Great Couples Counselling in Burlington, ON. Therapy to heal relationships.

Day in and day out for the last twenty-five years I have worked with couples both as a seminar trainer and as a therapist. I love seeing couples transformed as they find their way back to love and to each other. All couples struggle! The wise ones seek help! While all successful couples do similar things . . . broken relationships can be broken in a myriad of ways. It is my job to come a long side the couple to resolve, heal and recover. I love working with couples to develop communication and conflict resolutions skills. When couples come to me honestly seeking help and committed to put effort into their recovery the outcomes are nothing short of wonderful!

You meet, fall in love, make a decision to be together – everything is pretty rosy! What happens from that time until the time you walk in my office? Miscommunication, hurt, misunderstanding, broken trust, and ambivalence. But you are in my office – so there’s hope! Whether your relationship needs ‘tweeking’ or a complete overhaul – I want to help you both onto a path toward a stronger, truly connected relationship.

We are not prepared to be married. Clouded with romantic ideals and unreasonable expectations, our relationships can quickly begin to feel lacking in fulfillment. I believe that most couples don't want divorce. What they do want is to feel connected again and safe again. I use Imago Therapy and Emotion Focused Therapy to help couples re-connect. Building a healthy marriage takes both time and commitment. The skills you will obtain will give you a clear path to reconnection and safety.

Couples Counselling Most relationships will become strained at some point and will begin producing maladaptive patterns. Relationship problems are rooted in our distorted egos, insecure attachment, emotional immaturity etc., which create to the many issues that develop for couples - infidelity, financial stress, poor communication, ill health, sexual divergence, household responsibility conflicts, addictions, etc., .... or just simply growing apart. Relationships can often be restored if help is sought soon enough. A counsellor can help reorient perceptions and emotions (how we look at a situation and how we feel about it) and assist the couple in adopting conscious structural changes.

One of the most detrimental problems that I have seen in Family Therapy is when parents become so overwhelmed by life, inundated by the responsibilities with their children (hockey, karate, tutoring, piano, etc), and consumed in running the household that they forget about the relationship that they have with their spouse. I hear things like “I don’t even know my husband anymore”, “there just isn’t any time left for us”, “we are growing apart”, or “we can’t agree on anything; not the kids, not the house, not the dog… help!” All is not lost and there are ways to learn to balance all of the aforementioned intricacies of a family dynamic. You don’t have to hold it all together by yourself.

My primary specialty area is in working with couples and relationships. It is my belief that the relationship I have with myself is the best predictor of every other relationship I will have. So doing couples' work is also, in some ways, doing individual work. Your relationship does not exist within you, or within your partner, but is a separate entity that exists in what I call 'the space between.' If you tend the relationship and feed it positive energy, it will stay healthy and positive. So whether your relationship is in a difficult state, or you just want to make it better, contact me and we can address your goals. I work with hetero, same-sex and alternative lifestyle couples.

All relationships struggle at times. These struggles often interfere with a couples ability to feel safe and connected within their relationship. Rebuilding safety and connection restores relationships. It is through this restoration process that long lasting change is achieved. It is my privilege to work with couples to help them understand what they want from their relationship, how to get it and most importantly how to keep it.

We all want to love, be loved, and connect with our significant others. Yet, it can feel daunting at times, due to repetitive relationship patterns (influenced by our childhood wounding), poor communication skills, cultural/gender differences, and inability to negotiate “me” with “we”. So be it past trauma, poor communication skills, inability to handle stress, different upbringing (thereby different ways of doing things), or sexual challenges, among other things, I help couples identify the areas/habits which challenge them, behaviors which destroy relationships, and anything else that stands in the way of them achieving an intimate connection.

Our most intimate relationships are where we are often challenged the most to grow. Much of my work with couples is helping each person feel entitled to their feelings and feel able to advocate for their needs within the relationship. So often we have expectations of how our partner or spouse is supposed to be, how we are supposed to be with them and there are unspoken expectations to navigate between us. These assumptions can easily lead to very destructive patterns that we act out with the person we want to feel the closest to. Our work is to strengthen ourselves from the inside out so that we can meet our partner "full of ourselves" and then find ways to be together that are a win win!

Using a client-centered approach for couples focuses on communication between individuals. Our sessions will involve an open conversation where each member can feel safe to share their emotions and feelings. We will discuss patterns of communication and behavior between the members and, using exercises, work on improving communication and emotional honesty. Using exercises, we will work together to identify negative behavior cycles and work towards building positive and reinforcing interactions.

Relationships are tricky and often emotionally charged. Communication plays an important role in couples relationships, but not to be discounted is the powerful role of emotions and feelings that may be unconsidered. I look forward to helping couples begin to understand themselves, the positive and negative cycles, and the process necessary to truly understand the core needs of themselves and their partner. I believe that couples often have the power to heal their relationships and even their partner when they begin to feel that their own needs are respected, and I look forward to working with you to achieve your relational goals.

Being part of a couple can be the most exhilarating feeling in the world. Paradoxically, It can also be the most lonely experience when things are not going well. Working from an emotionally-focused perspective, I help couples understand attachment needs and how these unmet needs can create difficulties in their relationship. It really isn't about the housework, children, or sex, it is about the connection a couple has (or doesn't have).