Couples

It can be very lonely when you are feeling disconnected with your most important person.

At the beginning of a relationship, we are riding high on love and the excitement of being with a new person. However, as the relationship lengthens we can discover that it is difficult to express ourselves openly and clearly. Sometimes we argue, get defensive, shut down, or pull away. We can believe that our partner is the one who needs to change or who isn’t doing enough. We begin to see things in them that we hadn’t noticed before and decide they are the problem. Some people tamp down their needs, afraid of confrontation, while others yell or accuse. Often we can find ourselves repeating patterns in our relationships, but don’t know how to get out of them. Sometimes it may even seem that there is no way out.

I use a modality called EFT, or Emotionally Focused Therapy, to help you start to see what lies underneath these patterns and to help identify what your deeper needs are in your relationship. We will work on how to ask for these needs to be met as well as how to listen to your partner’s needs in a more non-defensive manner, and, together, we will explore and begin to understand how you impact each other in ways you might not be able to see. I will help you each to get to know yourselves a little bit better so that you can both show up in ways that are more fulfilling and allow you to feel more connected and understood.

Couples who are willing to look at themselves and to be open to seeing their partners from a curious place generally have more success going from reactive, competitive, defensive, and blaming to working together and having the resources to have the difficult conversations that were once too uncomfortable to engage in.

I want you to feel like your partnership is a place that is nourishing and collaborative, whatever that means to you.

Sessions include exploring what lies underneath the automatic, defensive reactions that develop over time in a long term partnership. I also work with new ways to connection and to help build the skills needed in order to maintain a healthy, exciting, and dynamic relationship.

This work can be done with family members as well as romantic partners.