COUPLE THERAPY

We are hurt in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship. Whether you are seeking to improve your understanding of what is happening in your relationship, build communication and empathy skills, or have descended into a downward spiral of fighting or conflict avoidance and believe that there is little hope for the relationship to be saved, couple's therapy can help.

As a Certified Imago Therapist, and drawing on training and study in a variety of different techniques and schools of thought including family systems theory, The Gottman Institute 's research on marriage, Non-Violent Communication , clinical hypnosis/hypnotherapy and current thinking in neurobiology and human relationships, I assist couples in solving the mysteries of their difficulties. I help partners discover their individual areas of growth and tasks to complete, stop hurting each other and learn how to get their mutual needs met. In so doing, partners learn to see themselves and their relationship clearly, with greater compassion for their partner and for themselves, and can journey forward toward authentic connection and wholeness.

When we meet and partner with another person, we are often deeply in love and swept up in the early, romantic phase of relationship. Eventually, however, most relationships reach the stage of power struggle, in which we see the other person as hurting us in ways we have previously been hurt, or frustrating us in our desire to have our needs met. Some partners are able to pass through the power struggle stage and learn skills to help them resolve future conflicts. Many others, however, can benefit from the caring, sensitive assistance of a knowledgeable and experienced therapist.

Couples' therapy is not individual therapy with two people; it is a process in which the individual histories, motivations, wounds and strengths of each person are considered, with a focus on how those factors are playing out in the dynamic relationship of the partners, and interventions are suggested at the level of the relationship.

I provide respectful, accepting, and non-judgmental therapy to adult partners in intimate relationships, in whatever ways loving partners choose to form and define those relationships.