Couples Therapy
I believe we are at our best while in emotionally fulfilling relationships, and I’m passionate about working with couples and the excitement that change generates. My bias is that most couples therapists are not adequately trained; they see couples after having taken just a single couples course in graduate school. This is not enough, and therapists without proper training tend to be less effective. Couples therapy is a specialty area of mine, and I devote a significant portion of my ongoing development to learning and staying current with the most effective models for building evolving and lasting relationships.
At any given point in a relationship, couples often need help moving through tough times. I train couples to pay closer attention to the moment-to-moment interactions that typically go un-noticed and often lead to painful feelings and resentment. Within these interactions are missed signs, which contain subtle cues about our partners and ourselves. Through their work with me, couples will learn to attune to each other, develop empathy for other’s vulnerabilities, take things less personally, and develop tools to move through conflict with greater effectiveness and speed.
I typically help couples:
- create a safer forum for expressing needs and differences
- learn how to be in conflict while maintaining closeness
- regulate each other’s stress instead of causing it
- initiate repair after relationship injuries, even affairs
- negotiate boundaries and space
- navigate a new stage in the relationship
- deal with differing levels of individuation from each other
- explore their individual identities in the context of the relationship
- be in relationship without compromising the essential self
- address disparity in sexual drive
- learn how to devote more time to their relationship
- restore that romantic connection
- synchronize sexually, and keep things hot
- increase their level of consciousness and compassion for each other
- approach their relationship as a spiritual path