Couples

I am trained as a couple therapist, in keeping with my strong belief that relationships are central in people’s lives. Intimate relationships can provide life’s deepest comforts and pleasures, and they can also cause pain. Couples often come to therapy when they have tried and failed to fix broken patterns of relating. They both have the same needs for closeness, understanding, appreciation and support, but have lost the ability to respond to those needs in each other.

One or both partners may feel anger, hurt, betrayal, despair, alienation or stagnation. There could be many reasons why the relationship has arrived at this point. Conflicts with extended family, the pressures of work and child-rearing, and health problems are just a few of the potential external stressors. Many other issues within the dynamic of the relationship can lead to the inability to hear and respond to each other. The goal is to understand what went wrong, and then find a way back toward communicating without blame, rediscovering ways to feel compassion and connection when those feelings have been strained or lost.