Are You Stuck at an Impasse in Your relationship? I Can Help.

We all want to feel emotionally safe, seen and valued in our intimate relationships. When we don’t, we may protest, shut down or lash out and find ourselves in familiar patterns of conflict, loneliness and disconnection or wishing our partner would change. Every couple has arguments, but recurring battles can leave couples feeling at a hopeless impasse. 

As a specialist in couples therapy and research for over 20 years, my goal is to help you learn to reconcile longstanding differences, to increase your connection and understanding and to help you build communication strategies that work.

To help couples meet these goals, I use an evidence-based approach that has been shown to be effective in improving relationship satisfaction and communication and decreasing the likelihood of divorce. I work collaboratively to help couples:

1. Identify Pattern of Interaction that is Not Working

I help couples recognize and build an objective understanding of the emotional dance they get stuck in—what triggers it, how each partner reacts and how to come together more easily to solve conflict.

2. Increase Perspective Taking

I help partners improve their empathic understanding of each other and develop a better understanding of what it’s like to be in each others shoes.

2. Explore Emotions Underneath

I help partners become aware of the softer emotions that are often beneath anger, criticism, or withdrawal, such as fear of rejection, shame, or longing for connection.

3. Create New Emotional Experiences (in and out of session)

I help partners learn to share these deeper feelings in ways that draw them closer together, first in session and then at home.

4. Building a Stronger Bond

Through my flexible and tailored approach, couples often report an increase in positive communication skills, fewer and less intense arguments, and a greater sense of friendship, intimacy and understanding.

My goals as a therapist is to help you evolve the way you communicate to deal with conflict and disconnection more gracefully and help you gain an understanding of what emotional needs are driving your conflict. I help couples develop a more satisfying and secure emotional connection over time, where both people feel safe, supported, and valued. 

In session, we will bring curiosity to collaboratively understand incidents that reflect the problem as well as positive interactions and movements toward change.  We won’t work on changing who you are as people.  The goal of our discussions is not to place blame, but to understand these incidents (and the emotions and needs behind them) and to handle them more effectively. Often, our focus will turn toward working together in the moment so I can help guide you toward interactions that create greater understanding and resolution. In this way, you will learn and practice effective strategies in session that you can then take home.

Some common concerns people bring to couples therapy or marriage counseling:

• Relationship dissatisfaction

• Difficulties with closeness, vulnerability or openness

• Growing apart

• Communication problems

• High-conflict interactions

• Infidelity, emotional affairs

• Difficulties with sexual intimacy/differences in desire for sexual intimacy

• Coping with mental health problems, anger or trauma

• Transitioning to parenthood, parenting problems, blended families

• Infertility, pregnancy complications, and perinatal loss

• Caregiving, children with special needs, disability or illness

• Chronic illness, grief and loss

I am a LGBTQ+ affirming provider

As a couples specialist, I have extensive training and experience in working with couples over the past twenty years. My primary therapeutic modalities are two evidence-based therapies called Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) and Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). These approaches have the most scientific backing in the field of couples therapy. In addition, my masters and dissertation examining couples distress where based upon the work of John Gottman (the Gottman Method). I also have training in the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT).

For a helpful summary of how to choose a (good) couples therapist, click here 

For a helpful summary of the best scientific treatments available for couples in distress, click here

If it sounds like my work might be good fit for you, contact me for a free phone consultation and to set up an initial meeting.