Great Couples Counseling in San Diego, CA. Therapy to heal relationships.

I've been a licensed Psychologist for 30 years, been married for 30 years, and know both professionally and personally what it really takes to make a relationship succeed. I've worked with hundreds of couples to help them have happier, more satisfying relationships, turning tug-of-wars into teams that pull together. I'm practical, straight-forward and results-oriented. It may not be easy to be happy as a couple, but it's definitely possible. Let's work on it together, so your tomorrow will be happier than today..

I am an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFT) which is the most empirically validated and proven couples therapy to date - helping couples go from distress to a more secure, lasting love, which after a 2 year follow-up, couples report a happier and more fulfilling relationship. I help couples understand their painful disconnection that creates distance and frustration, learn to be more clear in their communication and needs, helping couples begin to heal and repair rifts to bring about a deeper felt sense of security within their relationship. I desire couples to experience with one another that they matter, that they are cared for, they are unconditionally loved by their partner.

Our committed relationship or marriage is often the greatest trigger of stress and anxiety. This is because our very identities (our experience of ourselves) is threatened. This may be caused by a) unresolved issues from our family of origin, b) unresolved disagreements in lifestyle or child rearing, c) conflicts over sex, romance, and intimacy, or d) sometimes just the management of everyday stressors. The sad result is a "disconnect" between partners, and resulting loneliness. Working in collaboration, we will finding the cause, and build a strategy to reconnect you and your partner. Yes, you can recapture the love, attraction, and joy you deserve together. Let's get to work!

Much of the couples work I do is in understanding the core issues that are causing problems in the relationship. Often things like differences in expectations, problems with communication, issues related to intimacy, and difficulties related to trust and safety can cause a friction. My goal is to help you get to the root of the issue and discover new more effective ways of showing up with your partner. Positive change is possible.

Among human relationships, marriage can be a source of great joy and connection. Often over time, negative cycles and patterns of interaction can develop that create pain and disconnection in the relationship. Adult love relationships are about creating secure attachment and a connection that allows each partner to feel emotionally safe. Through the counseling process, I assist couples in identifying and overcoming negative cycles, healing from past hurts, and reconnecting emotionally. I also work with couples looking for healing from infidelity. Even very distressed couples can reconnect and restore trust and emotional security. I also provide pre-marital and enrichment counseling.

Couples counseling is an area I specialize in and have helped couples repair and rebuild their relationships. I start with what are the goals that the couple wants to accomplish during therapy (usually repairing or strengthening their relationship). Next we look at each persons areas of strengths and weaknesses as well as their reasons for the difficulties in the relationship. I then help the couple through a "atonement, attunement and attachment" process that repairs and strengthens the relationship along with achieving the established goals of the couple.

Effective couples therapy can be done with only one person of the couple in the therapy room. Many individuals in relationships have issues they are not ready to discuss in front of their partner for various reasons. They want to work with a therapist to truly understand their thoughts, feelings and dilemmas with regard to their relationship in a private, supportive setting. I have helped many couples in this treatment format in my Carlsbad private practice over the past 22 years. You might be asking how does this work. In a couple, if one member shifts perspective, shifts behavior and gains new tools, the relationship dynamic will change. Call today for a free 20 min. phone consultation.

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!

Couples therapy involves working with partners who are in a committed relationship. Individuals attend couples therapy to learn how to work through their differences, communicate better, problem-solve challenges in the relationship, work through parenting differences, improve their intimacy or their overall satisfaction with the relationship. Couples therapy involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses in the relationship, formulating goals and working diligently toward attaining those goals to establish and maintain healthy, loving and exciting romantic relationships.

I have a passion (pun intended) for working with couples. Dating couples trying to see if they are a good fit. Engaged couples looking for tools to start their marriage right. Married couples who feel like they are living as roommates. Couples who have lost that "loving feeling" and long to get it back. No matter what the category, all couples have one thing in common. A desire for connection, love, and communication. It is my to desire to help you achieve it.

We do have therapists that provide couples and marriage counseling throughout the week. Therapists have been trained in techniques that will assist you in making progress and improving your relationship. Throughout the course of a relationship we can have struggles and stressors that impact us and we can overcome them through therapy and arrive at a healthier state in the relationship.

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.

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