While they offer a space to build trust, intimacy, and safety, relationships can become neglected, conflictual, or even abusive…The stress couples experience when they can not solve a relationship problem can leave one or both partners in anguish, often leading to contempt or control. Sometimes gender issues and bias play a role in relationship conflict. Relationships may be marred by addiction, or even betrayal…Within families, the sacred bonds can quickly change during a loss such as death or divorce, or even a during a positive event such as birth, adolescence, or launching a teenager into the world. Even work stress on families can make balancing family challenging as well.
Relationship Therapy
Partnership and family relationships are the closest connections we build throughout our lifetime.
My counseling experience and personal journeys led me to find a love for relationship counseling. Over the years I developed my couple and family counseling specialty with an eye for helping relationships thrive by focusing on the uniqueness of the couple and family, the relational styles, and the importance of three areas:
- Communication – Verbal and Non-verbal
- Intimacy – The 6-essential essences of connection
- Trust – The byproduct of shared communication and intimacy and the definition of relationship backbone and solidarity
RELATIONSHIP PYRAMID™
While these three areas are foundational in the couples and family work, so too are there other factors that influence relational issues which include trauma, family of origin, gender, personality, work/life balance, and more. All of these aspects are considered during the evaluation and treatment process in couple and family work.
I work with couples and families who experience such issues as infidelity, betrayal, addiction, mental health problems, parenting issues, stress from caregiving others, relationship burnout, grief and loss, narcissism, anger, conflict or criticism, sexual and/or intimacy issues, and more. Sometimes partners see me for communication issues or wanting to improve upon areas they are already good at, including creating a deeper connection… Families often need adjustments to helping their children or their children want to find ways to open up to their parents.
Whether you are interested in couple or family counseling, my Relational Integrative Resilience Therapy™ approach is always a central part of helping you move through the process and achieve your stated goals.
This approach, similar to individual therapy, focuses on the people involved, their adversities in the relationship(s), and the connection and curiosity it takes to build, change, and grow.
Throughout the relationship counseling process, I support all individuals involved in a non-judging and compassionate manner. At times, it’s important for me to take sides as a way to mirror what the other(s) in the relationship need to see. You will find in my therapy office relationship counseling is highly experiential, in so far as you will be relating with your partner or family members in ways that rehearse your desired outcomes.
Please contact me with any questions about couples and family therapy.