Couples/Relationship Therapy
Forget the butterflies, I feel the whole zoo when I am with you
My beliefs:
I believe that relationships take work and that they are hard to do well
I believe that couples therapy should help you both grow as an individual and as a couple. We will explore the unhelpful patterns that show up in your relationship and work on gaining skills for better communication, intimacy, and relational joy
I do not believe couples therapy should be used as a "misery stabilizer:” a space to just complain about your partner, but instead a place to learn and grow
I assume good faith and believe that most partners are doing the best they can with the tools they have
I believe that with the proper education, guidance, and coaching, you can radically transform all of your relationships
How I work:
I am on the side of your relationship
I am active as a clinician and coach, helping guide you towards relational integrity
I will be honest about what I see in your relationship: both strengths and weaknesses
I work collaboratively with you to do work that is meaningful and impactful
I use the tools/skills that I teach in my own personal relationships, mostly successfully :)
The theories that I draw from:
Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT): utilizes neuroscience, attachment theory, family systems, psychodrama and social justice
Relational Life Therapy (RLT): an integrative approach based on radical honesty, fierce intimacy, healing trauma, dramatic transformation, and tackling shame and grandiosity
Developmental Model: utilizes attachment, differentiation, and neuroscience
Esther Perel: focuses on relational health and communication, erotic intelligence, treating trauma, and couples and family identity.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): Couples learn to become emotionally available, empathetic, and engaged with each other, strengthening the attachment bond and creating a safe place between them
One of the many joys of working with couples is helping partners learn to become better attuned to each other in the here-and-now and to always put their relationship first. Secure functioning couples can argue without being a threat to each other and without threatening the relationship.
***I also specialize in working with neurodivergent couples (e.g., ADD/ADHD, Autism, HSP’s)***
I can help you work towards:
Addressing sexual difficulties (e.g., desire discrepancy, sexual dysfunction/pain, past sexual trauma, out-of-control sexual behaviors, infidelity) and being able to articulate your sexual needs and desires with your partner(s).
Teaching you to better read and understand the verbal and non-verbal signals and cues that you send to each other. Understanding what things that you both do that contribute to fueling conflicts. Helping you to understand why threatening to end the relationship, shutting down, unbridled self-expression, and/or refusing to work towards repair is a threat to secure functioning.
Learning how to argue more skillfully.
Managing thirds: “Thirds” are anything that fuel conflict and jeopardize the safety and security of your relationship: kids, in-laws, ex-partners, work commitments, coworkers, technology, extracurricular activities, drugs and/or alcohol.
Asking for help in periods of stress. Teaching you how to self-regulate and co-regulate (quickly shift one another’s emotional states) in periods of stress and vulnerability.
Addressing power imbalances in the relationship and helping each partner shift their relationship with power.
When working with a couple, I am committed to:
Helping you both better understand how your emotions and psychological states of mind can drastically and quickly shift, preventing you from feeling satisfied and emotionally connected to each other to feeling frustrated, angry, sad, or judgmental; and help you learn what to do in these difficult, painful and stressful situations to repair your relationship and connection.
Empowering you both to identify and quickly change each other’s emotional and mental state when you are stressed-out, having an argument, or feeling frustrated. Teaching you why quick repair is important so that these states don’t have to last hours or days on end and ultimately end up hijacking your relationship.
Teaching you how to control and modulate the connection with your significant other, and everyone else you come in contact with, so that your relationship can remain a secure and safe base. Reminding you that you are experts on one another.
Coaching you to preserve the connection, intimacy, romance, sexuality, and all of the other great attributes that make your partnership special and unique to you.
My work draws upon cutting edge research, including:
Neuroscience: the study of the human brain. Our nervous system is the biggest obstacle in our relationships. Neuroscience provides important information about how the Primitives (the implicit, non-verbal, fast, and cheap parts of our brain) can hijack the Ambassadors (the higher, conscious, verbal, and empathic parts of our brain). The Primitives, wired for survival, unconsciously pull couples into states of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn— leading partners to escalate conflict through anger or withdrawal, blowing things up or shutting them down — a state where productive and loving communication becomes impossible. Because of the way long-term memory and perception work, such reactive patterns will increase and escalate over time, making it difficult for partners to feel safe, secure, and happy together.
Attachment Theory: studies how partners bond emotionally. Experiences in our early relationships create a blueprint that informs the sense of safety, well-being, mutual positive regard, love and happiness that we bring into adult relationships.
Biology of Human Arousal: the moment-to-moment ability to manage your energy, alertness, and readiness to engage.
Session Structure:
Many couples prefer to meet on a weekly basis for one hour. Others enjoy a deeper dive into the work with longer sessions (1.5+ hours) or intensives (longer sessions scheduled over several days). Couples who are highly motivated to work on their relationship and eager to do the work often appreciate a combination of weekly hour-long sessions interspersed with longer sessions.
Couple intensives, destination-based sessions, or in-home therapy is available for those couples who wish to take a deeper dive. Click here for more information.
