Intimate relationships offer some of the most difficult yet satisfying experiences of human life. By bringing open awareness and warm compassion to our shared experience, we can learn to strengthen communication, create safety and support, and deepen intimacy and trust with one another.
My approach to couples work is based on an understanding of adult attachment and emotional needs as expressed in Emotionally Focused Therapy. EFT offers a skillful and profound way to work directly with the emotions, focusing on the fundamental need for emotional connection that so often gets subverted into repetitive patterns of negative behavior. As each of you contact your underlying feelings, you can begin to understand and disentangle the chronic negative patterns of disconnection, anger, shutoff or shutdown that occur in so many relationships. Deeper feelings, fears, and needs get a chance to surface, and the vulnerability that is the root of real intimacy can be revealed. EFT has a remarkable success rate: clinical research indicates that 70-75 percent of couples move from distress to recovery; 90 percent show significant improvement.
Practicalities
An initial couples session is 90 minutes,which gives us time to look where you are coming from as both individuals and partners, your current issues, and where you’d like to go. Subsequent sessions can be 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or two hours. I charge $110 per hour ($165 for a 90-minute session), payable at the end of each session. Scheduling is often an issue with couples: I offer evening hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
I know that for many couples, making a counseling appointment is not an easy decision. If you have any questions or concerns, or would simply like to know more about my approach, feel free to give me a call before scheduling an initial appointment. I would be happy to talk with one or both of you about how we might work together.