Great Couples Counseling in Rio del Mar, CA. Therapy to heal relationships.

Partnership has the potential to be incredibly rewarding, teaching us about ourselves through loving another. Most of us make a large emotional investment in our relationships. Because of this, partnership also has the potential to cause a huge amount of distress when it’s not working. Sometimes a struggling partnership is full of conflict and arguments, and sometimes partners just drift apart until they feel like roommates instead of lovers. Successful partnerships need respect and a core of friendship. If you and your partner are no longer friends, or you never were, I can provide you with tools to work toward a closer connection.

Couples may they be in a dating relationship, living together, engaged to marry, married, in business together, separating, divorcing, fighting over children, property, alimony or visitation, are often confronted with a breakdown in communication and an inability to resolve conflicts. Couple counseling aims to reveal the disconnect within a couple that often once had the ability to connect and function in harmony. Couples can quickly get off track with one another and need skilled guidance to help them learn to resolve conflicts, once again listen and communicate effectively as well as to be able to disagree without forcing the relationship to end.

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.

Do you think that you are doomed for your relationship to stay the same because your partner refuses to come to therapy? My specialty with couples counseling is to work individually with the partner that is willing to come in to counseling and work to make things better. Change and positive progress can still happen when one person makes changes, sets boundaries and clearly understands and is able to respectfully assert their wants and needs. I assist individuals in my office with a plan they can work on at home with their partner so they can have the relationship they desire.

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.

Its often that the issue isn't the issue, but how we relate to each other, that is the issue. If we relate to each other with contempt, impatience, or defensiveness, then it doesn't matter if we are having a discussion about something trivial or major, its not going to go well. But if we can learn to relate to each other and listen with compassion, curiosity, and consideration, then we can give ourselves the opportunity to move through life with our partner with a lot more ease. My goal in sessions in to teach you how to dig deep and find that compassion and curiosity, and steer clear of defensiveness and contempt.

Couple relationships can be the most difficult of all of life's relationships and yet the most rewarding. It is a learning process--just like learning to dance flawlessly and beautifully with another person. It is not just about learning how to meet the needs of another person in the relationship, but also how to get your needs met in the relationship so you have a win-win situation. For a relationship to be secure, loving, intimate, and fulfilling for both individuals, there cannot be any losers. It takes work to create and craft your personalized relationship, but it is not impossible, especially when you seek the help of an objective third party who wants to help.

What are the most common couples' issues? If you are thinking "communication, conflict, sex, money, child rearing" you are correct. However, most therapists will go after the symptom on each side of the couple fence thinking that the way to effective change is by getting each party to "work" on their respective "issue". Many times the parties don’t agree but comply. Imagine if you could align the unconscious brains of a couple and stop the "working on your issues" part that has become so popular in therapy settings? Contact kevin@kevinflemingphd.com to learn how! Or call 877-606-6161. DR. FLEMING'S NEW RELATIONSHIP/COUPLES INTENSIVES. www.kevinflemingphd.com/marriage-couples-retreats.php

Couples counseling is helpful when two individuals want to deepen their connection (even when things in their relationship are "fine") as well as to help resolve conflicts that have not been addressed or have not been successfully addressed in the past. Top concerns usally involve money, parenting, sex, and in-laws. Improving general communication and one's ability to manage their feelings help to resolve the issues above with love, respect, and efficiency.

A healthy couple’s relationship emerges from a process of reflection and inquiry. It requires both people to speak from the heart about what really matters to each. If you find yourself in a difficult cycle of hurtful interactions, I can help you get to this heart-full and constructive place. It is very useful to slow things down in a session, discovering the moments in interaction, verbal or non-verbal, that trigger an automatic reaction in the other. I may find a key phrase or a movement that we will re-enact in mindfulness to study the effect on each partner. Bringing awareness to these often unconscious triggers and responses helps you get to what is needed for yourself and the other.

New, evolving, and long term couples benefit from our use of Gottman Method, Narrative therapy, emotionally focused couples therapy, positive psychology or Imago Relationship Therapy. Our licensed therapist are skilled and trained to use one or a multiple therapy methods and approaches to help couples. Our desire is to help couples communicate, interact, make decisions, and live daily in harmony.

I provide therapy for couples who are married, who are engaged to be married and for those who are dating or cohabiting. A relationship personality profile is provided to all couples, followed by sessions on communication, intimacy/connectedness, trust. These sessions are always personalized to the couple's issues. I offer a "Tools for the Marriage Toolbox" package for pre-marital couples that can be done in two sessions; a valuable wedding gift to each other!

Couples often come to counseling when they are on the verge of breaking up. I hope that you will find the way to counseling before you reach this point so that we can find better ways to look at and change old patterns that seem to have you stuck. And even if both agree it is time to separate, counselimf can be helpful to find healthier ways in the process so that we don't have to recreate old, dysfunctional patterns in our next relationships. I invite both partners to utilize the safety of the therapeutic set-up to look at the deeper underlying issues that have brought you to this point in your current relationship

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).

Let me guess. One partner feels alone and like they don't matter and the other feels they are always being criticized and can't get anything right. The more one asks for the other to show up, the more the partner disappears physically and emotionally. You both bicker and fight and the idea of sitting and just hanging out seems elusive, if not impossible. Something like this? Often we crave connection but are blocked by the pain and the history that gets in the way. Small fights about little things become battles that highlight our struggle to have our basic relational needs met. I can help you get under the bickering to the parts crying out for connection- to an enriching 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.

Arrive together on the first and you may stay together. I insist that couplescome to at least 8 sessions together before deciding to bailout. Therapy is a way to confess your sessions and your thoughts to each other with me as a buffer. Couples who come jointly will sometimes be separated during the session to share their thoughts with me alone first. Then I'll encourage disclose of those thoughts to the partner. By making listings of reasons to stay and separate, I help clients organize their thoughts from the get go.