Finding a good fit with a psychotherapist has been shown in studies to be the most important factor in determining a successful outcome. To make finding a good fit affordable for you, I offer first sessions at $60.
Please contact me to learn more about Couple’s Counseling treatment.
In couple’s counseling, expect active and engaged sessions where we work to identify the specific points where you are getting stuck. It’s at these moments that you’ll be introduced to information and skills to create a new experience in real time. Expect to have conversations that feel new, that feel important and productive, and take you into a new dynamic with each other. You can also expect that the skill you learn in couple’s counseling will carry over into your other relationships, and the rest of your life.
Sharing our intimate selves with another is among both the richest and most complex of endeavors and I am continually amazed at the creative solutions couples are able to find with guidance, research and evidence-based information and skills, and help from each other.
Fighting, Conflict, and Resentment.
If you identify with fighting and resentment, you might be asking, “How did we get here?” The fights might start off as talking but then somehow things get out of hand and suddenly it is the middle of the night, or terrible words are being said that will be hard to take back, or whole thing feels like it has been blown out of proportion. Worse, you’re back where you started and things feels a little more fragile. Fighting with our partner is incredibly painful and can turn our world upside down. Fights can wreak havoc on the nervous system and interfere with our ability to concentrate, sleep, and eat.
For as much as you both want health and happiness together, differences and disagreements are inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is the locked in pattern of fighting over the same thing, without any movement, or worse yet, continuing to accumulate nights and harsh words that can’t be taken back. Couple’s counseling can produce major change when the energy and passion involved in a fight is redirected and reconstructed toward engagement, creativity, and vulnerability.
Exploring, Negotiating and Finding Stability in Open or Non-monogamous Relationships
Maybe unconventional partnerships were always part of the picture and something that felt right for you. Or perhaps this is completely new for you and your parter and you want some guidance on how to strengthen your relationship, while being honest and up front. Perhaps your relationship with your partner is already ending, but you would like to find some resolution and try and create a new dynamic.
If the tough part of a conventional relationship is relying too much on what it is “supposed” to be like, the tough part of open relationship can be around figuring out the what, when, how, with who and for how long in a way that honors both you and your other relationships. If all relationships are really experiments around making contact with another human being, nontraditional relationships are intentional and explicitly so.
In couple’s counseling for open, non-monogamous, or otherwise nontraditional relationships, the focus is about sourcing your creativity, exploring the triggers, wounds and constrictions that hold you back from bringing love and intimacy forward, and facilitating the dialogue and conversations that will support the transparent, respectful, and joyful partnerships and pairing that can sustain complexity.
Stagnation, Boredom, and Distance
You might say your partner is your best friend. Your friendship is strong, you mostly get along, and you have a lot in common. You know it “could be a lot worse” and maybe that is why it is has taken so long that there even if you don’t fight, you don’t really feel close or have much sex either. There isn’t much passion and it can sometimes feel more like a friendship, financial partnership or roommate situation than a romantic relationship. The joy you felt early on has settled into a fairly pleasant, if predictable and somewhat monotonous, routine.
It’s a little scary to think about changing things, because things aren’t that bad and you don’t want to make it worse, but to be honest, you know the way it is isn’t the relationship either of you want deep down. For couples that tend to ignore problem areas or let things go for long periods of time, couples counseling is focused on figuring out what each of you needs to feel safe enough to take a risk and bring forward more of your vital selves into your life and relationship.
Deepening into Intimacy
Intimate relationships can be an incredible opportunity to heal from the past, grow into more of ourselves, and deepen our own skills of empathy, open-heartedness, generosity, kindness and sexual exploration. When we find ourselves in a safe, caring relationship we have the sense that almost anything is possible. And indeed, so much is! There are multiple benefits of exploring intimacy within a couples counseling context. To begin, having a structure and frame for looking at the material coming up can create a container to work through past trauma, exploring edges, looking at places you have avoided, and push into what’s possible without it “spilling” into the dinner table, bedroom, or date night. Second, while your partner may be an extraordinary person, even the best partners can get confused, triggered, scared or otherwise need some help around their material or ours.
We all have blind spots and having a psychotherapist can help you both through the discovery process. Finally, pushing the boundaries on where you are comfortable means doing something that neither of you are particularly good at. Having couples counseling can help with the words and conversations to keep it safe, interesting, and growth-oriented can be the difference between having a successful experience and a failed experiment.