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I am passionate about helping couples who want to improve their relationship.  I bring to my clients science-based techniques and 20+ years of experience with a broad range of situations.

Couple Therapy

Most of us, deep down, long to be able to count on a safe, tender, loving, committed partner. So how do we stray so far from this?  We may feel hurt, disrespected or not loved enough. We may feel alone and distant even though our partner is sitting right next to us.  We decide to seek couple therapy.

I’ve successfully helped couples:

• Learn how to co-create deeper closeness, empathy and love
• Make it safe for each other to let down defenses
• Be better heard and understood as one’s full, honest self
• Better hear one’s partner deeply and empathically
• Share our deepest longings, wishes, goals and desires
• Avoid slipping down into repetitive dead-end arguments, criticism or defensiveness
• Identify what isn’t working and figure out what changes are needed
• Break through stuck-ness to share more satisfying emotional, physical and sensual intimacy
• Become conscious of habits that can undermine – or even destroy – relationships – and practice changing them
• Begin to heal broken trust
• Cope with issues around pregnancy, parenthood, empty nest, retirement, grief, loss, illness, fidelity, financial problems, caretaking, aging, and mental health issues

Affection, Sensuality and Touch

Couples just do better with plenty of tender physical and emotional affection and touch, both non-sexual and sexual.  But sometimes we can get stuck and can’t find our way…..

• When I work with couples sometimes we figure out that there are external blocks, such as stress or medications.
• But other times the triggers aren’t so obvious…. Sometimes underlying issues that we may not even be aware of are interfering with us expressing, welcoming and participating in affection, tender touch, sensuality and sex.
• Fears, embarrassment, shame, resentments, past traumas, family-of-origin and cultural patterns and social pressures, misinformation, unrealistic expectations, resentments, porn, and emotional blocks may be among the culprits.

All these are personal areas, and can feel vulnerable, so I invite couples to co-create a non-shaming atmosphere of love, understanding, acceptance and gentle curiosity.

Pre-Marital Counseling

It seems ironic, and kind of out-of-whack really when you reflect on it, that society often pressures couples to put more planning, thought, attention and financial investment into ONE day, the “Wedding Day”, than to the DECADES of life together that will follow!

Because, even in the happiest marriages, two human animals living together side-by-side are naturally going to rub against each other at times.  And eventually, as much as they love each other, there WILL be conflicts!

“Not us!” you might be thinking!  “We are in love.  We are in sync!  Our love is special.”  You may be entirely right in that your conflicts ahead might be minimal….

But learning more about your particular couple dynamics, and the specific areas where there might tend to be more “bumps in the road” for you specifically, can result in you not being surprised and unprepared when they come up.  Planning ahead now how you might understand and manage later, including practicing specific skills, can be more valuable than any other aspect of planning for your wedding or your lives together after the wedding.

So why not give yourselves the best start, and become aware, informed and prepared?

And why not improve your odds?  The statistics are harsh:  30-50% of marriages end in divorce.

But research shows that pre-marital counseling work can greatly improve the odds of a successful “ever after.”

RESOURCES