrayal and questions around rebuilding trust
loss of intimacy or changes in emotional or physical closeness
jealousy, insecurity and fear of abandonment
differences in needs, expectations or ways of communicating
attachment and recurring relationship patterns
difficulties associated with neurodivergence within relationships
major life transitions affecting the relationship
premarital concerns and preparation for marriage
blended-family and family difficulties
uncertainty about whether to stay together
separation, divorce and uncoupling
Individual relationship therapy
Relationship work does not always require two people in the room.

I also work with individuals who want to understand themselves more deeply in relationships.

Perhaps you repeatedly find yourself attracted to similar partners. You may lose yourself when you fall in love, struggle to trust, fear abandonment, find closeness uncomfortable, remain in relationships that no longer feel right, or wonder why the same difficulties seem to follow you from one relationship to another.

We can explore not simply what you do, but what you have come to believe about yourself, other people and relationships — and where those understandings may have originated.

Sometimes these beliefs have been shaped by family relationships, previous partners, loss, rejection, cultural expectations or experiences much earlier in life. What once helped us adapt or protect ourselves can continue influencing our relationships long after the original circumstances have changed.

I approach this with curiosity rather than judgement.

Rather than beginning with “What is wrong with you?”, I am much more interested in:

“What happened, what does this mean to you, and how did this way of relating come to make sense?”

Therapy can offer somewhere to explore those questions without being told who you ought to become.

What you can expect from me
My style is warm, engaged and collaborative.

I will listen carefully, but I am not a therapist who simply sits silently while you do all the work. I may notice a pattern, ask a question, gently challenge something or invite you to look at an experience from another perspective.

At the same time, I do not believe that being the therapist makes me the expert on your life.

You bring knowledge of what it is like to be you. I bring therapeutic training, relational knowledge and another pair of eyes with which we can look at what is happening.

For me, good therapy is something we create together.

You do not need to arrive with the right words, a perfectly defined problem or a clear goal.

We can begin with curiosity.

Alongside my specialist relationship work, I support clients with anxiety, low mood, stress, grief and bereavement, self-esteem, anger, family difficulties, life transitions, attachment difficulties and the impact of earlier relational experiences. I also have additional training in trauma awareness, neurodivergent-affirming practice, working with survivors of narcissistic parenting, emotional regulation and understanding young minds.

These difficulties do not always exist separately from our relationships. How we experience ourselves, regulate emotions, respond to conflict and connect with others can all influence, and be influenced by our relationships. I therefore work with the whole person while keeping a relational understanding at the heart of my practice.

I work with individuals and couples in person from my counselling room in Romsey and also offer online sessions.

Individual sessions: 50 minutes — £60

Couples sessions: 50 minutes — £90

Extended couples sessions: 90 minutes — £120

Family sessions: 90 minutes — £120

Longer couples sessions can offer more space when a relationship feels particularly complex or when couples prefer deeper, more focused work without having to stop after 50 minutes. 

Ask for more details. 

Starting therapy does not require you to arrive knowing exactly what you want to talk about or what needs to change.

Some people come with a very clear concern. Others simply know that something in their life or relationship no longer feels right. Both are valid places to begin.

Our first conversations are an opportunity for me to understand what has brought you to therapy and for you to experience how it feels to work with me. From there, we can begin to explore what feels most important.

My way of working is collaborative rather than prescriptive. At times I may gently invite you to look at something from a different perspective, notice a pattern or explore something that feels difficult, but this takes place within a therapeutic relationship where openness and honesty can work both ways.

With couples, I aim to create a balanced space where both partners have an opportunity to be heard. I am interested not in deciding who is right, but in understanding what happens between you and what each of you experiences within that dynamic.

There is no expectation that you should already know the answers. Therapy can begin with curiosity.