MARITAL AND PREMARITAL
Couples
Therapy
We are all wired for love & connection.
Our most basic needs of feeling nurtured, understood and protected show up the very first moment of our life, and extinguish only when we cease to live.
Our relationships become the foundation of our identity, a source of satisfaction, and part of our sense of purpose and innate worth.
Yet, there exists a sort of art when it comes to loving and being loved; one that honors our natural drive toward connection, acceptance, intimacy, trust and vibrancy.
Beginning to see your partner as a mirror, understanding your own wounds, and how enduring conflict holds information for growth, learning the skills to communicate effectively, and rebuilding the friendship, all add up to learning the art of loving consciously.
Clarity, Competency, Connection
"All relationships involve an endless dance of
harmony, disharmony,
and repair. "
Getting to the heart of your biggest relationship struggles means identifying this dance,
accepting it as part of a mature love,
and learning the steps to repair and restore.
I like to begin couples therapy with a through assessment of your relationship via an in-depth at-home online tool that each partner completes privately and individually. The results of this are shared together in session and will help us to better understand your relationship strengths and weaknesses, as well as relational patterns--or how you love, trust, and connect. This information, along with your verbal accounts of the relationship history, as well as individual life and relationship experiences, allows us to begin with a solid, sensible and compassionate approach toward healing and unlocking your true relationship potential.
You will learn about your partner and yourself. You will begin to see each other in a new light. This means, maybe for the first time, you will hear and understand their earliest pains, losses and disappointments. You will learn about the underlying dynamics of their behavior, the ways they communicate, and why they handle conflict the way they do. You will learn about their deeper feelings of abandonment or trust governing their relational patterns. You will learn the importance of understanding and respecting each other’s inner world. You will become better able to identify their cues, needs, fears, and hopes. With all of this, you can begin to move toward each other with compassion and love, setting the stage for a healing that take place side by side.
- How to create intimacy, revive passion and nurture the fondness, admiration and joy of the underlying friendship.
- How to communicate effectively and lovingly, without blame, shame or judgement.
- How to identify and articulate your deepest needs to each other in way that feels safe, supportive and establishes shared meaning.
- How to tell the truth to your partner in a way that actually makes you closer.
- How to rebuild trust after a major trauma like an affair, addiction, or chronic emotional abandonment.
- How to truly listen with your guard down and connect at a deep, emotional and authentic level.
- How to accept conflict and approach it in a way that promotes constructive change versus becoming damaging or overwhelming.
- How to change the attack/defend system, and de-escalate fights through repair attempts, responsiveness and turning toward each other.
All relationship struggles are a culmination of reciprocal play between each partner. While the intention to harm is often certainly not present, it doesn't mean we haven't inadvertently created pain. In fact, our most intimate relationships offer the perfect space to recreate and illicit emotional experiences and disappointments of our past. In this way we often act with unconscious motives or urges, and don't always see our role in things. Our work together will allow you to see your relationship with more depth, variety, and clarity. When each begins to see their role in troubles, you are gifted with more opportunities for change and healing. I equally and without bias point out losing strategies, and utilize a "same as" method in that each partner is equally important, accountable, responsible, and empowered to fully commit to the process of repairing and rebuilding.
Couples therapy involves an integrative approach combining psychodynamic with systemic and cognitive behavioral therapies. This means, yes, we will focus on emotion and how each are you are feeling. We will work to understand the deeper meaning to your conflict and identify traumas and attachment wounds. We will examine the histories of your relationships, your sense of purpose and struggles. Beyond this, there will be a good amount of behavioral and cognitive work focused on replacing what doesn't work with new and mindful approaches to managing conflict, communicating effectively, building couple efficacy and increasing satisfaction, trust, intimacy and connection. Our sessions together will involve emotional exploration, along with practicing specific techniques and occasional "homework" to spark greater insight, intimacy and lasting change.
Vulnerability is your superpower.
Where your relational experiences have failed you, you may believe it is unsafe to show all of yourself, or worse, if you did, you wouldn't be loved or accepted. You wouldn't be enough, or you would be too much! Yet the truth is that you should never have to work to be chosen, validated, or loved.
The passion, intimacy and commitment you seek is found only in the experience of feeling seen, heard, and known by another-- with all your flaws, imperfections, fears, and beauty.
Rebuilding through awareness.
Understanding where your beliefs about self and other have originated from, and how your relational strategies have forged is the first essential step toward beginning again. Together with your partner you can decide for yourselves what really is yours to carry forward, and what you are ready to let go of .
Authentic connection to yourself is the first step in establishing whole-hearted connection with another. Being stuck means you are not loving and reacting from a place of consciousness. Instead you are allowing old pain, associations, and fears to guide you, many of which are not acknowledged or understood. Connecting with your authentic self frees you to develop a clear and directed path toward your partner and in establishing the love you are meant to experience.
"Loving consciously means choosing you first, loving yourself fully, and being ready to enter your relationship aware and whole."
At the heart of strong, intimate connections is a view of yourself as worthy, despite your faults. It is knowing what you need and asking directly for it. It means staying committed to your own progress and growth. It means operating from a place of giving in order to receive. It means not looking for someone to complete you, but instead showing up ready to offer all of you with honesty, self love, vulnerability and truth.
You can have authentic, free flowing, healthy, beautiful love. It all begins with you.
Our conversation is just getting started.