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Romantic relationships/partnerships and marital relationships are often our most vital and central connections and the ones that bring up our deepest and most intense feelings. As a result, they are often where we feel the greatest joy and the most struggle. They are also where we experience old wounds and patterns from our earliest, primary relationships, such as our parents, caretakers and siblings. Because of this, it is in these relationships we attach our greatest hopes and suffer the most profound disappointment when these expectations are not realized. This can be deeply distressing and unsettling, but also profoundly healing.

Because of how foundational these relationships are and primal our responses to them, they can also be the most
difficult to face when they are not working. This is why, many times, couples are and have been in crisis for some time before they seek help, with sometimes years of growing anger, disappointment, conflict, withdrawal and detachment. Some couples continue to engage each other, but these are often battles, even over the smallest things. While others have become more distant and disconnected from one another. And many times, they are a combination of both of these as they alternate between fight, flight, or freeze to cope with the pain that interactions cause. The desire to protect yourself from further hurt, can be the very thing that also drives you apart. Vulnerability is necessary for connection and bonding. When people feel hurt and disconnected, being vulnerable can be incredibly challenging and is often avoided.

I get that coming to relationship counseling can be terrifying. It is not easy to face what is not working, and your’s and your partner’s part in these issues. As an LGBT therapist and someone who has been working with issues of sexual orientation, gender and identity for over 30 years, I also specialize in working with queer couples and relationships. Not only will you find me affirming, I also get the unique challenges that LGBTQIA+ couples face. My background is in sexual health and human sexuality, and therefore, I am comfortable with the many ways in which people express themselves sexually, whether it is “traditional” “vanilla” or “kink”. I can help non-monogamous, poly and open relationships to develop improved communication and ethical understandings to meet the needs of those in the relationship and address relationship issues.

When coming to couples counseling, the goal is to figure out where the wounds are and how to enhance connection, intimacy and bonding. I will explore with you and assess the dynamics in the relationship, including those that have worked between you and those that have not. Using many different treatment approaches (including, but not limited to, psychodynamic, attachment theory and attachment styles, and Imago, as well as CBT, Emotionally Focused Therapy-EFT and ACT-Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), we’ll work together to figure out each of your parts in the issues you’re facing, behaviorally and in terms of your operating feelings and perceptions. In understanding what is occurring for each partner, I can help you understand yourself and each other, to change how you react to one another; going from reactivity to responsiveness to increase compassion, empathy, intimacy and deep connection.

In relationship counseling sessions we might address such concerns as:

-improving communication, sharing and openness and vulnerability
-how to fight fair, reduce conflict and increase the ability to address issues effectively
-being able to be responsive, rather than reactive
-being able to hear each other and feel heard, so you feel less alone
-therefore feeling closer, more connected and understood
-improving intimacy, sex and bonding by addressing what is getting in the way of these and what enhances them
-and while the goal many times in relationship therapy is to help the partners stay together, in some cases, relationship therapy helps partners to separate in a way that honors their relationship and minimizes harm.

Whether in couples counseling you want to work on resolving the issues that are hurting you and your relationship, so you can stay together or you decide it is best to separate, it can be helpful to have an understanding, compassionate professional to help you sort these issues out together. Couples therapy often triggers very core aspects of who we are and how we relate to those with whom we share a relationship. For that reason believe that ending a relationship does not often resolve the deep and painful issues that impact individuals and drive couples apart. As a result, I think investing in addressing these issues in an attempt to heal the self and the relationship, are always worthwhile regardless of the relationship outcome. Couples therapy is about each person growing as a partner and in partnership. This personal growth is healing to the individual, whether or not it heals the relationship to promote staying together or helps them grow for the next relationship. Let me help you grow as partners together.

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen