Couples Counseling

The foundation of the couple or family relationships is the bond that connects mutual love. While all relationships have conflicts from time to time, sometimes relationships can get stuck in repeated negative patterns of arguments and disagreements such that partners or family members feel unheard, dismissed, unappreciated, or worse. These negative patterns can lead to intense negative emotional reactions and dissatisfaction within the couple or family, that challenge the core of the relationship, cause personal internal turmoil, and can derail other important aspects of our lives.

I am Certified in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy which means I have under taken rigorous advance training and been approved by the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICCEFT).. According to the latest research on couples’ therapy, EFT has a 90 percent success rate, and thus one of the most successful approaches to couples and family therapy. The first stage of therapy involves reducing the level of tension, conflict, and reactive distress in the relationship. In this stage the couple learns to see how their reactive negative cycle works to keep them stuck in conflict.

The second phase of therapy involves strengthening the bond between the couple and restoring the felt sense of emotional closeness. In this stage the couple develops new patterns of interactions that soften their communication, restores their loving feelings, and strengthen connection to each other.

Intensive Couples’ Clinic

Intensive Couples’ Clinic has been requested by many couples because they desperately want to save their marriage. Sometimes the urgency is related to the aftermath of an affair, or a last chance to save a relationship from divorce. Many seem to have found slightly longer sessions to be more helpful than the traditional sessions. The extensive research on Emotionally Focused Couple’s therapy also uses the longer sessions, which had the effect of shorting the overall length of successful therapy.

The couple therapy begins with a relationship assessment and a review of the state of the relationship. With intensive work, the first stage of therapy moves more quickly to reduce the level of intensive conflict and emotional distress. The primary goal here is to identify and work towards a “felt sense” of the negative pattern of interactions that lock the couple in distress and conflict. As felt awareness of the negative cycle increases … the “stuck pattern” of interactions becomes the focus of therapy.

Intensive EFT couples therapy will focus both on the couple’s interaction patterns and also focus on the in-depth perspectives and feelings of each partner. In this early phase of couples’ work, the therapist is very active gives direction to the therapy. This dynamic EFT focus allows for a new communication cycle to emerge with a significant degree of emotional safety.

That growing sense of safety sets the foundation for renewing and strengthening the relationship bond and the emergence of often discarded or lost deep feelings of love and affection. The second phase of EFT focuses on developing these deep loving feelings.

Individual Therapy

You can take charge of your personal growth. I will work with you to master your uncomfortable feelings and the challenges you face in your life. Often the seed for personal growth comes from a signal that something is wrong or you may experience repeated difficulties getting what you want from life. Psychotherapy can help you take the next step to improving your life.