Couples Therapy

I help couples who are married, dating, co-habitating, separating/divorcing, planning to marry, heterosexual, same sex, etc. 

When couples are in conflict and distress, their conversations tend to follow a typical course that repeats and repeats, seemingly with no resolution. Any time we sense a threat to our connection with an attachment figure (i.e. our partner), our high-arousal emotion activates our autonomic nervous system, which can make it difficult to process information, make decisions, think logically, and communicate with our partner in an effective way. 

One partner may feel anxious, fear the growing distance, and therefore reach out by trying to explain their fear. They may try to convince or even demand that something change, desperate to reconnect and to get reassurance that “We’re ok.” The other partner often experiences this as criticism or blame, feels hurt and responds by perhaps initially firing back. With this seeming to add fuel to the fire with increased hurt and conflict, the 2nd partner ultimately shuts down and turns away. This tends to only increase the anxiety and fear of the first partner, resulting in a continued cycle. 

The partners can’t see it in the moment, but each partner’s moves are protective of themselves and their relationship. Partner one frantically reaches and fights to reconnect in hopes of repairing and maintaining their relationship, while partner two shuts down harmful interactions in effort to preserve the relationship by avoiding more conflict. 

I help both partners to slow down and begin to see how their negative cycle feeds on itself. Partners begin to understand that the way they cope with difficult emotions and how they protect themselves, is the very thing that threatens and triggers their partner.  From my work with couples, I have learned that when triggered, we often go to a place of questioning “Do I matter to you? Will you be there for me?” I help couples talk to each other from this more vulnerable (non-protected) place. I help partners talk about their feelings, not their partner’s faults. I help them have L-O-V-E Conversations:

L - Listen with an 

O - Open heart and mind. 

V - Validate and acknowledge each other.

E - Express their thoughts and feelings softly, simply, and slowly. 

Such conversations help each partner increase their awareness, understanding and acceptance of their own emotional experience and that of their partner. Partners are then better able to tolerate and make space for intense emotion, which enables them to be open to a new way of experiencing themselves and their partner. Partners are able to create connection and to feel closer through new, shared emotional experiences.