relationship & couples therapy
couples therapy near you:
relationship support is here.
heal from home, together.
relationship problems
& relationship solutions.
Are the solutions you’ve tried on your own not working or only providing short term relief?
Are you at a loss for what solutions could even look like?
Does it feel difficult “to communicate” in ways that leave each of you feeling validated and understood?
Online Couples Therapy & Marriage Counseling may be the support you need to grow beyond your stuck points.
As an experienced couples therapist, I help you understand your communication dance. We identify opportunities for increasing personal accountability. You improve your ability to self-reflect. And we heal emotional wounds that block the ability to establish trust and safety.
I meet you in your relationship exactly where you are.
Together we embrace your current skills while identifying practical ways for your relationship to grow.
What is online Couples Therapy?
Online couples therapy is the transformative experience of your relationship becoming the client.
In individual therapy, the person coming to therapy is the client. In couples therapy, the relationship is assessed as its own entity greater than the sum of its parts (each of you are the “parts”). In couples counseling, we observe together how each of you shows up to and experiences your relationship. We closely examine the past & present to gain a sense of how that creates and maintains your relationship today.
Our work aims to help your relationship function optimally – which means each of you, too!
types of couples therapy
Often, the choice to attend couples therapy is difficult, let alone choosing the best type for your relationship. The good news is, research generally indicates that any therapy is better than no therapy.
In my practice, I support couples as an integrative psychologist. Integrative means that I pull from different theories and modes of intervention, depending on what will be most effective for your relationship. I do not adhere to one style of therapy or follow a manualized treatment approach.
Here are some of the types of couples therapy I most often use:
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Psychodynamic Couples Therapy is a depth-based, insight-oriented approach to relational healing. In this style of therapy, we analyze conscious and unconscious behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in terms of how they impact the couple. A distinctive aspect of this approach is the central question of what draws each member of the couple to one another, and why. Participants develop a rigorous understanding of early childhood experiences, a clear assessment of their own personality development and functioning, and a thoughtful evaluation of their pre-existing ideas about relationships.
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy operates from the joint premise that people are most influenced by how they feel, and that how they feel is most influenced by their attachment style. It equips us to understand emotions like anger and shame, as well as behaviors like avoidance and preoccupation, at a deeper, more meaningful level. One common result of this approach is an increasing capacity for vulnerability that supports healthy, functional intimacy.
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Behavioral Couples Therapy focuses on the behavior of each member of the couple. We assess individual behaviors that directly and indirectly impact the couple, and also examine what motivates each partner to engage (or not) in relationship-related behaviors. In behavioral couples therapy, there is an emphasis on “acceptance.” This means we identify behaviors that are not likely to change, recognize why this is, and determine how (and how well) they can be accepted by both members of the couple.
does couples therapy work?
Effective couples therapy is the result of clients who are open and willing to participate in treatment.
Sometimes clients are excited to begin therapy, but often they feel nervous and a bit hesitant. Please feel welcome to bring your doubts to session, but I also ask that you remain open to full engagement in the process. I value the opportunity to build the trust and safety each of you needs to feel confident that your relationship is well supported.
Although couples therapy is focused on the needs of “the couple,” the nuances of each person in the relationship are important. Each participant’s family-of-origin, relationship history, and other aspects of life are often relevant. Openness to discussing these areas is crucial to the therapeutic outcomes.
areas of specialty
Anxiety, depression, or stage-of-life transitions
Difficulty identifying or expressing thoughts and feelings
Discovering how to understand distractions that lead to inattention
Managing the needs of the couple amidst parenting
Navigating challenging family-of-origin/in-law dynamics
Understanding the impact of sexuality and gender
Desire to improve physical, sexual, and/or emotional intimacy
Exploring monogamy, ethical non-monogamy, triadic+ dynamics
Getting to the root cause of hard-to-change behavior patterns
How to make a good relationship feel great
relationship tips for couples
through my relationship blog
This free relationship blog offers helpful tools for unlocking the potential of better mental health. Consider signing up to learn about new relationship research and other free relationship support.
FAQs
for couples & relationship therapy
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It depends. I am committed to transparency about length of time throughout the entire process of working together. I support couples who want to specifically address one item and finish in 3-6 sessions. Other couples require more in-depth work and have found efficacy in 8-12 sessions or more. Some couples engage in treatment for a year or longer, often because they continue to enjoy the benefits of the work beyond what they originally considered necessary.
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Initially, I request that couples commit to weekly sessions. A weekly cadence helps to establish trust, build a positive working alliance, and ensures that as much relevant background information as needed is provided. It is not uncommon for couples to shift to meeting every other week once they’ve started gaining momentum toward their goals. Beyond that, couples appreciate being able to pop back in for a single session should the need arise after having completed consistent work.
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Ethically, a couple’s therapist should not be doing “individual therapy” with one member of the couple; much in the same way that an individual’s therapist should not later become a couples therapist. It fosters an imbalance of power that can (and does) significantly undermine the couple’s work.
That said, I sometimes see each member of the couple separately, but always in service of “the relationship.” If I see one person individually, I will always see the other person individually, and return to meeting for joint sessions.
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In my practice, couples therapy is not indicated for relationships if either or both of you are:
actively abusing or dependent on alcohol or illicit psychoactive drugs
struggling with chronic, severe anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder that is otherwise untreated
completely unwilling to recognize aspects of yourselves as contributing to the overall relationship dynamic
holding a significant secret(s) (e.g. an active/ongoing affair; serious financial infidelity, etc.) with no intent to share during the process of therapy
perpetrating moderate to severe physical domestic violence
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Please note that I do not accept insurance. I do offer monthly invoices that you may submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement.
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I utilize couples therapy exercises judiciously. Any such recommendations are grounded in a thorough understanding of the couple. I am wary of recommending generalized, universal techniques, as I find they often fall short of being effective. In my experience, the most successful exercises are ones thoughtfully designed for the unique needs of the particular couple. I am more confident about recommending exercises when both members of the couple want them.
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This is always an interesting question. There’s a myth that couples therapy only “works” if the couple stays together. That is true if remaining together is what both of you want and if that ends up being the most functional outcome for each of you.
In some cases, one or both of you may lack certainty about whether you want to maintain the relationship. While that is definitely not a dealbreaker for attending couples counseling, it does influence the initial focus. If this sounds like your relationship, therapy begins with processing your uncertainty about commitment before other, deeper couples work is considered.
In other cases, partners initiate therapy with a shared desire for the relationship to continue. When this is genuinely true for each person, the therapy usually succeeds in that commitment is born or renewed, problems (and their root causes) are interpreted and their solutions integrated, and you can move forward in harmony.
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As in any shared endeavor, the benefits of couples therapy reflect the effort each participant is willing to invest, plus the skills, expertise, and offering of the therapist.
Significantly improved communication is the most common result of couples therapy. As a couples therapist, I work diligently to become expert with you on each of your unique communication styles so we can assess how these styles support or undermine the functioning of your relationship. As we establish mutual trust, I share my observations and offer practical recommendations on how to improve. This leaves my clients with an evolving understanding of each other and themselves, often resulting in a more intimate, realistic view of your relationship.
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Please note that my services are primarily virtual. Since 2020, I have come to appreciate the continued efficacy of online couples therapy. This medium of communication has made the service more accessible to couples living apart, as well as those with busy schedules who benefit from saving time on commuting to and from appointments.
let’s talk