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

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 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).

Are you trapped in destructive cycles of anger and blame? Have you lost trust because of an affair? Are you avoiding your partner or feeling disengaged? Is it hard for you to have real conversations or solve problems together? I will help you untangle your painful negative cycles of communication and build new stronger connections. You can learn to have power over that cycle by learning your triggers and undoing them. You will learn about the roots of the cycle learned in early relationships. Call, text or email me to set an appointment.

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 specialize in working with couples struggling with a wide range of issues. From problems with communication and feeling connected, to parenting, affair recovery and just learning not to take the relationship for granted anymore, therapy can make a big difference. Like any other living thing, a partnership is a dynamic, growing thing that needs attention and to be nurtured and cared for. Couples therapy is an effective way to learn how to identify and express your own needs at the same time hearing, understanding, and meeting your partners needs. I have helped many couples overcome seemingly impossible challenges and go on to build happy, healthy, more satisfying relationships that last!

I approach couples counseling from a collaborative stance that offers tangible results from the first session. My work empowers couples in distress to deeply understand and overcome the painful cycles of interaction between partners, as well as to address and heal these cycles' root causes. From there I help couples nurture and develop ever greater degrees of trust, intimacy and love between each other. I am passionate about my work with couples and believe deeply in the healing power of effective therapy.

When we open our hearts and allow someone in, we have the opportunity to build relationships that will bring us comfort and joy. When those relationships are struggling it effects us more than other relationships in our life. In couples therapy, we will work together to open the lines of communication, better understand our partners needs and their interpretations of behaviors and try to close the gap between intentional and unintentional communication. Ideally couples counseling will bring two people that want to be together closer and gain a deeper understanding of their partner and their needs.

One of my favorite subspecialties is working with couples. This comes out of my own experience of having been happily married for 35 years, and knowing that relationships are the crucible of transformation. Nothing in my life has returned more reward and more wisdom than the process of struggling along with my wife to figure out how to be in relationship with another human being. Relationships involve merging, separating, leading, following, and getting into a state of attunement. Most of us were not born knowing how to do these things. Couples therapy becomes an exciting exploration of these spiritual skills. After abandoning blame and shame we can actually be very happy together!

Issues that can be worked on in couples counseling often stem from conscious and unconscious assumptions and expectations that each person has about the other. The individual sees the other through the lens of their upbringing and relationship history. I help couples unpack the complex and often tangled web of how each person is understood and misunderstood in the eyes of the other. In doing so, each partner can have a deeper understanding of themselves and their partner, generating compassion, clearer communication, and emotional space from pressing issues.

I view relationship as a vehicle to support greater deepening and healing. It is in relationship that we see our deepest vulnerability, insecurity and unprocessed wounding. Where do we get more triggered than in our primary relationship? I believe that sharing the attitude of using the relationship as a vehicle to heal, allows couples to get on the same page as they work through their issues. It becomes less about who will win this argument and more about how the couple can support each other in healing. Together we can explore relationship dynamics and work toward creating a supportive environment for growth, transformation and healing.

I work with a lot of couples, and have helped them learn to relate with more empathy, effective communication and positive regard. I'll help you to better understand each other, and to manage conflict in a more productive and supportive way. Though we are by nature drawn to be in relationship, there are now well understood reasons—rooted in our neurobiology and our attachment patterns (which I'll explain)—that often make functioning in relationships difficult. In addition to helping you understand the source of these difficulties, I'll guide you in using that knowledge to create a more intimate, enriching and secure partnership, one based on the principle that you are in each other's care.

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.

It really hurts when the person you love is focused on "being right", rather than really getting you! Does your relationship create a deep pain or numbness in your heart? When we start to believe that our LEGITIMATE needs for connection will not be adequately met with our partner, it is easy to focus on our personal needs (at the expense of our partner's). A NORMAL human response to this is: nagging, petty repetitive fights, silent-treatments, numbing out, outbursts, being condescending, focusing on being right (rather than really listening). Using EFT, I FOCUS ON SHIFTING THE CULTURE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP from its current negative painful cycles into being a safe place for both of you.