Every couple encounters challenges...
We know how to help couples thrive!
All romantic couples start with a longing to connect and transcend the limits of relationships of the past. The attraction, fondness and admiration we feel with our special other is our best self coming to life, and it is relieving and often intoxicating. We share these positive feelings, much of our histories, and show up for each other, creating a space that we can see building a life... achieving our dreams... together. Despite any flaws we inevitably discover or reveal, we look beyond these imperfections, accept our partners for who we know them to be, and look into our gratitude and hope. This is the stuff marriages and life partnerships are built on.
Then, as with all things, novelty fades, love chemicals decline, and real life continues to be stressful. Conflicts and rupture inevitably occur. Repairs become harder, and our vulnerability becomes painfully obvious to ourselves even when we wish to deny its existence. We stop turning towards each other with kindness, compassion, empathy, and vulnerable emotional expression. We pick up our shields, and some times our swords. Negative sentiment creeps in, and those life dreams feel very far away. Sexual intimacy and satisfaction often declines if not ceases, or if it remains, it is a consolation prize for being in a relationship that we didn't anticipate. As the psychologist John Gottman wrote, "The Roach Motel" is where we find ourselves.
Negative, escalating, stuck patterns of interaction emerge. Often one partner seeks connection through harsh, critical, nagging means, and the other partner seeks stability through cool distance, seeming carelessness, defensiveness, dismissal, or counter attack. The Gottmans call this "Attack-Defend" or "Pursue-Withdraw". Other times partners can wind up in variations: "Attack-Attack"/"Find The Bad Guy", "Withdraw-Withdraw"/"Freeze and Flee", or rotations of these three cycles. These cycles erode trust, emotional safety and intimacy, and neither partner is to blame for this: Each partner is trying to address the problems in the relationship in the way they have been conditioned, often with hidden but generous intentions, but painful impact. These cycles are the enemy of security in relationships. Not the partners. And it is these cycles that partners must learn to recognize and de-escalate their part of in order to set the stage for relationship change for the better.
Eventually, these cycles can do such damage to the sense of trust and commitment in relationships that partners engage in regret acts that betrayal the relational norms: affairs and other secrets, turning towards addictions, turning away from their partner, and even domestic abuse both emotional and physical. Psychologist Sue Johnson calls these "Attachment Injuries," and redefine the sense of trust in Self and Other in relationship... they are traumatic... and need repair in order for the needed changes to occur in a relationship so that it can be truly happy and stable.
Emotions are the music to these cycles, and ruptures and their repairs are choreographed to them, but often we lose touch with the feel and the sound. Our therapists are trained and supported to facilitate corrective experiences with couples through highly effective, state of the art couple therapies (i.e. Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy - EFT, The Gottman Method), and are supported to hone expert Facilitative Interpersonal Skills that maximize the effectiveness of these proven couple therapy approaches. Our therapists help couples de-escalate negative cycles, repair ruptures, increase trust and commitment, and rebuild positive sentiment and the hope of achieving life dreams together.
All of our couple therapists do not participate in health insurance panels/are out of network, but do offer reduced fee options for clients who require them. To learn more and connect to our couple therapy providers, please read more about the couple therapy methods our therapists offer, couples problems our therapists treat, and special populations they serve.
Then, as with all things, novelty fades, love chemicals decline, and real life continues to be stressful. Conflicts and rupture inevitably occur. Repairs become harder, and our vulnerability becomes painfully obvious to ourselves even when we wish to deny its existence. We stop turning towards each other with kindness, compassion, empathy, and vulnerable emotional expression. We pick up our shields, and some times our swords. Negative sentiment creeps in, and those life dreams feel very far away. Sexual intimacy and satisfaction often declines if not ceases, or if it remains, it is a consolation prize for being in a relationship that we didn't anticipate. As the psychologist John Gottman wrote, "The Roach Motel" is where we find ourselves.
Negative, escalating, stuck patterns of interaction emerge. Often one partner seeks connection through harsh, critical, nagging means, and the other partner seeks stability through cool distance, seeming carelessness, defensiveness, dismissal, or counter attack. The Gottmans call this "Attack-Defend" or "Pursue-Withdraw". Other times partners can wind up in variations: "Attack-Attack"/"Find The Bad Guy", "Withdraw-Withdraw"/"Freeze and Flee", or rotations of these three cycles. These cycles erode trust, emotional safety and intimacy, and neither partner is to blame for this: Each partner is trying to address the problems in the relationship in the way they have been conditioned, often with hidden but generous intentions, but painful impact. These cycles are the enemy of security in relationships. Not the partners. And it is these cycles that partners must learn to recognize and de-escalate their part of in order to set the stage for relationship change for the better.
Eventually, these cycles can do such damage to the sense of trust and commitment in relationships that partners engage in regret acts that betrayal the relational norms: affairs and other secrets, turning towards addictions, turning away from their partner, and even domestic abuse both emotional and physical. Psychologist Sue Johnson calls these "Attachment Injuries," and redefine the sense of trust in Self and Other in relationship... they are traumatic... and need repair in order for the needed changes to occur in a relationship so that it can be truly happy and stable.
Emotions are the music to these cycles, and ruptures and their repairs are choreographed to them, but often we lose touch with the feel and the sound. Our therapists are trained and supported to facilitate corrective experiences with couples through highly effective, state of the art couple therapies (i.e. Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy - EFT, The Gottman Method), and are supported to hone expert Facilitative Interpersonal Skills that maximize the effectiveness of these proven couple therapy approaches. Our therapists help couples de-escalate negative cycles, repair ruptures, increase trust and commitment, and rebuild positive sentiment and the hope of achieving life dreams together.
All of our couple therapists do not participate in health insurance panels/are out of network, but do offer reduced fee options for clients who require them. To learn more and connect to our couple therapy providers, please read more about the couple therapy methods our therapists offer, couples problems our therapists treat, and special populations they serve.