Charles and I are dedicated to walking through the hard work of relationship with couples in a new way with our 2-on-2 Couples Therapy & Coaching approach. We will offer these services in both traditional and intensive formats depending on your needs.
Together we will explore those stuck points in your relationships and learn how to disrupt the dance you may be locked into. Learn how your attachment style influences and may be impacting your rhythm with your partner and ways to shift these patterns.
Conflicts are a normal part of healthy relationships. Nearly all couples experience highs and lows, but many need help in overcoming emotional hurts and wounds associated with conflicts, dishonesty, miscommunication, or some other source of tension in their relationships. Couples counseling is for committed partners married or not who have a mutual interest in preserving their relationship and finding a means of overcoming differences. Couples who address their differences head-on in constructive ways are more likely to resolve surface tension, as well as underlying issues. Furthermore, those who learn to address conflicts rather than avoid them are more likely to avoid divorce or separation in the future.
“When we feel generally secure, that is, we are comfortable with closeness and confident about depending on loved ones, we are better at seeking support – and better at giving it.”
– Sue Johnson PhD, Hold Me Tight
Did you know...
that of the primary causes of both conflict and divorce in the U.S. is money? Studies have shown that the average couple fights over money as many as 5 times per year. Financial strain can put pressure on a relationship, with many partners unwilling to reach a compromise over investments, savings, and spending.
Frequently Asked Questions
My partner and I butt heads from time to time. Do we need couples counseling?
Maybe Couples counseling and coaching is not intended to solve occasional spats or disagreements. Instead, it is meant to help couples learn how to address obstacles in their relationships in healthy and beneficial ways. This includes understanding and respecting a partner’s feelings while clearly communicating your own. Understanding how our wants, needs, and desires are often influenced by prior experiences and learning can help us resolve conflicts in our current relationships.
What should I expect during couples counseling?
Counseling sessions typically include both partners and may occur over the course of several weeks or months, or can be addressed in a more condensed period or periods of time with intensive services. The goal is to help each person gain a better understanding of his or her partner’s needs, expectations, and hurts while learning about how our attachment styles play into this. Ultimately, couples counseling and coaching will help you and your partner determine whether to move forward with your relationship or go your separate ways. If you decide to stay together, couples counseling and coaching can help you work through pain, distrust, and frustrations associated with issues keeping you in the dance.
Will I need to follow any special instructions outside of counseling sessions?
Depending on the issues facing your relationship, you may be given ‘homework’ designed to open the lines of communication and transparency between you and your partner. But more so, the relationship tools you acquire in couples therapy will help you work toward a closer, healthier relationship long after counseling is over.
“Distressed partners may use different words but they are always asking the same basic questions, ‘Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Will you come when I need you, when I call?’ Love is the best survival mechanism there is, and to feel suddenly emotionally cut off from a partner, disconnected, is terrifying.”
– Sue Johnson PhD, Hold Me Tight
Are traditional or intensive sessions right for you?
- Weekly sessions are a good option if you want to take the healing process at a slower rate.
- They allow you to spread out the cost of care over the course of treatment.
- Sometimes weekly hour-long sessions are more manageable for clients than half-day, full-day, or weeklong intensive sessions. This will be assessed and discussed during the intake process.
- Therapy work potentially including EMDR work can be hard to pack into a traditional-length session. Once you have a weekly check-in and account for the time needed to close the session, little room is left for actual work.
- If your distress is significant, meeting for just one hour once a week could mean it takes a long time to heal your pain.
- Committing to a regular time each week in your schedule may be difficult, especially if you are busy or travel frequently.
- I will take stock of your weekly needs and how you would like to utilize your time. If new situations arise that need time to be addressed or processed, we will focus on them as much as you need to. Then we will use the remaining time to work on stated goals.
- We’ll also need time at the end of each session to make sure you’re able to contain your memories so that you feel relaxed when you’re outside the office.
- You have time constraints in your normal weekly schedule that make it difficult to commit to therapy on an ongoing basis.
- You have traumatic events impacting your daily life in a way that makes it too overwhelming to spread treatment out over weeks, months, and years.
- You wish to process early trauma that is stored in implicit or preverbal memory. This type of EMDR is much more suited for in-person sessions or a multi-day retreat setting due to the nature of the work.
- Intensive are designed to provide longer and more frequent therapy sessions over a shorter timespan in order to accelerate your recovery
- With intensive work, you can progress at a faster rate than you can with weekly sessions. Imagine the amount of work and healing that can be accomplished in a half day, full day, or three consecutive days (which equates to about 21 hours of highly focused treatment within a three-day period).
- You can address urgent needs in a dedicated manner instead of in a bits-and-pieces approach.
- In the long run, due to the efficiency of intensive sessions, you can save both time and money.
- Scheduling time for a single retreat may be more convenient if you have a busy schedule, kids to plan around, and travel or work commitments.
- Intensives are tailored just for you, so there are many different ways that they can be customized for your individual needs.
- Intensives may not be the right fit for everyone, just as weekly sessions aren’t the best fit for everyone.
- Some people with extreme cases of PTSD may feel overwhelmed by working through their issues for a prolonged period of time. In our assessment together, we can explore your individual needs and goals and see if intensive work feels like the best plan for you.
- Due to the varying options for intensives, they all look a little different. At your intake assessment, we will create an individualized treatment plan for intensive work.
- Generally, each two-hour block of focused work will be followed by a 15-minute break. We will do some resourcing, too.
- In our space, there is also room for trauma informed yoga, qi gong, and other body-based work. If you choose half-day, full-day, or multi-day options, you will be given retreat information about what to expect prior to starting.
- The complexity of your situation would be too overwhelming to process due to high levels of dissociation.
- If you are in an urgent crisis situation that requires stabilization or hospitalization.
- If you struggle with active substance abuse, suicidal ideation or self harm.
- If you feel forced into a therapeutic process not of your own volition.
