Couples Therapy
in New York City, NY and San Diego, CA
Online Sessions Across NY, NJ, & CA
Are you feeling disconnected in your relationship?
Your relationship used to be all fun, joyful, and easy... but now it seems to be more arguing and less connecting. You're in a long term dating relationship and you're ready to figure out what's next but want to feel more confident in your relationship first.
You keep getting stuck in the same arguments that seem to escalate out of nowhere. One of you may get angry and critical and the other may shut down and pull away. It leaves you both feeling stressed, anxious, and hurt.
Communication is HARD. Every time you try to express how you are feeling and talk through the problems it seems that your partner reacts with anger or defensiveness and you’re back in it again. You want so badly to feel heard, understood, and to make your partner happy but after some time it’s natural you start to feel defeated.
When things escalate in this way, you feel further and further from each other. It becomes easier to think “maybe we’re not right for each other” or “there’s nothing I can do, nothing changes”. You keep trying to understand each other but somehow keep missing each other. You genuinely care about each other yet something keeps getting in the way of feeling close, understood, and cared for. Even though logically you KNOW you care about each other, sometimes it doesn’t FEEL that way.
With this important part of your life feeling stressful and tense, you notice you're struggling in other parts of your life too.
You're feeling...
-
less like you can be yourself leaving you feeling more doubtful and insecure
-
stuck with frequent thoughts that say, “there’s something wrong with me” and “I’m not good enough”
-
more anxious and uncertain about the future
-
down and low energy throughout your days
-
distracted at work
-
disconnected from loved ones
Your family and friends are there to support you but they don’t really get how things can be so good and then so bad. While you want to have someone to talk to, it's tricky to figure out who and how.
Find understanding and closeness again.
Imagine if you knew what sends you into a negative interaction cycle and how to keep it from happening in the future.
Imagine being able to talk about the hard stuff without it escalating.
Imagine expressing yourself the way you meant to and finally feeling heard.
Imagine reconnecting, knowing it’s safe to be vulnerable and be completely yourself again.
Imagine feeling at ease again with your partner.
Imagine feeling confident in your future together.
My Approach
Couples therapy can help you make changes in your relationship that foster understanding, closeness, and connection.
Explore:
We will begin by exploring your relationship patterns both positive and negative. We will work on identifying relationship triggers for each partner and getting to know why each of you react the way you do.
Communicate:
Together, we will help each of you communicate your needs, wants, feelings, and thoughts in a way that’s safe. We’ll uncover underlying feelings that you may have never put words to and practice turning to each other with vulnerability.
Create Change:
Once we understand how the relationship gets stuck, we will work on figuring out how to stop the negative interaction pattern in its tracks. By changing the way each of you approach the other, you can change the pattern.
Reconnect:
By spending time and energy on your relationship, you can find more moments of connection and we will highlight those wins along the way.
How Couples Therapy Works
-
Meet together to discuss relationship stressors and goals for therapy
-
Meet separately to learn about each of you as individuals; including your current feelings and past history
-
Come back together for feedback and to begin exploring challenging patterns that keep you stuck
-
Learn skills to identify and change challenging patterns such as emotion regulation and more effective communication.
-
Create new positive patterns that decrease conflict and increase connection now and for the future
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is proven by research to help you understand and change stuck patterns, learn new ways to communicate, and experience more connection. You will have the confidence of knowing how to show up in your relationship to foster vulnerability and closeness.
"Love is a constant process of tuning in, connecting, missing and misreading cues, disconnecting, repairing, and finding deeper connection. It is a dance of meeting and parting and finding each other again. Minute to minute and day to day."
- Dr. Sue Johnson, Creator of EFT
Couples therapy can help you...
-
Understand how and why arguments happen and escalate
-
Learn your and your partners triggers
-
Learn how to manage challenging reactions and de-escalate
-
Communicate effectively
-
Safely create connection so you can feel closeness and joy again
It’s possible to feel connected again and confident
in your future together.
FAQs
When is the right time to seek couples therapy?
If you're looking to communicate and connect better, couples therapy is the right place for you. While couples therapy is helpful at any stage of your relationship, the earlier the better!
Do we have to be married to seek out couples therapy?
No - marriage is a deeply personal choice that each couple gets to decide about. Couples therapy is effective for couples in all stages of their relationship.
My partner doesn't want to come to therapy. What do I do?
It can be frustrating if your partner isn't ready to join you in therapy. However, individual therapy for relationship issues is effective in making changes yourself that can improve your relationship.