Individual Work
Are you struggling in your partnered relationship but your significant other doesn’t want come to counseling? I can still help. I will offer you tools to benefit you as well as your relationship. The only person you can truly change is yourself, but it’s an interesting phenomenon that when one person starts to change in a relationship, the other person often follows suit. Fair warning—things may get worse before they get better as there’s usually pushback when patterns are disrupted; I’ll help you stay the course through that potentially bumpy season. And if your relationship doesn’t eventually improve to your satisfaction, I will help you process the decision of whether to stay or leave.
Perhaps your relationship struggles aren’t with a romantic partner, but with a family member, friend, colleague, or someone else. I can help you sort through difficult relational dynamics and coach you in setting appropriate boundaries, while communicating your feelings, needs, and wants with kindness and respect (both to yourself and others). While I don’t meet with entire families in conflict, I would be happy to work with you and one other person to help foster healthier dynamics in your relationship.
Couple Work
Are you and your partner caught in the same argument loops and want to learn how to break the cycle? Has there been a breach of trust and you want to repair the rupture? Perhaps your partnership is new and you want some tools to lay a healthy foundation for the long haul? I can help you with those issues and more.
While I will work with both of you together, neither of you is actually my client. So who is? YOUR RELATIONSHIP. All that I do in couple work is for the benefit of your relationship. This mean that sometimes you might feel like I’m siding with your partner or working against you. Please know in those moments that I’m working FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP. We will process these things together in an atmosphere of kindness, compassion, and curiosity, always with the goal of benefiting your relationship.
I am heavily influenced by the work of Stan Tatkin who developed PACT—Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy. That sounds far more clinical than it is! PACT is based on attachment theory, meaning how you attached to your primary caregivers in childhood is usually how you’re attaching to your partner today. We’ll look at both of your individual patterns and how they come together in your relationship. I’ll help you cultivate compassion and understanding for yourselves and each other. And I’ll give you tools to help you create a secure-functioning "couple bubble" where you can nurture each other through good times and bad. You’ll begin to think more in terms of "we" than "me." You’ll become experts on each other and learn to move toward each other with love and care, even during conflict. This isn’t easy work and it takes time, but the benefits are well worth the effort and investment!
“To take the risk of loving, we must become vulnerable enough to test the radical proposition that knowledge of another and self-revelation will ultimately increase rather than decrease love." (Sam Keene)
