Does any of this sound familiar?

You find yourself arguing over things that are not that important.

You want more love, caring, openness or excitement in your relationship.

You act in ways that keep you from getting what you want and yet continue to do what is not working.

You feel rejected, blamed, criticized, or emotionally disconnected. 

You have tried couples therapy before only to come away dissatisfied.

Making Your Relationship Better.

Lets face it. If it were easy to have a great relationship, there would be more people doing it. Neuroscience has proven that the ways we learned to defend ourselves in relationship as infants are imprinted in the developing brain. These defensive patterns become exaggerated and concretized in relationships where each person’s way of defending themselves is triggering to the other.

To have a great relationship one must be willing to face the truth of who they are, face the truth of who their partner is, and then learn to transcend blame, and to love and support both self and other.

It is not easy to make the transformation to love and support when the ways your partner has acted has triggered hurt and suffering. It requires a genuine understanding of how relationship patterns developed as well as coming to terms with aspects of yourself that are in conflict.

The good news is that creating new relationship patterns creates new neural pathways. We can change our brains by changing the ways that we care about one another. We can become more secure, relaxed and hopeful by learning to love one another more effectively!

I have specialized training in various styles of cutting-edge couples therapy. I have listed the web sites for my primary teachers below. I am grateful to my teachers and would like to give them credit for the work they have developed.

• Stan Tatkin — attachment with a biological base

• Sue Johnson / Becca Jorgenson — “Emotionally focused Therapy” attachment based model.

• Ellyn Bader — differentiation based Developmental Model

What to expect in Couples Therapy with me.

I see couples in sessions three to six hours in length. Generally couples schedule a session once a month or so, or for several weeks in a row to facilitate a breakthrough.

I take an active role in shaping the therapy.

You will come to understand how your childhood attachment patterns are active in keeping you from getting what you want, as well as how those patterns interact with your partner’s patterns in ways that create a viscous cycle.

You will actively practice new ways of communicating and interacting that will feel satisfying and helpful.

You will learn practices that will assist you to create the relationship you want.

There are plenty of difficult issues in every relationship. Most issues only become problematic when the process of the relationship is not working.  In other words, if your relationship is good, you will be able to deal effectively with the problems you have.  When it isn’t you won’t.

In therapy with me, you will see exactly how the ways that you interact with each other are not working and will learn  how to make it better.