Great Couples Counseling in Sea Cliff, NY. Therapy to heal relationships.

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.

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.

Marriage or couple relationships are a tug of war for power and control. When the leverage of the couple becomes one sided: disappointment, fears, worries and anger become predominant emotions. At this point, you may think about leaving because you can't understand your conflicted feelings. Remember, " You can't run away from yourself". It is essential to know your contribution to the dysfunction in the relationship. When you can face your feelings and behaviors patterns and take responsibility for your actions leaving the "blame" behind, the couple begins the repair process enabling respectful listening and communicating leading to healing feelings and setting the stage for intimacy.

It's important that you know that I don't take sides or engage in blaming either partner. I understand that you are in my office because you want help. I get to know the couple as individuals and as a couple. So in addition to meeting together, I would meet individually with both partners. We would come up with a treatment plan, including frequency of meeting and schedule, treatment goals, and what each person wants from the therapy. We might focus on identifying feelings, changing toxic communication patterns, and opening up communication.

I help you learn genuine communication expressing your needs while respecting and caring for your partner. These fulfilling communications lead to a better relationship and a better life. Drawing close in intimacy in a couple can be challenging. Being close to another person can result in buttons getting pushed in areas of the self that were never resolved. Despite the challenge, we deeply want to feel intimacy in life. Intimacy in relationship, while often challenging, is one of the greatest opportunities for growth. Caring, compassionate communication between partners opens each person to deeper feeling, connection, and expression. These capacities are crucial for a fulfilled life.

Communication and respect are often considered the cornerstones of a fruitful relationship. However, often times couples loose sight of the things that initially brought them together. Spending hours talking to and listening to their significant other, date nights, movie nights and outings with friends and family. These treasures often get pushed aside when the reality of life gets set in motion. I work with couples in clearly defining the goals and objectives of their relationships, addressing challenging misconceptions, infidelity, family and work related issues. Couples who work hard and develop clear goals often reap the benefits of better communication, intimacy and love.

Whether your relationship is suffering the devastation of betrayal or the emptiness of disconnection, I provide a safe, non-judgmental space for your relationship to land and connect. Specializing in relational and sexual betrayal trauma, my approach is tailored to help couples restore safety and deepen intimacy, whether or not betrayal is part of your story. Working with couples, I listen to the content of what comes in while looking for patterns of unmet needs beneath it. You'll learn tools for respectful communication, leaving you and your partner better able to feel heard, stay connected, and let hurts go. Together, we'll help you build intimacy, authenticity, and relational resiliency.

It can take us a lifetime to learn to accept the person we have chosen to live with, but it could also take us the same time to try to change that person and not be successful. Couples Therapy can help us understand that even though we all have the potential to change, we cannot change the other. We can learn how to accept the other person, live together or decide not to, and explore what are our own contributions to the dilemmas that we present.

It wasn't always this way. There was a time you looked forward to being with each other. You both trusted and enjoyed each other's company. You felt understood and accepted for being yourself. In couple's counseling, Hal offers you the opportunity to find the hidden strengths in the heart and soul of your relationship. Hal has helped hundreds of couples to improve communication and increase trust. Hal is very well respected and experienced in couple's counseling. In addition, he is a published author and was invited to appear on David Letterman's Late Night television program. Hal's schedule is flexible and appointments are available on evenings and weekends. Call Hal at (516) 439-4282

Do you or your partner suffer from social anxiety and it's affecting your relationship? Social anxiety is a fear of negative judgment from others and it can lead to reduced levels of intimacy, suppressed emotions, feelings of isolation and loneliness and lack of communication. If one or both of you feels anxious socially, your relationship may be suffering too. Contact me for ways in which you can move past social anxiety to a fuller, intimate, richer, relaxed more authentic relationship.