Couples Therapy

Most people look to their relationship to provide a sense of closeness, safety, and enjoyment and I see couples at all stages of a relationship, including those who aren’t experiencing conflict but would like to gain skills to keep the relationship strong. Working with couples is a significant focus of my practice, and to keep up with the most cutting-edge ideas in the field, I participate in ongoing clinical study and training. I’m particularly inspired by Ellyn Bader and Pete Pearson of The Couples Institute, and I bring their philosophy, summarized below, into my work to help couples thrive.

How Couples Therapy Works

Your job is to create your own individual objectives for being in therapy. I have many, many tools to help you reach them—they work best when you are clear about how you aspire to be in your relationship.

What to do and how to do it can often be easily identified. The real challenge is why you don’t do it.

The definite possibility exists that you have some flawed assumptions about your partner’s motives—and that he/she has some flawed assumptions about yours. The problem is, most of the time we don’t want to believe those assumptions are flawed.

The hardest part of couples therapy is accepting you will need to improve your response to a problem (how you think about it, feel about it, or what to do about it). Very few people want to focus on improving their response. It’s more common to build a strong case for why the other should do the improving.

Your partner’s reality doesn’t cancel out yours—there’s room for both, and neither is the definitive “accurate” version.

The more you believe your partner should be different, the less initiative you will take to change the patterns between you.

You can’t change your partner but you can influence each other. Becoming a more effective partner is the most efficient way to influence your partner and change a relationship.

Trust is the foundational building block of a flourishing relationship. You create trust by doing what you say you will do—consistently.

You can learn a lot about yourself by understanding what annoys you and how you handle it.

The major aim of therapy isn’t simply increasing your knowledge about yourself, your partner, and the patterns of interaction between you. Therapy becomes effective as you apply this new knowledge to break ineffective patterns and develop better ones.

Before you say that you don’t feel heard, it will help to consider how well you listen.

Questions You’ll Consider in Couples Therapy

In a strong disagreement, do you really believe your partner is entitled to their opinion?
Under duress, do you have the courage to seek your partner’s reality and the courage to express your reality when the stakes are high?
Can you legitimately expect your partner to treat you better than you treat him/her?
Can you legitimately expect your partner to treat you better than you treat yourself?
If you want your partner to change, do you think about what you can do to make it easier?

Most of the ineffective things we do in relationships fall into just a few categories:

Blame or attempt to dominate
Disengage/withdraw
Resentful compliance
Whine/complain
Denial or confusion

Improving your relationship means better management of these reactions. My Atlantic columns about threatening divorce and suspecting an affair show how some of these patterns play out.

My goal is to leave you with lasting change, which is why I tend not to focus on the “problem of the week” or a rehash of the latest disagreement.

Couples find that keeping the above ideas in mind help them to stay on track and progress more quickly. My goal is to leave you with lasting change, which is why I tend not to focus on the “problem of the week” or a rehash of the latest disagreement. Instead, I help you to understand yourselves better so that you can put this understanding into practice in a variety of situations that will improve the overall quality of your relationship for the long term.

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Couples Therapy

How Couples Therapy Works

Questions You’ll Consider in Couples Therapy

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Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, MFC #54049 | Terms