Couple & Relationship Therapy
Relationships can be tough.
Sometimes, we all get in cycles of conflict that make us feel disconnected.
Even when you understand what’s getting in the way of communication,
it might feel impossible to change the automatic behaviors that get set off whenever we start fighting.
Therapy can help you change automatic behaviors at the root.
Often, our emotions reflect core needs that are vital to our well-being in our relationships.
They can be key indicators to direct us to what pain needs to be healed, and to ways to strengthen our relationships.
It’s easy to slip into protective modes when distressing emotions arise, because it is so so difficult to stay in a space of vulnerability and sit with intense pain.
Therapy works to help you experience these emotions and pain in a different way, allowing for the development of more secure bond with your partner, and release of tension in the relationship.
Some common issues I treat:
Communication difficulties
Conflict & disconnection
Emotional & physical intimacy
Rebuilding trust and safety
Affairs and infidelity
Establishing boundaries & relationship agreements
Navigating big feelings
Decisions around continuing or ending relationships
Decisions & preparation around opening up a relationship
Effective consensual non-monogamy
PTSD & impact of trauma on the relationship
External stress & life transitions
Reassurance seeking patterns
Relationship OCD
Navigating differences (e.g., cultural, racial, financial, background, values)
Navigating societal stigma/discrimination
Sex difficulties
My Approach
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Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is the foremost couple and relationship therapy. It is designed to shift unworkable relationship patterns through an attachment lens.
EFT involves 1) understanding the cycle of conflict that occurs between partners and 2) working to change the dynamic.
In understanding the cycle, I will learn about each of you and your personal experiences, and share a conceptualization about what’s going on, why you are stuck, and how to begin to change things.
In changing the dynamic, an essential part of EFT is experiencing and communicating the emotions and needs that we often feel we can’t get our partners to hear. Healing takes place when we are able to communicate important emotions to our partners in a way that they can hear without becoming defensive, critical, or shut down.
In EFT sessions, I work as a translator to help you effectively communicate the meaning and intent of what you’re trying to get your partner to hear. I will also work to help interrupt defensiveness, criticism, freeze/shut down responses in session so that we can safely understand what’s really going on inside each of you.
Change may involve new communication tools, rehearsing new behaviors, or seeing things through different perspectives.
Research shows that changes made through EFT sustain long after therapy ends, and that even difficult patterns that have been set for a long time can change.
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Sensate focus is a well established treatment for sex difficulties that helps alleviate pressure and stress around sex, and allows recovery of automatic responses of the body like sexual desire and arousal. This treatment helps build your abilities to cope with distractions and stay present, increasing enjoyment and pleasure in sex.
Sensate focus is customized to you, your specific difficulties and needs. You are able to set your own boundaries and go at your own pace in this treatment. This treatment can be done in relationship or solo.
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CBCT is an evidence-based therapy that helps couples who are affected by PTSD team up against the symptoms they are both affected by to regain connection and repair hurts.
PTSD creates a set of cycles in relationships that can be devastatingly destructive. Some of these can involve conflict around, and shared avoidance of triggers that impacts a fulfilling life. You may feel like your life has shrunk or become restricted by PTSD, like you’re walking on eggshells, emotionally numb, or that you feel badly about yourself, trust, safety, or control.
CBCT focuses on research-based education about PTSD, coping skills for communication patterns impacted by PTSD, and deeper processing and reshaping of beliefs for both partners shaped by PTSD, helping you release emotional pain.