Couples Therapy
My Approach
As a couples therapist, I find it useful to be direct and collaborative and to give feedback about the relationship dynamics I see playing out before me. At its most basic, my work with couples is to coach each partner to communicate from their more vulnerable emotions and to encourage them to actively listen to one another, without getting defensive. I also work with couples therapy clients to identify their ‘adaptive selves’—that is, the behavior they’ve learned to adapt to their families of origin that may not be helpful in their current relationship. Couples come to see me for all sorts of reasons: sexual challenges, difficulties with conflict resolution, and struggles that arise from a lack of communication. Some couples see me for just a few months and some see me for years. Couples often experience results within the first several sessions.
My Process
My sessions are between 60 and 75 minutes long. I find that we make more progress with consistent, weekly sessions, so I try to maintain those with couples clients, at least for the first few months. The first session is more of an interview, where we go deep into the challenges that led clients to seek therapy. In that session, we explore the history of the clients’ relationship and discuss what initially attracted them to one another. In the second and third sessions, I meet with each partner individually and we explore the clients’ familial, relationship, and sexual histories. Then we come back together for a fourth session to share the insights we’ve cultivated in our individual sessions. And we take it from there.
Types of Cases I see:
Sex therapy. I work with a lot of clients who are looking to cultivate more satisfying sex lives. Couples come to see me because they have inactive sex lives, desire discrepancy, differing desires, and other challenges with sexual intimacy. This work can be delicate and intimidating; it can also be fun, exciting, and life-changing.
Improving Conflict Resolution. Couples who argue, bicker, and fight more often and more intensely than they would like often come to see me for help reducing the frequency, duration, and intensity of their conflicts. I help clients recognize destructive patterns, identify the parts of themselves that get activated in an unhelpful way, and communicate in a more sensitive, vulnerable, and thoughtful manner.
Recovering from infidelity. I help couples who are looking to heal and rebuild after one partner has kept secrets that are detrimental to the relationship. In couples therapy as I practice it, clients are able to express their anger, disappointment, and remorse, address and tend to long-standing issues in the relationship, and re-establish trust and transparency.
Navigating consensual non-monogamy/polyamory. I help couples, throuples, and all sorts of partner configurations to navigate the complexities of having an open or polyamorous relationship. My work in this area is influenced by Jessica Fern’s Polysecure, in which she uses attachment theory to help non-monogamists cope with jealousy, cultivate compersion, and maintain their intimate connections to multiple partners.
Reconciliation of differing financial outlooks. Clients often have challenges because their attitudes about spending, saving, and making money differ to such a large degree; I work with couples so that we can see differing attitudes as complementary to one another, rather than threatening to the relationship.
Substance abuse. It’s often valuable for couples in which one or more partners have challenges with substance use to seek therapy. This can help clients to identify the ways in which substance use may be having a negative impact on the relationship and gives them the opportunity to reflect on and change their relationship to alcohol and other substances.
Navigating separation. I see a lot of couples who are considering separating or are in the process of separating. If clients are trying to work things out, we spend time reflecting on what’s positive in the relationship and what could be improved. If clients are in the process of separating, we discuss and anticipate what it looks like to individuate from one another and we look at and plan for the more practical aspects of life after separation.
Family Planning. Couples who are attempting to have children, undergoing IVF, considering having children, having difficulty conceiving, or who have recently had a child or children often find it useful to see a therapist. In couples therapy, family planning clients can make space to discuss challenges and the pain and difficulty of the process. They can also work to improve and reconcile growth areas in their relationship prior to having children. Some couples seek therapy to help them consider, anticipate, and prepare for the practical and emotional trials and tribulations of raising kids.