Stress and the challenges of life can take a toll even on the best marriage or intimate relationship. Once stress responses like pursue-withdraw or attack-defend start to take hold, they can turn into vicious circles that take over the relationship. Once I understand each of your perspectives, I can provide a third party perspective to help understand why your relationship is stuck, breaking down, or has lost connection or intimacy. We work to gain a better understanding of how each partner wants and needs to connect, we define what intimacy means to each partner, including what you expect but also fear from others in a loving relationship.
Through couples therapy, each person sees how the other reacts to intimacy and what needs to be changed or softened in order to not trigger each other so often. I actively help each partner learn what to do when you do trigger your partner or get triggered. Change is possible, but it takes courage and support. Using the safe space of the therapeutic setting, couples can take the scary but important steps to explore their situation as well as to repair and strengthen the relationship. I try to help couples more truthfully know themselves and each other. This leads to a better understanding of how their inner selves are affecting their day-to -day, outer lives. Through mutual understanding, couples can find new strategies for enjoying and deepening their relationship.
Some of the areas we might work on are as follows : communication skills, conflict and resentment, drifting apart, affair recovery, obstacles to sexual intimacy, difference in parenting style, and balancing work and family. I work with couples in all stages of relationship from those newly dating or living together to newlyweds to lifelong partner who desire to rekindle sex, love, and intimacy. I also work with couples recovering from affairs and rebuilding trust.
