Great Couples Counselling in Port Moody, BC. Therapy to heal relationships.

Relationships can become tense, defensive, and hostile. Sometimes, ruptures in trust occur that leave us questioning "should I still be with you?" When our relationships feel insecure, we react often through becoming critical/nagging, or shutting down and checking out. I practice a form of evidence-based couples therapy called Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT). Through EFT, we identify the negative cycle that has come to define your relationship, and work to repair this ruptured attachment bond, helping partners feel safer and freer around one another. This leads to improved intimacy, better communication, and a stronger emotional connection.

My role as a couple's therapist to create a safe haven, a calm bay, for you to make the repairs as needed, for you to re-embark on your journey together, stronger, more connected and back on the same team. The storminess of relationships is as natural as waves in the ocean, our ability to stay connect during the swells and crashing waves is what makes or breaks a marriage, not the wave itself. Our work together focuses on identifying our patterns and our partners patterns as we run for cover in the tumult of the wave. We then work on understanding, supporting and staying reconnected.

I have extensive experience in marriage and couple therapy. In any relationship, both people play a role in the problems and concerns, and it take two to find solutions. I work with couple dealing with communication issues, fidelity, divorce and separation, co-parenting and commitment issues. I promote mutual support, and a collaborative approach to problem solving which builds trust in the couple and the counselling process. I help couples move through the old, repetitive cycles of arguing towards new and healthier communication and connection.

As a Marriage Therapist, Couples counsellor and Sex Therapist, I specialize in helping couples experience more joy and connection in relationship. After completing a relationship assessment which will give you a concrete and very specific blueprint of your strengths as a couple as well as an outline of your individual experience of what isn't working I will help you develop very practical tools so you can change how you communicate, heal trust issues, create emotional safety and address Addiction, Anger or other issues. Resolving conflict and growing the love you have will allow you to develop a deeper intimate connection and rekindle the passion you once shared.

I come from a perspective of strengthening the emotional bond and understanding protective parts or modes that we can all go into. Working with couples, I work with the relationship as the priority. Some individual work can be helpful, but the relationship is first. You have to decide for yourself whether the relationship is right for you; from there I'm confident we can find a way out of the current cycle together.

Building a long term relationship has its challenges and can sometimes feel overwhelming. I seek to help couples heal and strengthen their relationships. This can be a wonderful time to build trust, resolve conflict, and reach mutual marital satisfaction. As a compassionate therapist, I will provide support, guidance and several skills to help couples achieve their relationship goals and, therefore experience a more fulfilling life.

I work to help couples come to a place of understanding and connection. I do not choose sides but rather help couples work through their issues in a safe, supportive environment. I have educational training in Gottman couples counselling as well as over 15 years of experience successfully working with couples.

If you're looking to improve your relationship, we'd work together to create a supportive environment for discussion, allowing each of you to share your perspective and experience. With important conversations and empathetic questions, there's opportunity to truly see each other and to collaborate to resolve the issues rather than engaging in blame. Together, we'd uncover experiences that promote mutual understanding, empathy and appreciation. Through this process you'll gain insights, develop new ways of communicating, strengthen your connection and establish a more fulfilling and harmonious relationship.

Are you and your partner stuck in unsolvable arguments? Does one of you tend to ‘demand’ more while the other shuts down and withdraws? Are you feeling less connected and actually adding stress to each other’s lives instead of reducing it? While frustrating, these are perfectly normal patterns of partnership and there is hope. I would be glad to help you untangle the knots, learning to team up together instead of entering battles over who is right. In doing so, we will unpack past traumas and patterns of behaviour, learning to better communicate and to be safely vulnerable in a way that stands your relationship on solid ground.

Relationships are work, and each person in a relationship brings their own unique set of baggage to the relationship. Some of it is good and some of it is challenging. Depending on the type of couple (married, dating, common law, heterosexual, homosexual) the goals can be quite different. In counselling we can explore what those goals are and what baggage, or different values are contributing to the challenges. Even though relationships are work, they should also be the greatest place for reward. Working through understanding the goals, expectations, values, emotions and areas of conflict in the relationship, the reward can be achieved.

The Gottman Method helps couples break out of painful cycles by applying research from over 3,000 couple-- studying both those who thrive and those who divorce—to identify what makes relationships work. In Gottman couples therapy, we'll identify patterns eroding your intimacy—like criticism, defensiveness, or stonewalling—and replace them with healthier ways of relating. You'll learn practical, evidence-based skills for expressing needs, listening deeply, navigating conflict constructively, and repairing hurt. Whether experiencing frequent arguments, feeling disconnected, or facing major challenges, you'll gain concrete tools to rebuild connection, taking your relationship in a new direction

Many couples struggle with communication and "feeling heard". Over time a once happy and vibrant relationship can begin to decay through hurt feelings, anger, lack of attention, feeling valued, infidelity, the strain of children, childhood issues, and much more. We focus to heal the wounds of the past and rebuild the love and trust within the relationship. We work to equip both partners with a voice and ability to effectively listen and hear one another. We will work together to establish individual boundaries within the relationship, while creating a stronger and healthier connection. Our goal is to equip each couple with the tools they require for success, independent of counselling

Relationships are a crucial component of human health and happiness, and my passion involves helping people develop better connections with others as well as with themselves. By offering a setting that is based on trust, empathy, and collaboration, counselling can provide you with a safe and supportive space to explore your thoughts and emotions while creating a deeper, more authentic understanding of who you are, what you need, and the dynamics that you are navigating. Whether you attend alone or with a partner, I believe that there can be great value in processing relationships from the past or present as well as exploring the relationship that you're maintaining with yourself.