Couples Therapy
I believe that most challenged intimate relationships and marriages can be restored to health if you and your partner are deeply committed to making that a reality. My role is to facilitate a possible path for healing your relationship. If you have children, I also help you recognize how your decisions about the future of your relationship or marriage may impact your children and other individuals who may be affected.
I offer various types of services for couples as mentioned below. Please click each name for a service description:​​
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Couples Therapy
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Couples therapy addresses a wide range of relationship concerns including recurring conflicts, feelings of disconnection, infidelity, issues related to intimacy and sex, concerns about finances, major life transitions, or challenges informed by external or internal stressors.
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I bring an integrative and holistic approach to couples therapy that honors how past traumatic experiences may be impacting your ability to connect with your partner or with the full potential of your intimate relationship. Due to the interconnectedness of trauma and attachment/relational patterns, I always take into consideration how early bonds were created and expressed. Early caregiving relationships inform the relational patterns that continue to operate throughout life in intimate and other relationships. When early bonds are founded on abuse, neglect, abandonment, rejection, and general adversity, relational instability tends to become a theme throughout the lifespan. Survival strategies that started as adaptive efforts to ensure safety and belonging become maladaptive and repetitive, often operating outside of our awareness and control, and potentially damaging even the strongest bonds.
Having worked extensively with couples, I've learned that many of life's challenges relate to our need for connection, love, intimacy, and growth. By confronting challenges as they emerge and collaborating during demanding moments, we can work through even the most difficult situations to re-energize relationships and strengthen bonds. In couples therapy, I offer opportunities to discuss and resolve issues related to various aspects of your relationship, including but not limited to:​
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roles in the relationship
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beliefs and values
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infidelity
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finances
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relationships with children
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feelings of distress
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relationships with family members
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intimacy and sex
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health- and wellness-related concerns
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faith- and spirituality-related concerns
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​cultural differences
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aging-related concerns
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internal and external stressors
Relationships are complex entities and it's possible that some of the above-mentioned issues are interacting with one another and shaping your entire relationship system. I personalize your couples therapy experience keeping in mind your unique strengths, challenges, and needs as a couple. My integrative approach honors your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, physical experience, social-relational experience, and spirituality.
Premarital Counseling
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Premarital counseling is a type of therapy that helps couples identify and resolve issues in their relationship before they commit to marriage, set relationship goals, and take the next step in their relationship. Dating each other extensively is no guarantee you are familiar or comfortable with the life experience and emotional baggage each of you will bring into your marriage. Personal aspects like previous relationships, finances, health, family and friends, children, professional life, and work-life balance are critical dimensions of any marriage.
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Many couples seek premarital counseling as a preventive measure. Instead of waiting until there is a conflict, couples engage in premarital counseling to get ahead of issues that may be brewing below the surface or outside of their awareness. Carefully created questions from an experienced counselor can help you better understand some of your partner’s personal history as elements of that will emerge later in your relationship.
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Topics that may be explored during premarital counseling include but are not limited to the following:
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Marriage resolutions and goals
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Conflict transformation skills
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Marriage expectations and short- and long-term plans
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Resentment due to unfinished business
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Fears surrounding commitment
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Core values and beliefs
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Finances
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Religion and spirituality (especially for interfaith relationships)
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Plans regarding children
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Gender and other socially- and culturally-informed experiences
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​Cultural differences
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Family history, family of origin, and attachment and relational patterns
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Infidelity and other sex- and intimacy-related issues
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Career plans
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Boundaries and parameters
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Ground rules for the marriage
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It’s easy to get emotionally overwhelmed when discussing such serious topics. As a therapist with many years of experience working with couples and families, I can guide you through a series of thoughtful questions and conversations in a clear and impartial manner. This may ultimately help you identify options for initiating and sustaining a healthy marriage.
Couples Therapy Intensives
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Nobody begins their marriage or intimate relationship planning to divorce or separate, or to feel disconnected, alone, and unloved. It is not unusual, however, for couples to find themselves in just that type of scenario as they attempt to navigate seemingly hopeless situations, experience breaches of trust and non-communication, and feel so stuck that separation or divorce may seem to be the only options.
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A couples therapy intensive is designed to help you transform the experience of your marriage/intimate relationship, especially following a major breach or compromising event such as the following:
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a significant loss (child, job, etc.)
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a health scare (heart attack, cancer diagnosis, etc.)
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infidelity (sexual, financial, etc.)
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significant life transition (geographical move, family/friend moving in/out, etc.)
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loss of relational passion
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chronic relational distress ​
An intensive may also be helpful if you are trying to make a big decision and don’t have the luxury of time, or if you are feeling stuck with one conflict that seems unresolvable. This approach offers you a safe environment to explore how you can connect with higher levels of safety and support in your relationship and build from there.
Using a series of experiential exercises, I help couples practice how to address challenging issues using boundary work, somatic healing, and guided communication skills, all informed by your existing strengths. Patterns of behavior emanating from family of origin are explored to help reduce intense emotions such as guilt and shame, allowing for the release of patterned behaviors and the emergence of your authentic self. Vulnerability, transparency, and openness are invited and encouraged, leading towards more healthy intimacy. You will learn new methods of engaging one another both verbally and non-verbally.
Participating in a couples therapy intensive offers you focused time to learn to address conflict in a non-aggressive and non-defensive manner, develop healthy patterns of communication, deepen emotional intimacy, address unresolved issues, and jump-start true relational change. It supports deeper levels of connection and enhanced hope for growth. I personalize your couples therapy intensive keeping in mind your unique strengths, challenges, and needs as a couple. My integrative approach honors your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, physical experience, social-relational experience, and spirituality.