Couples counseling is for married and unmarried couples. We meet with dating couples, couples thinking about marriage, engaged couples, married couples, separated couples, and divorced couples. We also work with couples within the bi, poly, trans, and kink communities.
We work with couples to address issues including trust, vulnerability (physical, emotional), sexuality & sexual identity, communication, and conflict. We often meet with couples who are looking to improve their relationship, enhance mutual understanding and compassion for each other, create a closer connection, heal after an infidelity, handle recurrent arguments and money conflicts, address sexuality (including divergent desires), or decide if they should stay together or part ways.
There are many therapeutic approaches used when meeting with a couple. We like to evaluate what approaches to use based on your needs and style as a couple. There isn’t one “right approach” to doing therapy as there isn’t one way to live. We provide education on what we have found useful in relationships. We invite you to look at new ideas and possibilities for living. We encourage you to try new ways of behaving and communicating. We like to learn from you about what you really want in your relationship. We are very interested in what each partner has to say about what has led to their struggle or becoming stuck. We want to know what you have done to change your situation, what has worked and what has not worked for you. We are careful not to duplicate what hasn’t worked.
Counselors avoid taking sides because it is counterproductive to long-term success. That said, if we feel one partner needs to make a change in a particular area, we will say so. We have spent years helping men and women from every imaginable background and we are capable of seeing things empathetically from both perspectives.
We emphasize the importance of forming a connection with your partner. This means there is an implied understanding of values, a common frame of reference, a series of shared experience and a sense that you are both on the same page. These connections form the bonds that foster trust and promote intimacy.