Couples & Relationship Therapy
All couples go through trying times and sometimes couples can feel stuck in their patterns, making it difficult to understand and/or to resolve what is happening. Although couples often seek relationship counseling when there is a conflict or issue they would like to resolve, some couples also seek relationship counseling as a preventive measure in order to deepen their understanding, commitment, and love fore each other or to understand how their attachment styles and individual history may be impacting their current dynamics in their relationship. Couples or relationship therapy can be helpful during difficult times for couples across all stages of their relationship. Some of us also have expertise in working with relationships with multiple partners and are open to working with all significant members of a relationship.
You can expect that your couples therapist will initially seek to understand what brings you and your partner(s) into therapy now and determine each of your hopes for therapy. Working towards the same goal is important in any kind of therapy, and especially so in couples therapy. In fact, coming to this agreement can sometimes be a significant part of the work. Once hopes and goals are reached, your couples therapist will take an active stance, helping each person express their feeling and needs to each other, as well as highlight the verbal and nonverbal interactions in the room. When appropriate, exercises or homework that is related to what was discussed in session will be assigned to the couple to practice outside of session. Most of the therapists in our practice draw from Emotion-Focused Therapy in our relationship therapy work.
Our collective areas of expertise include, but are not limited to:
- Interracial couples
- Emotional intimacy
- Sexual intimacy and other sexual concerns
- Nonmonogamy / polyamory / open relationships
- Communication issues
- How to do healthy conflict
- Parenting concerns
- Sexual trauma
- Emotional and/or sexual infidelity
- Navigating intersections of identities regarding privilege and oppression
- Adjusting to parenthood
- Divorce and separation