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

Couples counseling helps partners learn how to communicate openly, listen actively, and express their thoughts and feelings. Together, my relationship counseling clients and I build a toolbox for safely navigating issues, understanding each other's perspectives, deepening intimacy, and resolving conflicts. My couples counseling clients learn how to keep the flame lit and build lasting passion in their relationship. We work on techniques for avoiding the conundrum of feeling like roommates or business partners who are raising kids together. We can also work to heal breaches of trust, investigating underlying causes and working on rebuilding the trust that has been lost.

Would you like to create a more loving, fulfilling relationship as a couple? Couple's counseling is a great way to invest in your relationship and get to know yourself and your partner more deeply. I use a strengths-based approach with couples, looking at what drew you together, what is working well in your relationship and how you can leverage your loving feelings to create a strong, lasting relationship.

I specialize in Couples Work and Marriage Counseling. I'm trained by the Couples Institute of Menlo Park, as well as Emotionally Focused Therapy and the Gottmann Method. Having been married myself for 25 years - and worked through my share of challenges in relationship - I have a good understanding for what it takes to heal, trust, and build intimacy with someone. Most of our communication as a couple is in fact asking the question "are you there for me?". In couples counseling we will explore that basic premise and understand how to make our partners feel it, as well as how we can each motivate our partner to WANT to make us feel that way.

Loving Communication is everything to a good relationship. While 'communication' is just one word, it covers many, many skills. That's why it needs to be taught and practiced. There are at least 12 skills that make you Loving Communicators. Clients are the expert on their lives; I am the expert on relationships. Together, we make your union happy and loving.

Couples are often asked to participate first individually in a pre-counseling consultation. The following goals are then planned around improving strategies as a couple. My initial approach is directed at improving communication skill; listening and how verbal information and body language are being delivered to the other. The couple learns how to work together in a stimulating specific behavioral change. Sessions promote conversation about the couple's differences and similarities. Individually, you will find ways to unlearn old negative patterns to interpersonal related conflicts. Negative behaviors from the past and the memories, can often weaken the couple relationship in the present.

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.

Couples often find that their hopes and expectations for finding that special person who will "make them happy" are unrealistic and a burden to an otherwise very successful relationship. I find that when you learn to listen to your partner and appreciate who they are, and risk telling them who you are and how you feel, your love will be on solid ground. I will help you focus on what you need to feel loving and loveable, and to share that with your partner.

I specialize in working with couples and trauma. I help my clients encounter themselves and reach for growth. Both for themselves and for those they love. I help people searching for peace, connection, and wholeness. And because no single approach is right for everyone, I have training in a range of approaches including Somatic Experiencing (SE), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

Gaining the support of a trained therapist when you desire to improve your relationship with someone can be incredibly valuable. It can often feel like you are stuck in patterns of how you are responding to the other person, maybe you even notice how hard it can be to be honest and vulnerable with other person, despite desiring increased connection. I am trained in couples therapy and use a variety of approaches to support a couple in improving their relationship, depending on the needs of the couple. I am skilled in the Gottman approach and EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples), and I also use IFS (Internal Family Systems). Call to discuss how I can support your relationship growth.

Discover how you can go from rejected to connected! Did you know the reactivity you experience is not your fault? (This is one of the main things that causes fights and arguments. It's when you feel out of control, & it leads to doing or saying things you regret, impulsivity, & leads to hurt & separation). I show couples how they can reduce the personal & relational reactivity they experience & increase feeling peaceful, calm, understood, validated, safe, accepted, & connected. I help couples discover their attachment strategies (how we feel safe & get our needs met). This is necessary in order to create lasting improvement, safety, trust, understanding, & connection, in your relationship.

My work with couples is developmental and focuses on self-confrontation, differentiation, and collaboration. Individuals in the partnerships that I work with take responsibility for their own mental health and happiness and learn to grow themselves up in a way that brings goodness and intimacy to their relationship. I can help them overcome gridlock and sexual challenges to strengthen the relationship and reignite desire.

In couple’s therapy with me, you will learn about more effective ways of connecting in order to improve intimacy, relational flow, and overall satisfaction. By better understanding your own as well as your partner’s needs and pain, you will relate in ways that are not damaging to the relationship. I will teach you valuable communication, conflict resolution, and intimacy-building techniques so that you can continue nurturing the love, trust, and respect between you even after completing therapy. Call me with any questions or to schedule an initial appointment.

The goal is to use creative tools and assessments to help you grow as a couple. Here to help you improve your communication, connect and build a stronger foundation. Couple's therapy is a path to understanding each other's needs, learning the best way to listen to your partner and finding effective ways to communicate. Strengthening the couple's foundation will help build a stronger family unit.