Do you find yourself having the same kinds of fights with your partner over and over again? Do you feel lonely and disconnected despite being in an intimate relationship? Are you frustrated because your attempts to make your partner change have failed? Every couple has arguments, but recurring battles can leave couples feeling at a hopeless impasse. As a specialist in couples therapy and research, my goal is to help you learn to reconcile longstanding differences, to increase your connection and understanding and to help you build communication strategies that work.
To help couples meet these goals, I use an evidence-based approach called Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) which is a form of couples therapy or marriage counseling that has been shown to be effective in improving relationship satisfaction and communication and decreasing the likelihood of divorce. Using IBCT, I help couples build an objective understanding of what is happening in their conflicts and learn how to come together more easily to solve them. In addition, I help partners improve their empathic understanding of each other. Through this flexible and tailored approach, couples often report an increase in positive communication skills, fewer and less intense arguments, and a greater sense of friendship, intimacy and understanding.
My goals as a therapist is to help you evolve the way you communicate to deal with conflict and disconnection more gracefully. In session, we will discuss incidents that reflect the problem as well as positive interactions and movements toward change. We won’t work on changing who you are as people. The goal of our discussions is not to place blame, but to understand these incidents (and the emotions behind them) and to handle them more effectively. Often, our focus will turn toward working together in the moment so I can help guide you toward interactions that create greater understanding and resolution. In this way, you will learn and practice effective strategies in session that you can then take home.
Some common concerns people bring to couples therapy or marriage counseling:
relationship dissatisfaction
difficulties with closeness, vulnerability or openness
"growing apart"
communication problems
high-conflict interactions
infidelity
difficulties with sexual intimacy/differences in desire for sexual intimacy
coping with mental health problems, anger or trauma
transitioning to parenthood, parenting problems, blended families
conception challenges, pregnancy complications, and perinatal loss
caregiving, children with special needs, disability or illness
chronic illness, grief and loss
I am a LGBTQ+ affirming provider
For a helpful summary of how to choose a (good) couples therapist, click here
For a helpful summary of the best scientific treatments available for couples in distress, click here
If it sounds like my work might be good fit for you, contact me for a free phone consultation and to set up an initial meeting.
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. ”