Great Couples Counseling in Kensington, MD. Therapy to heal relationships.

I offer couples therapy for partners who are looking make positive changes in their relationships, whether they are dating, engaged, married, or committed. I blend strategies and interventions from several couple therapy models to fit our conversations to your unique goals. By learning new skills, healing emotional injuries, experiencing each other's vulnerabilities in a safe way, and gaining insights about how each other's past influences their current behaviors, we work together to build a compassionate and joyful relationship.

Your relationship with your partner is the most important relationship in your life. Relationship issues touch every area of our lives. Learning healthy relationship skills is a fundamental building block of a successful life. Through therapy, you will learn how to achieve intimacy, manage conflict, how to give and receive love, and to create the relationship you have always wanted.

Like all psychotherapy, couples therapy is a process, but one in which I work to help both members of a partnership to feel heard while also working for measurable change that couples can notice and know when they are making progress. I use attachment models to inform my work with couples–helping couples to develop a safer, more fulfilling and secure partnership. I focus on both present circumstances while also working to understand how problems develop and providing ways to prevent their reoccurrence. Some of the issues that couples often seek treatment for include the following: Communication Managing Difficult Life Transitions Separation/Divorce Loss/Grief Parenting Saving your Marriage Pre-Marital Counseling Managing Conflict

Every relationship has its challenges. Sometimes it takes an outside person to help you and your partner work through these challenges in an empathic and objective way. I use techniques that have been proven to work. Together, we will create a trusting and safe environment where you and your partner can talk openly about the issues that divide you. I don’t take sides or place blame. Instead, I work to understand each of you as individuals and as a couple. Our work will focus on building better communication skills, having more positive experiences as a couple, and coping more effectively with challenges. Together, you and your partner can build a stronger relationship.

Working with couples is a dynamic process that requires the therapist to maintain a safe space where both people can feel heard and understood. I am a certified Imago therapist and use a dialogical process to increase the emotional intimacy between the two people. I have worked with straight, bi, gay and lesbian and transgendered couples, and many different ethnic groups---and find that the challenges are essentially the same---to create a bond of trust that allows for all parts of the two people to show up and be accepted in the relationship. I share helpful handouts that people can use when they are home, to be able to deal with conflict more skillfully.

Robyn E. Brickel, M.A., LMFT is a trained marriage and family therapist and a clinical fellow member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. Robyn incorporates systems based theories, along with her training in IMAGO Relationship Therapy and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) to help couples - both married and in relationships reach their goals of improving their relationships. We offer couples counseling to couples of any sexual preference.