Great Couples Counseling in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Therapy to heal relationships.

Whether yo uare in a new relationship or have been in one for several years, there may be a barrier from preventing you to be in a healthy relationship with each other. Different forms of communication may be missing in that relationship such as lack of understanding and not hearing each others wants and needs. Therapy can provide listening skills and ways to improve your relationship on a daily basis.

The goal of couples therapy is to bring out the best in you and your partner, strengthening the quality of your relationship, as a point of balance, allowing you to deal with issues in ways that support you to grow as individuals and a couple. To increase your understanding of yourself, your partner, and the patterns of interactions that have become detrimental to the relationship.

As an ICEEFT-certified EFT couples therapist, I can help you and your partner to reconnect, escape from the repetitive cycles that keep you distant from each other, make sense of your emotions, improve the way you handle stress and conflict, and restore trust and safety with each other. There is no bad guy in your relationship. I'll help you see how your feelings and behaviors make perfect sense - and work with you both to create new, positive cycles that draw you closer together. EFT is very well supported by research showing that it significantly improves over 86% of distressed relationships, and importantly, that those benefits are still present two or three years after therapy is over.

At the heart of a strong and intimate relationshp are two keystones - 1) Trust and 2) Commitment. The higher the trust, the higher the commitment in the relationship. The lower the trust, the lower the commitment. When trust and commitment is low, its the perfect breeding ground for unending fights, arguments, and betrayal in all forms. Couples therapy gets to the root of these 2 core issues and empowers the couple with effective tools to restore and renew their trust and commitment to each other.

Couples are frequently referred to me by current and former clients, colleagues, and other healthcare professionals including physicians from several disciplines. More often than not, couples self-refer for help because one or both are feeling stuck and in pain. Sometimes there is an accumulation of hurts that have piled up. You need to talk about it. There are many benefits to couples counseling: enhanced communication, learning how to resolve conflict, creating more trust, growing intimacy, identifying triggers that can cause upsets, learning how to deal with the inevitable challenges that even the very best of relationships experience, and learning how to love at deeper levels.

There are times when we feel disconnected and distant from our partner and this usually creates increased conflict. Couples counseling will improve the intimate connection and foster improved communication between partners as they move toward increased physical and emotional intimacy. A couples therapist can help a couple see each other in a different way and be able to teach the couple the tools that are necessary to address conflict and solve problems.

Couples come into counseling for various problems. Couples therapy can be very helpful to identify negative patterns of behavior which cause unhappiness, it also can point our strengths in the relationship which are causing a great deal of satisfaction in the relationship. I work from a Christian based Gottman model to help couples to quickly determine what is going wrong for them and help them to solve these issues and have the happy relationship they desire.

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.

How do you rate your partner? Do you just KNOW your relationship could be better? With Kevin Bergen, you'll find a specialist who can get you over your hurdles to relationship bliss. Are you tired of arguing? Is trust a problem now? Has one of you checked out of the relationship? Feeling alone or more like roommates? Kevin understands what you're feeling. He understands each of you equally, he'll affirm you when your partner is off track, and kick your butt when it's you who's out of line. If you want understanding and honesty, call Kevin for your couple's needs.

The two most important keys to a healthy relationship is communication & understanding how your partner wants to be loved. Clear and authentic communication is essential for a healthy relationship. A mindful partnership involves a place of understanding from where an individual is coming from. Clear boundaries and a respective responsibility of each other, as being unique is central for growth and belongingness. If a connection is fragmented, individuals cannot exist as one, than the relationship cannot be whole. Partners develop a dance around one another’s problems and develop dysfunctional patterns that are projected on the partner and world.

What do you hope for with your partner? In couples therapy, we improve communication, bridge differences, and promote change. People come to couples therapy at many stages of relationship: pre-marital counseling; navigating differences in time management; blending households and families; birth of a child; infidelity; divorce -- any time a couple is seeking to change behaviors that are causing pain. When a life stressor has begun to affect your partnership in an unwanted way, or if you are seeking to be heard differently by your partner, the skills you learn in couples therapy will create a more mutually satisfying relationship.

When you are looking for a couples therapist, you need someone who is trained in couples therapy specifically. Often therapists say they know how to help a couple, but one's training in couples therapy is typically limited to one class in their entire education! The focus of therapy is traditionally on the individual! Here at LA Therapy Network, several of our therapists have specific couples therapy training! We require all our therapists to be educated specifically in couples therapy. We are all trained in helping cuoples from a developmental perspective as well as providing practical strategies for communication and conflict resolution. GLBT families encouraged and welcome!

A couple doesn't need to be married to experience struggles in their relationship. We bring all our past into our today, and this sometimes obscures our vision of the person who shares our today with us. Therapy will help you see yourself more clearly, and see the person your are connected to more clearly. This is especially important for a couple that is looking forward to a lifetime commitment.

Dr. Levine is a clinical psychologist, not simply a "marriage counselor." He often works with couples whose difficulties involve such problems as disagreements about dealing with relatives, children and friends as well as arguments over money, sex and unreasonable expectations. His approach is relaxed and non-confrontational, within the framework of what is known as "cognitive couples therapy." The goal is to reduce unrealistic demands and help with acceptance of the limitations of being human within the context of a close interpersonal relationship. You will find Dr. Levine to be fair, open-minded and even-handed in working with the couples he sees. He will answer the phone personally.

My initial work was with sexless/touchless couples, where I developed a speciality in supporting them in bringing the passion back to their relationship. This included sex of course, but also a deeper passion, a passion for life, a joie de vivre, a deep, loving connection. This is how I became known as the "Passion Doctor". My approach is to get the couple back into connection: verbally, emotionally and physically through psycho-education and exercises specifically tailored for them. My approach is not cookie-cutter or generic and combines the many disciplines I have studied and practiced including psychotherapy, somatic work, breath work and Tantric practices.

I will work with you to help you overcome whatever challenge you're facing, whether it's fighting, distance, a betrayal, or lack of trust, among other challenges. I will also help you to better communicate, including changing harmful or frustrating patterns of relating to each other. The ultimate goal that I keep in mind is to help the two of you become a more loving, cooperative, trusting, and intimate couple.

You may have high conflict in your relationship or just feel like you are "growing apart" from your partner. Couples counseling can help you and your partner communicate on a "level playing field." As a therapist, I meet with you and your partner at the same time; therefore providing both of you with the opportunity to communicate in a calm, safe environment. Finally, I do not "take sides" in your relationship. I am an advocate for you as a couple.

Communication and Commitment-- two vital words for Couples. I've heard it said we choose to love someone and we choose to stay in love with that person. Are you going to hightail it out of there after the first sign of conflict or stay and face the music? That music can be beautiful when seasoned with the right tools and mindset. Couple relationships are not always Romance and Caviar. There are dry spells. I'd like to show you how to weather the dry spells and increase the joy and romance in your relationship. I will show you how to prevent the conflicts and trials of life from robbing that first love you felt in the beginning. I can help you restore that sweetness and passion.

Without conflict, couples do not achieve intimacy. The challenge is helping you and your partner learn how to have healthy conflict that leads to intimacy, rather than destructive conflict that destroys the relationship. While I work with all couples, I specialize in working with neuro-diverse couples. I usually start with helping you learn ground rules for being able to have safe, constructive, healthy conflict to reduce and eliminate destructive relational patterns. I also use Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) to help you reconnect, learn healthy communication skills, rekindle the flame that you once had, and start talking to each other again. If you are willing to work, I am here for you!

Relationships are hard. This is a fact that many people deny and others become aware of when it is too late. By creating an environment where couples can communicate in an honest manner, I work with them to establish clear lines of communication. In addition to working with couples, I am currently working toward a certification as a sex therapist.

I work with couples, gays and straights in all situations. Sometimes persons feel different and learning that we all really want the same thing in life which is understanding and love. Good COMMUNICATION is the key to LOVE! I can teach you how anger is changed into good communication when the methods are artfully taught. When anger is handled properly love ensues! Come in and test this method!!! What you say to another person is so important because that other person may not be able to forget those words. Changing the words helps you and your major relationships and can open up a new world in personal and business relationships. I use Imago Therapy tools and Relational life tools to help.

Couples counseling is some of the most rewarding work a Marriage/Couples counselor can do, we love to help restore broken or just wounded relationships. Sometimes the brokenness gets so bad that people start thinking of separating or divorcing. Often people think that once they separate or divorce that they will not have to put up with each other again. This may be true if you don’t have children. However, if you have children you will still have to navigate the process of getting along even after you have separated. The issues don’t go away. As a licensed Marriage and Family therapist I can help you separate out the pitfalls of separation or divorce realistically.

The main thing I notice couples coming in for is to work on trust issues, communication problems, and lack of intimacy within the relationship. This can manifest into anger, affairs, shutting down, and a number of other behaviors. I work with couples FIRST on what does work, so that they can build upon skills they already possess within their relationship. 2: Teaching basic listening skills so that partners feel heard. 3: Teaching the couples how to communicate without attacking. 4: implementing those skills at home. Therapy is much more complex than this, and there are many more aspects of communication, but building strengths is very important to relationship success.

Couples Counseling can yield enormous benefits to a couple's relationship. In Couples Counseling, I try to provide a safe space so that each person feels supported and encouraged to learn and grow. While Couples' Counseling sometimes involves discussing and working through conflict in a relationship, it may also include identifying life goals as a couple, rekindling love and affection, and learning new skills so that you are well-equipped to face life's joys and challenges as a united, supportive couple. Please reach out to see if your relationship could benefit from Couples' Counseling.

Every relationship experiences arguments and conflict. That is an inevitable part of being in an intimate relationship. These differences do not have to undermine a relationship so long as the underlying patterns of interaction which keep these conflicts active can be understood and resolved. As a specialist in couples counseling, I seek to help a couple identify these patterns and learn how to listen with understanding while promoting the authenticity of each individual. I use an emotionally focused treatment which allows a couple to work through their conflicts while enhancing their feelings of attachment and closeness. With 32 years of experience, I have helped many couples do this.