Strengthening Couples Relationships

For more than 20 years I've been researching, studying, training and teaching on the topic of couples relationships (specifically what couples do and don't do that promotes safety and security for both couples and for children through an attachment theory lens).

 

I've trained in the leading theoretical, research based, and widely used couples therapy models, including the Gottman Method, the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (Stan Tatkin), Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFS and Toni Herbine Blank), Emotionally Focused Therapy (Sue Johnson) and Imago Relationship Therapy (Harville Hendrix). I've conducted research and published science on couples relationships, I've worked in research universities, in community clinics, and trained therapists, couples, and individuals to use these couples models. I've been a client in couples therapy and experienced these models first hand. And though I've learned and studied and researched all these models, it wasn't until I'd been then through my own relationship difficulties (some might say failures) and successes that I truly gained understanding and experience and meaning in working with couples. 

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So perhaps most importantly, what helps to guide me in my work with couples, is that I've experienced a healthy, loving, secure, safe and trusting romantic relationship after relationships that were not. I've experienced divorce, and the difficulties of creating and blending new families. I've experienced first hand the principles and practices of these models which contribute to a couples relationship that really works. One that is built on safety and trust, one that provides comfort, reassurance and support, one that buffers from the stressors of the outer world, and one that has developed in the real life context of needing to learn how to be a loving, supportive partner, one where insecure attachment unconsciously created harmful cycles, led to ruptures and need to repair, but where we established secure functioning in our own relationship and came out stronger as a result of it. It is from this place that I meet couples. 

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And so I bring decades of research & training along with real world experience into the therapy room with couples; I blend and integrate core concepts from the theoretical models, research supported practices, and from that of my own experience in using these in my own relationship.

 

If you're looking to enhance intimacy, reestablish emotional connection, improve communication strategies so that you feel more seen, heard, loved, and appreciated in your relationship, I may be able to help!  If you're looking to start your relationship off on the right foot by building foundational relationship skills, understanding your own and your partner's attachment patterns, and the nature of healthy relationships, we may be a good fit to work together! If you're divorced, dating again, and wanting to let go of old unhealthy relationship patterns while learning to have a secure and safe new relationship (and blending families), I'd love to be your support!