Great Couples Counseling in Ridgefield, NJ. Therapy to heal relationships.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples focuses on strengthening the emotional bond between partners. Through structured sessions, we explore underlying patterns and attachment needs driving relationship dynamics. Using interventions aimed at fostering empathy and understanding, we facilitate open communication and emotional expression. Couples learn to recognize and address negative interaction cycles, replacing them with healthier patterns of connection and responsiveness. EFT emphasizes creating a secure attachment bond, fostering feelings of safety and trust within the relationship. By deepening emotional intimacy and building a stronger connection, couples experience wellness.

Sometimes members of a couple get stuck in their old relational patterns, the ways they have always related to others. As years pass by, and romance or sexual experiences diminish or other life events happen, the old patterns become more evident leading to gaps in communication, dissatisfaction, and lack of excitement. As a therapist, I will help you to communicate more effectively with your partner, in ways that acknowledge your personal needs and the needs of the other. I will help you find balance between conflicting needs: the needs of the individual and the needs of a couple. I work with straight couples and GLBT couples.

The first step is to do a free couple’s assessment. In this session we’ll get clear on what has been difficult for both of you and how have you have been feeling. We will look at what the most important things that you have not been getting from your relationship. Then we will determine what makes a relationship for you and what would potentially break up a relationship. In closing we will go over what does work about the relationship and I will teach you a method that will help a woman learn to speak to men and for men to know how to speak to a woman.

In my approach to couples counseling, I integrate the Gottman Method, a research-based approach designed to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and deepen emotional connection. Using this method, I help couples identify destructive patterns and replace them with healthy, constructive interactions. By focusing on building trust, fostering intimacy, and enhancing problem-solving skills, I guide couples toward a stronger, more resilient partnership. Couples benefit from a deeper understanding of each other, improved conflict resolution, and a renewed sense of connection and commitment.

I work with many couples in my practice. I illustrate the negative cycles they get into, which is very important in calming volatile interactions, and understanding how each person triggers the other, which keeps their negative cycles in motion. We explore family histories and the messages, and coping skills they learned. I help couples to understand the emotions under their anger and frustration, and to begin to speak to their partner from this softer place. It is a process which can shift negative patterns, and create closeness. Whether there has been an affair, communication issues, a breach of trust, sexual intimacy issues, or something else, there can be a path back to each other.

Couples sometimes find that their relationships – once the source of so much intimacy and joy – have become disappointing, even destructive. We all reach impasses in our relationships, and these can be opportunities to overcome obstacles and grow together or to recognize irreconcilable differences and end the relationship in a healthy way. Together in therapy we can work to help you shift from criticizing and blaming to discovering individual feelings that underlie the surface conflicts. It can have a liberating and transformative effect on both you relationship and yourselves.

Therapy for Couples include working on improving communication, making changes in dynamics both individually and as a couple, increasing self awareness, improving behaviors, learning to work as a team and having acceptance for individuality. Formulating goals and having a safe space to be honest will take place. Working on being open-minded will be explored. Learning healthy boundaries will be incorporated into the sessions.

Couples often come to us feeling disconnected, rejected, unseen, and isolated. Whether it’s your first experience with couples therapy or you’ve struggled to find the right fit, Core Relationships understands the importance of honoring both partners’ needs for a relationship to thrive. Using the evidence-based Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) model, we help couples navigate even the deepest conflicts or feelings of disconnection. Our approach gets to the core of each partner’s issues that resurface during attempts to work together. We create a safe space where both partners can pursue their needs, desires, and goals without sacrificing the joy and meaning in the relationship.

Dr. Joel Stukalin and Dr. Sara Mandelbaum are particularly sensitive to the needs of unmarried couples, such as conflicts regarding trust, fidelity, emotional-bonding, finances, future-planning, resistance to committment. We have specialized in couples work for 40 years and have been highly praised by clients as attuned psychologists who truly understand the problems and frustrations of couples living together. As child psychologists, we additionally help couples negotiate important issues with child-care concerns. Dr. Joel and Dr. Sara offer realistic models to improve empathic-communication and problem-resolution with minimum disruption. Meaningful change can start within 4 sessions.

Relationship can bring great joy as well and great challenges. Many problems stem from difficulty communicating with your partner. I can assist you in finding the way to express yourself, as well as the capacity to listen; to find the appropriate boundaries that enable you to feel free while staying connected. Working through conflicts in relationships often not only preserves the relationship, but also empowers each individual to be more confident and open in their own life.

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.

I use my vast experience to help couples in their early 20s to late 70s, of all genders and sexual orientations to understand each other and communicate effectively. Whether the conflicts are emotional, sexual, or financial, I am there for you to help you navigate the waters, leading to a satisfying relationship. Couples counseling and premarital counseling can empower you to bring more joy into your life and can help prevent the heartache and the tremendous cost of divorce.

You know relationships are meant to offer love and care...Yet your connections are rimmed with insecurity, worry, doubt and a feeling of instability. You're not sure if there's something about way you interact in relationships or if it's related to the people you're around. Research proves that the biggest predictor of a happy, long life is the quality of relationships you're in. You're ready to clear the fog, and build solid connections.