Great Couples Counseling in Hercules, CA. Therapy to heal relationships.

I work with couples of all kinds, and in all stages of relationship. I help couples focus on the "We" in their relationship, develop strengths and improve their communication. I also help couples pause behavior that is having a negative impact and develop new perspectives and behaviors that nourish their connection. Whether couples are married or unmarried or considering marriage, whether they have been together a few months or many years, I help them make their relationship a more loving, less painful and more enjoyable place to be.

As a relationship therapist with over 30 years experience, I work exclusively with couples and adults, using proven methods for developing better communication skills and deeper understanding of repetitive emotional patterns. By improving teamwork you can learn to resolve your differences more quickly and reach lasting solutions more effectively. The goal: to enrich your relationship with more generosity, forgiveness, playfulness, and open-hearted sharing throughout your life together. Please visit KinseyLeaseCounseling.com to learn more.

Romantic relationships can be one of the most important aspects of our lives. When our relationship is going well, we feel great. But when there is constant conflict, disagreements, and disconnection, we feel awful, and our work, health, and sleep suffers. Therapy can help couples understand the negative patterns that keep showing up in the relationship, and take steps to do different actions that work for both people in the relationship. Couples counseling helps you understand yourself, and your partner, so you can create a safe, loving, and connected relationship where both partners feel valued and cared for. Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation today.

Couples therapy can be intimidating to start. There's a lot of anxiety that comes up for people about things getting even worse or one person being labeled as the problem or, worse yet, that it will lead to breaking up. But I have treated a great many couples over 25 years and that is almost never what happens. Although, yes, the process is sometimes very painful, I never "take sides" and blame one person in the couple and usually the couple feels better after the session. I have seen people come in with problems that made them feel like enemies and after therapy they feel like friends and lovers again. Do call for couples therapy now and don't let the problems keep on getting worse.

There are countless models of healthy romantic relationships, from monogamous to polyamorous, and unique variations between partners. The scripts for dating and longterm relationships of our parents’ generations may not be applicable to your relationship, and there is no formal education in how to be a good partner or how to identify unhealthy relationships. But there is psychological research that shows that effective communication, emotional openness, intimacy, and other factors contribute to healthy relationships. Creating these conditions are skills that can be learned. I practice brief humanistic and emotion-focused therapy (EFT) to help my LGBTQ and hetero clients learn these skills.

I specialize is working with couples of all relationship configurations (poly, monogamous, queer, hetero, etc.) and multi-heritage and mixed race couples. I hold our relationship, the unconscious dynamics between members of the couple, and the couples--experiences, identities, struggles, successes and strengths--in the context of each persons social-culutral-familiar locations in society. I want to better understand what each person is needing to express feel and work through, in order for healing to take place between you and your partner(s).

My work focuses on a combination of skills training in how happy couples talk and argue, and the creation of safety and opportunities to create "heart-to-heart" conversations to restore and revitalize intimacy in your relationship. It is these two approaches that are supported convincingly by a large body of research, and it requires a therapist who acts as coach and referee. I don't let couples fight their same old fights in my office - the whole point is to get past the same old arguments and have the deeper and more useful conversations that have been sidetracked.

In working with couples, I recommend holding a separate individual session with each partner. That allows me to understand the historical background that each partner brings to the relationship and how that impacts their attitudes and patterns of behavior. That process encourages each partner to honestly identify their perception of the conflict without fear of recrimination from their partner. I can then bring both partners together and help them understand aspects of their relationship that underlie their conflicts. We work together to implement strategies which support the goal of resolving their problems and improving the quality of their communication and their relationship.

I believe that often we choose the partner we need in order to "push our buttons" to do the most transformative inner work, and learning how to use our relationship effectively to support that work in each other heals old wounds and builds a strong foundation of trust. My approach draws from Positive Psychology and the work of Gottman and Hendricks.

As we know, romantic relationships can bring out the best and worst of us. Working with couples involves being open to identifying and experiencing those parts of ourselves that get triggered. In this way, we allow the relationship to be an opportunity for working through patterns that block intimacy and develop new ways of being that deepen communication, allow for more honest, open expression and enable each partner to be a healing agent for the other. This is a pathway of healing and growth- a vehicle for enhancing capacity for love (including self-love) and soul connection.

Relationships are the most complicated, yet most rewarding things in life. They make us feel excited, happy, and high on life one minute while maintaining the ability bring us pain, frustration, and emotional distress the next. For all the beauty that comes with companionship and commitment, there are also times when you have to sacrifice things you may not want to for the sake of the relationship. Furthermore, maintaining one’s own identity while growing with another person can be a lot to manage. I help couples come to a much more meaningful understanding of how each person is showing up in the relationship so that they can make healthier choices towards a more fulfilling future together.

I provide couples counseling which can be beneficial whether you are married or in a long term partnership. Therapy can be helpful for all couples to open up communication, gain mutual understanding and have a safe place to be vulnerable. Engaging in couples therapy can valuable whether there is a specific issue needing focus or just the desire to gain better communication. I look forward to supporting through with this process.

I focus on authenticity in my practice, and for me this is especially helpful when it comes to couples work. That most problems in relationships come from people being afraid to fully reveal themselves to their partners, for fear they won't be fully accepted and loved. And that by working on open and honest communication tools, and how to really share the depth of their beings with each other, we can create relationships of real intimacy that are healthy and nourishing.