Couples Therapy

What’s the real work in couples therapy?

The real work is in repairing something invisible, intangible, and unsaid. Lucky for you, I can see the invisible, feel the intangible, and hear the unsaid!

There are no two ways about it. Working on a relationship is as raw as it gets. You are trying to say what you feel and not hurt their feelings, get your point across, and not sound like a complete jerk! They aren’t hearing you at all, and they aren’t making sense to you.

You’ve probably had this argument dozens of times, so you need a neutral third party!

Who are you as a person and a partner?

When working with couples, I take great care in gaining information to answer this question.

The individual role as a person and one’s role as a partner can differ, and those differences often create painful relationships. Being authentic and vulnerable in a couples session is harder when your partner is present because your guard will naturally stay up.

But couples therapy is unproductive if I believe only the mask you present in sessions. I know there is more, including more to you, more to your partner, more to this argument, and more to this relationship.

We won’t oversimplify or make light; we will look at hard things with courage and compassion.

Couples therapy is informational, experimental, and restorative.

With the informational piece, we look at the WHY of your current problems. Sometimes, this will mean looking at your history – the events and stories that have brought you here. Other times, we’ll gather best practices from the research, learn models and scripts for relating, and view data points that explain behavior patterns.

In the experimental phase, you must answer, “How do we do better?” Here, you’ll try new ways of engaging, speak differently, and possibly share new truths for the first time.

The restorative component comes not through a “fixed relationship” but through a rebalanced sense of self as partners who can confidently show up with respectful, clear boundaries and expectations. Two people who feel heard and valued independently make a much happier relationship!

Together, our work turns toward examining where we go next. If you want to know more, contact me about my approach to couples therapy.