Harman - that sounds pretty good going on the renegotiation of contact and I'm sure you'll get there in the end on the midweek stuff. Just keep being very reasonable and calm and clear about why you are asking for the specific arrangements you have requested.
As for the counselling - yes, counselling can be very gruelling and it very, very often causes friction with mothers . My partner has had a lot of counselling to get over his first marriage and he basically had to realise that he let his first wife emotionally blackmail him constantly because that's what his mother had brought him up to expect was normal behaviour in families. Not a very nice realisation and not good for filial feelings but better to realise it and to work out that life can be better, and fairer, than that.