Couple Therapy

Beneath every conflict is a desire to connect.
-Unknown

Creating a solid, lasting, and connected partnership may be one of the most challenging journeys upon which we as adults embark.  What we bring to the partnership as well as what we create together make each relationship unique.  Our needs, styles and differences can cause conflicts and relationships can develop patterns of repetitious arguments, frustration, stuckness, and alienation.  We can fall into ineffective and painful cycles that leave us feeling rejected, angry, hurt or disconnected and withdrawn.

Whether you are considering committing to a partnership, marriage, blending families or are in a longer term relationship, therapy can help partners understand how to prevent or break these cycles.

Relationship therapy can also help to:

  • Build or rebuild safety and intimacy
  • Reduce conflict and defensiveness
  • Rebuild emotional connection and understanding
  • Build resilience in self and in the relationship
  • Move from stuck to healthy engagement
  • Provide a path to a loving and connected relationship.

As a clinician certified in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, I recognize the power of emotions in forming both healthy bonds as well as creating cycles of hurt and despair.  I work to help each partner understand their emotional experience of the relationship and to be heard as well as to understand their partner and their relationship better.  I see my role as a consultant to help identify destructive patterns,  break out of painful cycles, create new ways of responding and engaging, and strengthen their emotional bond.

Relationship therapy is hard work and it requires each person to engage in understanding their own emotional reactions that, while understandable, may be perpetuating the cycles.  It also requires that partners recognize their needs and longings as well as those of their partners in the relationship.  Each partner is the expert on his or her experience and the power to change the dynamics of the relationship starts with each individuals willingness to risk changing dynamics through open, honest, emotional engagement.