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

I have worked with hundred's of couples over the last 20 years. Each couple is unique in their own right which means there is no one way to "fix" a problem. Our deepest longings and hopes emerge in a couples relationship. Oftentimes we are working out unmet needs and hopes carried forward from our early family relationships to our present couple relationship. Problems become increasingly complex and difficult to overcome when we don't know what these issues are all about. Couples remain stuck in conflict not because of what they know, but what they don't know or can't recognize. The work in therapy is to help couples recognize unhealthy patterns of relating and introduce novelty.

Do you feel like your relationship is in a rut? Are you struggling to intimately connect with your partner? Over the course of my 30 years as a psychotherapist, I have helped many couples build deeper emotional connections and stronger communication through Imago Relationship Therapy and Safe Conversations. Through couples counseling, you can heal and strengthen your bond learning to communicate more effectively and honestly with your partner. You can learn to fully express your needs and get what you truly desire out of your relationship.

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.

My style with relationships is empathetic, compassionate, and direct. Over the years, individuals fall into patterns and become accustomed to relating ways that may or may not be working. My job is to identify goals, illuminate those patterns, and discuss new ways of relating. Communication, Intimacy, Trust, Respect, and Life Transitions impact relationships. As we grow, who we are changes. Does your partner know who you are, what you truly want, and the spark that makes you... you? My goal is to rekindle pieces of the relationship that may be lost and move the relationship forward in the direction you choose. I work with couples ranging from high conflict to couples looking for a refresh.

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.

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.

I believe contemporary clinicians & authors like Esther Perel and John Gottman have made significant, sensible, and accessible contributions to Couples Counseling. I find value in their philosophies and methods and weave them into my work with couples when appropriate. At a very basic level, I think couples frequently suffer from a perception problem. They think they know how their partner is thinking and feeling but in reality that is just a projection of their own imagination. Helping couples recognize this is an important aspect of our early work together. A deeper level of work includes helping couples identify and work through the unconscious motivations that drive their behavior.